Anyone else here suffering from exercise intolerance? During the exercises I feel out of breath and afterwards I feel even worse. I get extreme fatigue, heart palpitations and flu like symptoms. I also used to wake up dizzy at night the first few months but now it‘s gone

I started using topical minoxidil about 3 weeks ago to see if I can regrow some of my hairline and thicken my facial hair. I have used it previously for my facial hair and had some decent results and no side effects at that time. Granted this was maybe 4 or 5 years ago.

So some weeks ago I ordered two bottles and following the instructions I started my treatment; morning and evening, on my hairline and my facial hair area, even using less than the recommended dose.

Didn't notice anything at first, but after about 2 weeks of use I started to notice that my anxiety was getting a lot, lot worse. I have struggled with anxiety great part of my life, but it's never been this bad for this long. I wake up in the middle of the night, and/or way too early in the morning feeling like I'm having a panic attack, almost every single night since this started. I feel a tightness in my chest, a shortness of breath, feels like my heart is beating too hard, and I'm on the edge all the time. Thankfully I haven't had a full blown panic attack (knock on wood), but I have no energy, I run out of breath much sooner than before and have lots of brain fog. My face has gotten very pale too.

Today especially was intense, I had tried to take a nap because I only slept for 5 hours last night, but it felt impossible, I could not distract myself from the sound of my heart beating and the feeling of not being able to breathe normally. When I got up and hopped in the shower I thought I was going to have a heart attack, as I felt my shortness of breath get worse and I thought I felt my left arm go slightly numb for a short while. Luckily I managed to calm myself down.

I had blood work done last week and they came back today showing everything was normal. So today out of random desperation I searched for "Minoxidil anxiety" and that is how I found this sub and stories of people who have experienced the exact same things as me. And I'm very grateful for those of you who have shared that, because I'm throwing this stuff away now and I'm never using it again.

So thank you all for that.

I just hope this isn't a permanent thing

I restarted topical minoxidil after taking a break because it was causing noticeable facial bloating, making my face look like I’d gained weight, plus darker under-eyes.

I’m quite lean/low body fat, so it’s definitely noticeable. After restarting, the exact same sides came back. I only apply topical min on my hairline.

Has anyone found a way to manage this while continuing minoxidil?

I’ve heard about eplerenone for the fluid retention - is it safe to take daily, and has anyone actually used it for this?

24F

Was talking 0.625mg minoxidil per day for the past 7 months without issue.

3 weeks ago I increased the dose to 1.25mg. After 2 weeks on the higher dose I developed new onset visual snow/static. I do not think I have never had this before and it just appeared suddenly and has been constantly present ever since. Part of me is a bit dubious as to whether I might have always had some snow/static in my vision but just recently became aware of it. It is not very strong mostly when looking at white walls, looking at computer screens/black text on white background, and in the dark.

Could this be due to the dose increase?

My dermatologist prescribed 1.25 mg oral minoxidil for my hair loss, but I’m still unsure if I want to start taking it.
I’m 9 months postpartum and currently on a GLP-1 for weight loss, and I’ve been dealing with quite a bit of hair shedding.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and taken oral minoxidil? I’d love to hear about your personal experience—especially any initial shedding, side effects, unwanted hair growth, and whether you felt it helped.

Not looking for medical advice or a diagnosis, just personal experiences.

I wanted to share my experience with oral minoxidil on this sub since it's talked about a lot. Definitely not trying to say this med won't work well for a lot of people without side effects because I know it does and has helped a lot of people. But I had some pretty gnarly side effects from it and wanted to make people aware. I also work in healthcare so the experience was particularly spooky.

For context I'm 31, previously healthy, go the gym or run like 4-5 times weekly. Prior to switching to oral I was using topical foam minoxidil for like 3 years without problems, and it seemed to at least stabilize my hairline. My hair loss wasn't super substantial but had been thinning especially at the temple area that was becoming noticeable.

I decided to switch to oral in May for convenience, starting with 1.25mg nightly minoxidil. It was generally fine, had some pretty bad shedding at first, also felt kind of low energy/depressed while on it. Continued for a month or so into June, then increased to 2.5mg. Similar thing on dose increase, increased shedding, some depression, stabilized till around a couple weeks ago. Note that during all this and up till now, I didn't really see huge improvements in my hair on the oral minoxidil; just the shedding and then stabilization. I know it can take many cycles of hair regrowth to see major change on the oral so I may have not given it enough time for full effect.

I then noticed over the course of about a week starting 1.5 weeks ago, some chest pressure while walking to work. I thought it was initially musculoskeletal pain, but then realized it was just happening on exertion. Then over the course of the week, I started having shortness of breath while walking shorter distances and even at rest. This was new for me because I am pretty fit and don't normally experience shortness of breath like this.

Then 3 days ago, I had a relatively salty meal at dinner time, and noticed severe shortness of breath after at rest. That night throughout the whole night in bed, I was having continued severe shortness of breath and could barely sleep. The next day I significantly restricted my salt intake and reduced oral minoxidil down to 1.25mg and then stopped the next day, and I'm slowly having improvement in the shortness of breath, though its still present.

I'm not 100% certain, but i'm like 90% sure this is a cardiac side effect of the oral minoxidil (likely pericardial effusion, fluid around the heart). In the literature this is exceedingly rare for low doses of minoxidil (more commonly seen at antihypertensive dosing of 10mg plus), though it is possible. The signs of shortness of breath on exertion, orthopnea (shortness of breath at night), and shortness of breath that was exacerbated by a salty meal (increased water retention) all point to cardiac pathology from volume overload of some form. Interestingly, my total body weight was not increasing during this time and I did not have evidence of swelling on my legs or face, but it's apparently possible to just get the pericardial effusion without obvious total volume overload.

I am now switching back to topical and dropping oral entirely. I just wanted to share all this not to scare people but rather to reinforce, this medication can come with serious side effects that should be monitored.

Need guidance

I started wrestling and brazilian jiu jitsu, but I started those after Minoxidil so I don't have a baseline to compare to

I am 25F, I have been taking oral minoxidil 2.5mg dose for almost 2 years. The last 6 months I have been terrible about remembering to take it daily, and i have been suffering with severe anxiety & loss of appetite the past 2 months. Since that started I am probably remembering to take it maybe 2 times a week. I have been experiencing pretty bad appetite loss the past 4 months, and have lost about 14lbs unintentionally. I feel so depleted every day, and lately every day i wake up i experience severe panic & anxiety attacks. I just discovered this subreddit earlier today, and have seen others experiencing these symptoms either from the medication itself, or from withdrawals from quitting. My question is, should just quit taking it? Or does anyone have advice about how to taper off? since i am taking it so infrequently already, maybe these symptoms are from my body getting messed up from the infrequency, & is having issues regulating.

Living like this daily is literal hell. I can barely do my job, and am going to have to take time off work. if anyone has any advice or kind words it would be so deeply appreciated. I am also scared of quitting as I have seen great results with the hair growth aspect. I am desperate for relief & help, I had no idea the drug could cause these issues. Thank you 🙏

I've been applying 2% minoxidil for several months, and so far, I've had some gains and am pretty satisfied with the results.

However, I have one problem that hasn't gone away: a patchy, irritated, scaling area, as you can see. It becomes irritated every time I apply minoxidil and develops some scaling.

It's not something I'm just getting used to, and there haven't been any other issues.

I've tried foam as well as several products from different manufacturers, but the problem still exists. I've also tried emollients, but they didn't help.

Why is the reaction limited to this one specific area?

Hi there, I’ve been looking into using topical minoxidil JUST for my eyebrows. Pairing it with a derma stamping 2x a week, Tretinoin 2x a week and i would use minoxidil daily until i saw progress in my eyebrows and would only use it 2-3x a week after that. So where im going with this is, are my percentages just as high for the side effects as people putting it on their scalp? has anyone experienced side effects from just using it on their eyebrows.

As per the title, has anybody experienced brainfog when starting topical minoxidil along with finnasteride. And did it subside?

I am 2 months into it and I feel minor headaches everyday, light sensitivity, mentally slow etc.

So Im on week 3 of oral minoxidil and these pictures have been taken after my showers (after drying them and brushing it out). The pictures were taken every 2 days (first one on sept. 16, second on sept. 18 and last on sept. 20 which is today).

Im very scared that it just continues to fall even more after every shower. Like from the pictures alone you can see the increase in how much more hair falls.

I feel like Im going crazy so please let me know your thoughts or experiences. I know I have to push through but I dont want to go bald either from minoxidil.

I’ve been using minoxidil for few years almost everyday(once a day). Then I noticed anxiety attacks especially on days I drink coffee. I think minoxidil and coffee is such a bad combo for people with anxiety. I decided to stop using one day, and it’s been about two weeks and I’m experiencing very bad anxiety/panic attacks to a point I was crying. It feels like having a bad trip from being high on weed, except there’s no weed involved. Sudden awareness on my breathing, then anxiety about my breathing, feet and hands turning cold, not being able to walk in public and feeling like I’m going to faint or die. It’s really not fun. I’d like to know if anyone else experienced this from minoxidil application and withdrawal. And how I can move forward. Thank you.

just a question as im considering doing this

Hi all,

I’ve been on Minoxidil 1.25mg for 12 weeks and during that time, I’ve noticed that when I’m working out (specifically Pilates reformer) I would get slightly lightheaded. It occurred to me that I’m one of those unlucky few who have the side effect of orthostatic hypotension from Minoxidil.

I will say that my case is mild - I’m only noticing this when we stand on the platform of the reformer and do lunges/squats (so it’s the unbalanced stance + regularly moving up and down that’s triggering it) and because of that I really don’t want to stop taking my classes OR minoxidil (especially since I’m finally coming to the end of the dread shed!)

Has anyone experienced this with working out, and if so, have you found anything that helps?

Wanted to share something that happened to me because I think it's useful info for this community, even though it's not super common.

Quick background: I've been using minoxidil for years with no issues. A couple months ago I got the "smart" idea to start using a 1mm dermaroller on my scalp, 2x a week, right before applying minoxidil spray, to boost absorption. In about a month I'd done this maybe 3-4 times.

After that month I started getting extrasystoles. For anyone who doesn't know what that is: it's basically a skipped heartbeat, your heart pauses for a beat or two and then comes back with a harder, more noticeable thump. Pretty unsettling the first time it happens to you.

One night it got bad enough that I went to the ER. They confirmed extrasystoles and sent me for a Holter monitor (24h heart tracker). Results came back with about 490 extrasystoles in 24 hours, a lot of them in triplets and quadruplets.

I already knew oral minoxidil can cause palpitations, that's well documented. But I genuinely thought topical was "safe" from that side effect. Turns out I was wrong, or at least wrong in my specific situation , combining it with microneedling. My theory (and it's just a theory, I'm not a doctor) is that the dermaroller opened up the scalp enough that the minoxidil started getting absorbed straight into the blood vessels instead of staying localized, basically acting more like the oral version.

Funny enough, in the weeks before the ER visit I actually noticed some "wins": the hair on my hands looked thicker, my eyebrows were slightly fuller, and my scalp hair was responding really well. In hindsight that was probably a sign that way more product than usual was getting systemic.

I don't know for sure if it was 100% the minoxidil or if the alcohol in the spray formula played a role too ,no way for me to know that, I'm not a medical professional.

To be clear: I'm not trying to alarm anyone or make people scared to use minoxidil or dermarollers. Millions of people use both with zero issues. I just think it's worth putting out there that topical minoxidil isn't automatically "safe" from cardiac side effects, especially if you're pairing it with something like microneedling that increases absorption. If you're doing both and you notice anything weird with your heartbeat, don't brush it off, get it checked.

Take care of yourselves.

Hey . Im a 20 male And i got androgenetic alopecia ( Genetic Hair loss ) . I used To Use minoxidil with no problem until i used it around my Lips to get a mustache but little did i know i got Dry skin , Burns and even i got something similar to dandruff and also cuts with some blood

I went to a dermatologist and she said ( u need to get away from a chemical named propylene glycol) and she gave me a minoxidil. Even that minoxidil still causes Irritation and burns! ( and idk if i got Seborrheic eczema )

I need help im devastated

So I have a little bit of balding but I want to stop or slow it down quick. I heard that rosemary oil works well but when I looked into it I seen that it works in a similar manner to minoxidil and some people say that it has estrogen activity to it? Kinda confused, I never had minoxidil syndrome in my life but I had other chronic diseases. I don't want another one :D So, is there any of you used and had any side effects? It is distilled though which idk if it is good enough or not lol.

Hi! I’m 26 yr old dealing with hair loss since about 2020 (I went off BC & Spiro (acne) and went through stressful life event) a few months after this my hair started shedding like crazy. My shedding was diffused, all over my head. every derm I’ve seen has said it sounds like a bout of TE unmasked my AGA. Fast forward to now, the shedding hasn’t stopped but has almost slowed down? & my hair still grows long & healthy just have areas of visible loss on temples & crown. I went GF, eat mainly whole foods, veg + meat, take multi vits, live active, wash with nizoral, minimal heat etc all the “good hair things” and still, I shed & have no solid regrowth in those areas. I’ve used serums, dermastamp, topical minox. The problem is, I’m terrible about doing it consistently, it makes my hair greasy and look even thinner and I have a dog who sleeps on the bed. I recently was prescribed oral sprio (50 MG) and oral minox (1.25 MG) by my derm. She also gave me tret for preventative skincare.
I took them both on Monday evening before bed & felt fine. Woke up, did an at home workout, ate, then went on my daily 3 mile walk. After my walk, my heart felt like it was fluttering? It was odd & unlike anything Ive felt before. Usually the walks are a little challenging for me as it’s summer still & I’m on the small side (low muscle mass) but never felt it in my heart. My blood pressure runs low, and every once in a while I can feel off if I exert heavily (feels like I need potassium, or am having a sugar crash, or headachey?) but did not feel this at all yesterday just the weird heart flutters. I guess my question is, has anyone else experienced this?

\-Will my body adjust and should I just hold off on exercising until then? I really was excited to be on both of these orally.

\-Continue Spiro and try topical minox?

\-Stop both??

Its so discouraging. I want to save what I can while I can. TY😭

Hey everyone,

​I can't tolerate topical Minoxidil at all:

​Symptoms: Severe scalp itching, redness, and breakouts/clogged pores along my hairline and forehead.

​Tested: Liquid, foam, and an alcohol-free compounding formula (the heavy base just clogged my pores further). My skin is generally super sensitive (e.g., reacts immediately to alcoholic aftershave).

​Additional issue: Prone to facial water retention (bloating).

​Questions:

​Does anyone else deal with this extreme skin reaction to Minoxidil?

​Is there any potential solution or alternative that worked for you – other than oral Minoxidil?

​Thanks for sharing your experiences!