Does Minoxidil Work?

Minoxidil is a medication used to treat high blood pressure – however, it can also be used to treat hair loss. Minoxidil is a vasodilator – it causes blood vessels to expand. In high blood pressure, this allows the blood vessels to relax, and allows for more blood flow.

In hair loss, minoxidil still works as a vasodilator. However, the blood flow is increased to the hair follicles. This allows them more nutrients to create hair, meaning that the hair that grows is thicker and fuller.

In male pattern hair loss, a hormone called DHT is the primary culprit. This hormone has a lot of uses in the body, but also causes hair follicles to shrink and lose their blood supply, leading to hair loss. Minoxidil can reverse this process, which can lead to the appearance of new hair growth; follicles which were not yet dead, but still capable of producing hair can be rejuvenated, allowing you to regrow hair that seemed lost.

This means minoxidil is an excellent treatment for multiple types of hair loss, such as androgenetic alopecia (male pattern baldness) or a receding hairline.

Is Minoxidil Effective?

There are two main forms of minoxidil on the market to treat hair loss: oral minoxidil tablets and topical minoxidil foam or solution. 

Oral minoxidil is mostly used for high blood pressure, but some doctors (including Simple Online Pharmacy’s pharmacists) will prescribe it off-label for hair loss. Off-label prescribing is perfectly safe and legal; it simply allows doctors to choose different medications for their effects, while still using the same set of safety guidelines as they would normally follow.

Oral minoxidil is effective at halting hair loss; clinical trials have shown significant improvements to hair growth and coverage, and reports from patients suggest it is very effective. 

Rather than being taken by mouth, topical minoxidil is applied directly to the scalp. The most common form of topical minoxidil is Regaine, available as either Regaine Foam or Regaine Solution – both have minoxidil as the active ingredient. Applied twice a day in the shower, topical minoxidil is much more targeted than oral, but appears to be roughly as effective.

Unlike other hair loss treatments, minoxidil does not affect your testosterone levels, nor rely on testosterone production to function. This means it can be used by both men and women to tackle hair loss. For female pattern hair loss, minoxidil solution is recommended over oral minoxidil in order to target the area of hair loss. When applying minoxidil, avoid anywhere that isn’t your scalp, as it can cause increased hair growth in other areas. Foams can be useful for covering large areas, but they do increase the chances of unintentional areas of hair growth. 

How Long Does Minoxidil Take to Work?

Due to the nature of the hair growth cycle, you may not see direct effects too quickly – but that doesn’t mean that the treatment isn’t working.

Hair growth is a slow process, normally taking many months to see noticeable changes. Over those months, your hair follicles pass through different phases. During the growth phase, the follicle is actively producing new hair, stranding together amino acids and keratin to make hairs longer.

Once the hair has reached its maximum length, the follicle will enter a resting phase where no new growth takes place. After this, the shedding phase begins, where the follicle releases the hair strand, ready to create another. 

This process ensures we have a constant cover of hair throughout our lives, and as different follicles are at different phases at the same time, it should keep you covered. During hair loss, however, some of these follicles are shut down, meaning you may start to notice the lack of replacements.

Not everyone’s hair goes through this process at the same speed. The cycle can vary in length depending on a number of factors (such as nutrition and your overall health), but on average, it can take a single hair around three years to go through the entire cycle.

When you first start taking minoxidil, you may notice an increase in hair shedding in the first few weeks – this is perfectly normal! The hair follicles are being given more nutrients, meaning they will abandon some hairs to make new, better ones instead.

However, this process being so slow means it may take months before the results will be noticeable. In general, we suggest it may take roughly 6 to 12 months of treatment before the results will be visible. 

Conclusion

Minoxidil is a proven treatment for hair loss, with clinical trials and patient reviews stating that it can help hair to look thicker and promote some new growth. Due to the mechanics of hair growth, it can take some time to show results, but in most cases it will work well to treat male and female pattern hair loss.