32
Minoxidil, drug that treats thinning hair, may be in short supply (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A popular drug used to regrow hair and thicken thinning locks in both men and women may be difficult to find in some pharmacies, according to new research.

The pill, called minoxidil, must be taken every day for patients to maintain the progress they've made in restoring hair growth. An interruption could be devastating.

"You can go backwards and start losing your hair again," said Dr. Adam Friedman, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University.

Minoxidil is often used for androgenetic alopecia, also known as male or female pattern hair loss. It's a condition that affects nearly half of men and about a quarter of women by age 50, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology.

In recent months, Friedman noticed that his patients were having difficulty obtaining 30-day supplies of the drug from their Washington, D.C.-area pharmacies.

Earlier this month, he and colleagues called 277 pharmacies in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia to ask about their minoxidil supplies. They found considerable shortages.

Just 40% of those pharmacies had the ability to immediately fill 30-day prescriptions for minoxidil in doses used to treat hair loss (2.5 milligrams). The research has been published in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.

Friedman could not identify a reason for the shortage, but said that the drug had been gaining attention through both mainstream and social media — which could have triggered a rise in prescriptions.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] dball37@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

https://www.hairdr.com/hairlines/should-you-use-oral-minoxidil-instead-of-topical-minoxidil/

[-] RecursiveParadox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Very helpful, saved me time while at work, thanks!

this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
32 points (84.8% liked)

News

23305 readers
3703 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world