I know that it takes 3 to 12 months to see any effect (if there will be any) in hair texture, color, rate of growth, etc., but how long does it generally take Spironolactone to stop new hairs from coming in? I have only been on it for about 2 weeks, so I know I shouldn’t expect results yet, but I’m really anxious about it because my hirsutism is still progressing really rapidly. 
I did ask my doctor how long it would take and she didn’t seem to know. Does anyone have any personal experience with how long it will take to stop the progression of new hair? I am on 200mg/day (divided dose.)
That depends on your problem. If your hairiness is progressing that quickly, I think there might be an underlying cause that needs to be checked out (if you haven’t done that–checked for PCOS etc.). The cause will need to be treated as well as the symptom, that is, the hair.
In 2 weeks on 250mg per day, I noticed a great deal of improvement on my skin and hair as far as oiliness, and I also didn’t have to wear deodorant any longer if I didn’t want to (a benefit I didn’t expect). I also stopped having any menstrual cramps at all, when they used to be very severe. The hair itself–check out my threads on Spiro. On one of them, I give a mini-diary of my experience and everything I noticed. If you want the fastest results, don’t get the generic Spiro. If you can afford it, at least for awhile, get the name brand Aldactone. Women I know swear that the name brand is faster, and the hormone doctor at hormonehelp.ny also says the same thing.
Take your Spiro with food. That increases the absorption of it a great deal. Don’t eat a diet high in potassium. I imagine your doctor told you that.
Thanks for the info. I have already been checked for PCOS… that’s why I’m on Spiro. I am a little confused about that. What other treatment is there? Isn’t Spiro supposed to address the hair as a symptom of PCOS? I am also on Yasmin if that helps… (I switched to Yasmin from Ortho Tri-Cyclen around the same time as getting on the Spiro. I heard that Yasmin was better for PCOS, and I was also paranoid that the Ortho might have had something to do with the increased rapidity of hair growth, since the time frames coincided.)
I do always take it with food, since it said so on my prescription bottle. It is the generic though, not the brand name. I have 2 months worth of the generic and I am not sure the pharmacy will give me the brand name without my doctor specifically ordering it, but I see my doc again in a few weeks so I will ask her about that.
The deodorant side effect would be great too because I have started to smell pretty bad ever since this hair thing has gotten worse! I keep it under control by showering constantly but I am sure it’s also a sign of high testosterone.
Anyway, do you think something is wrong if I haven’t seen any improvement in 2 weeks? I don’t really have much in the way of acne or oily hair so I can’t judge by those symptoms. I haven’t had my period yet on Spiro either. I will check out your Spiro threads though, thanks.
EDIT: I can’t seem to find your Spiro diary thread using search or by looking at your previous posts. Do you think you could link me to it? Thanks.
Sure. My comments start at the bottom of the page (page 4) and continue through page 5, and then are interspersed throughout the rest of the thread.
It will take longer for the Spiro to work for you than it did for me, since your problem is more pronounced, but hang in there.
For PCOS, Metformin is often prescribed also, because PCOS involves screwed-up insulin which causes the aldosterone (testosterone) trouble. With Metformin (or Glucophage) those things are brought under control, and not only does it help you lose weight (if you’re heavy), but it will begin to control the testosterone that’s causing your hair trouble. I’m not a doctor, but I do know that almost all PCOS women take Metformin and are told to be on a very low-carb diet (not no-carb, but very, very low-carb) until you’re back to normal, at which time more carbs can be introduced back into your diet. That diet makes a big difference. They usually eat a higher protein (not high fat) diet to keep from losing muscle.
Remember, I’m telling you what I learned from PCOS women. I do not have PCOS.
Spiro, although it will help somewhat with free testosterone in the blood, is mainly what controls the testosterone-sensitive skin and hair follicles. Eventually, the hair will grow out more slowly until it starts to act normal. Hair on the chin and upper lip can be very stubborn, and while the Spiro will keep new hair from growing, often the terminal hair in those areas will need to be treated with electrolysis.
As far as a period, at first my cycle was wonky but eventually got perfectly normal again, and THANK HEAVENS I don’t have any more pain with those horrific cramps that felt just like labor pain. I never thought I’d see the day. And I didn’t even know Spiro would do that.
Yasmin makes some women severely moody, and sometimes that doesn’t happen right away. If you start to get depressed [or extraordinarily bitchy], that is probably the cause. I’ve heard that a lot. But keep on it as long as it works for you and as long as you feel okay. I know it helps with PCOS.
If you find NO improvement in a couple of months, see if need a little higher Spiro prescription from your doctor. Or get the name brand. The stuff works slowly at first, and then it really really works. At 200mg of Spiro and also Yasmin, I seriously doubt you need a higher prescription–your doctor can advise you. I would definitely check into the Metformin. I’m kind of surprised you’re not on it.
Hang in there my friend!
My doctor did a lot of blood tests and didn’t say anything about insulin, so I am guessing that turned out in the normal range. From what I have read, Metformin doesn’t do much unless you have insulin resistance (which not all women with PCOS do. I think?)
I would really also rather not be on any more medications if I can help it. But do you think that Spiro won’t help control the hair without Metformin if I do have insulin problems?
Hey!
What has your experience been in terms of sex lust while eating Yasmine and/or Spiro? I know, I experienced a decrease in that field a couple of years ago, just by eating normal birth control pills, so I’m curious about Yasmine and Spiro and how they affect it…
-Hanna
hannahanna: I myself don’t do birth control so maybe hopelessandhairy will respond to that, but as for spiro, it was just like my menstrual cycle–“messed up”. After awhile both problems resolved themselves after my body got used to the stuff. But yeah, initially, I thought I might just be perfectly happy as a nun. 
Exercise will do a lot to improve sex drive, but everything sort of equalized over time. I won’t be heading to the convent any time soon. 
hopelessandhairy: I’m with you. I’d rather not be on any more meds than necessary. I just didn’t know anyone with PCOS who was not on Metformin–but your doctor will certainly know a lot more about you than I ever will! Spiro will most certainly help you. Give it time–as I said, it works slowly at first, and then it’s like, “Wow! Look at me!” Acquaintances of mine with hairy bodies noticed the excess body hair problem improved a lot faster than the excess facial hair, I’ll warn ya.
1 Like
Birth control pills have different affects on different people. One may have a decrase in sex drive, another no change, and another an increase. You really have to try it out for your self and see how this one affects you personally.
thanks for the info, again, coffeegirl. it is really great to hear opinions and experiences from people who have actually used the drug, instead of reading all the contradicting hearsay you find in articles on the internet. however i think i am still not looking at the right thing as far as your spiro diary because i could only find a couple posts in the thread you linked me (and it only goes up to page 5.)
i am trying to hold out hope because i have heard on here and on other forums (specifically soulcysters, which is a PCOS message board, but i can no longer access it for some reason) that spiro can make some of the excess hair GO AWAY in some women, although it does not happen for all. and i believe it can also make it grow back lighter and finer. right? in addition to making it grow slower (which would still be nice, even if none of the hair changed, at least it would be easier to keep up with if it grew slower.) so i am trying to think positive, and hope that enough of the hair is reduced that electrolysis becomes a more realistic option…
one question i had that my doctor did not answer adequately-- if i have some small hairs that seem to be in the process of turning terminal (i.e. they are still very short, fine, and light, but are beginning to gain dark pigment, and beginning to get a little longer) will the spiro stop their progression, or are they destined to become long, dark terminal hairs no matter what i do? i can’t tell if the progression of hirsutism is actually still new hairs growing, or it is just the tiny little hairs that were already starting to become terminal when i got on spiro, continuing their growth…
luckily i don’t have much of a problem with facial hair-- it’s the one thing i am thankful for!!! so my problem is almost entirely with body hair, which spiro works better for, correct?
i am also trying to eat a good, balanced diet, with no artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup. i drink a lot of water, and try to buy all natural, fresh and organic foods, although it is hard to actually eat them every day since i am out a lot and eat out a lot (however i try to get healthy meals in these cases and NEVER eat fast food. yuck!) i have already lost weight doing this, although i don’t know how much since i don’t have a scale (one less thing to obsess over if i can’t weigh myself!)
as far as side effects/sex drive/etc… i have found that my sex drive is pretty low… HOWEVER that started to happen BEFORE i was on yasmin or spiro! i think it is a mental thing because of my anxiety over the hair. before i started stressing so much about it, my sex drive was pretty normal. ironically i am now in a relationship and the sex is pretty good and all but i just don’t really desire it very often (i do it more often for his sake, it really doesn’t bother me in any way to do that.) so i don’t really know how the meds have affected that area. i do find that i feel kind of off/slightly nauseous sometimes, and get stomachaches more often, but i don’t know whether this is the yasmin or spiro. i am thinking it’s the yasmin since i started the spiro a few days earlier, and didn’t feel any side effects until i had started the yasmin. i am hoping these will go away as my body adjusts.
i have a question: if yasmin is causing the side effects, will they go away when i am on my week of inactive pills? or will the meds still be in my system? if they will go away, this would be a great way to see which med is causing the side effects. it’s nothing i can’t handle but it would be good to know.
Your body may get used to both, so the side effects would go away. It takes several months to see what will happen.
I haven’t heard of Spiro causing hair to shed and killing the follicle. Don’t really see the science behind that. Normally, anything you would take to balance your hormones can prevent NEW growth and make the current growth finer, but it doesn’t remove the hair that’s already there. You need to remove that with a hair removal method.
I don’t think it kills the follicle. The hair would grow back if medication was discontinued. But the woman who started Soulcysters claims that Spironolactone has that effect on some women, and posted a few medical studies that supposedly supported it (I can’t really understand a lot of that jargon though.) But she is VERY well researched. I have also read a lot of reports from women who claim that Spiro caused hair to stop growing in some places. Anyway, I certainly don’t EXPECT it to happen, but it sure would be nice if it did. I know I will need electrolysis or laser once I can afford it, but it would be great if I needed it on less areas, because right now I pretty much need it EVERYWHERE.
Well, just for an update… I think the problem seems to have stopped getting worse. Yes, it’s only 6 days since my last post, but it was actually progressing that fast! You could actually tell a difference from day to day. However, it’s pretty hard to tell, because at this point the only areas I don’t shave are my chest, arms, and shoulders/back, so those are the areas I am monitoring for hairs… and they are so COVERED with hairs that it is hard to tell if more have popped up. The hairs are fine and thin, and with bleaching especially on my chest they are nearly invisible, but they are there. I don’t mean to say I have long coarse hair all over. It’s also hard to tell if new dark hairs that pop up are actually NEW, or simply dormant hairs that had already turned terminal before I got on spiro.
But it seems like the progression has stopped, or at least slowed, so that’s a bit of worry off my chest at least. My upper arms especially were rapidly getting worse… even two or three months ago I had no hairs to speak of on my upper arms!! Now they are covered. But it seems that the tiny, lightly pigmented hairs on some parts of my upper arms have stopped turning into longer, darker hairs. Hopefully I am right about this and it isn’t just a misperception.
Now it’s just the waiting game to see if spiro will do anything to my existing hairs…
Sorry I didn’t check back sooner. I’m not on here as much as everyone else.
I think maybe “diary” was a dumb word for me to say. I wrote out in about 4 posts or so what I noticed along the way as I took Spiro… but I was looking back at it. I didn’t write dates and write what happened to me that day or anything. I sort of wrote in retrospect. Sorry for the confusion.
As for the nausea–I would guess Yasmin. BC pills make me sick sick sick. If all you have is nausea, I think your body will adjust. Try taking it with food. Spiro is much better absorbed with food anyway, so maybe Yasmin will be too, while knocking some of the nausea at the same time.
Sex drive–that might be your self-conscientiousness causing it. I know for a fact mine plummeted quickly on the Spiro–not that it made it distasteful; I just could easily live without it then. Well, guess I could now too, but that’s because I’m more of a “crock pot” than a “microwave”, if you get my meaning.
Women do in fact get a lot of disappearing body hair on Spiro. It slows first, then stops in most of them. I noticed that somewhat on my legs, but I haven’t had trouble with a hairy body. I can’t say about chests and backs and places myself, but other women say it works great for body hair. It makes sense, because Spiro was orginally supposed to be a mild blood pressure medicine, and people were noticing marked reduction in body hair and not so much lowering of blood pressure. That is why Spiro is used more for body hair than for blood pressure (in women… men shouldn’t take Spiro). Spiro is also given to people with congestive heart failure and kidney failure, so obviously it’s not bad for your heart or kidneys.
Blond hair can be just as stiff as dark hair. Not all terminal hairs are dark. From what I’m told, terminal hair on the body will disappear over time with Spiro, but terminal hair on the face needs help from electrolysis. For me, the terminal hairs on my face have slowed a bunch, but not stopped, so I still need to get more electrolysis work done. Nobody notices it at all, but I can feel it; it feels like needles to me, sometimes. But a lot of that is because I had plucked them for so many years. Will take me longer than it would have otherwise. Still, it’s a whole lot better now, let me tell you.
thanks for the reply again. unfortunately i may have been premature in saying that the spiro stopped the progression, because now i am seeing new hairs on my chest (further up than before-- they used to be only between my breasts/on my breasts but are now moving up further, which sucks because it will be visible over my shirt if they get very dark or long…) and also hairs moving towards the middle of my chest from my armpit area. they are short and fine, and only a little bit pigmented, but they still didn’t use to be there!
is it possible that spiro might just do NOTHING at all for my body? i know it is too soon to tell and i’m not going to stop taking it any time soon. but it seems like having been on it 4 weeks now, i should at least see SOME small effect. i kind of feel like i am taking a sugar pill or something! i am seeing my doctor again next week so i will ask her all these questions. but i would also like experiences & opinions from people here, too.
but, i am trying to keep positive, because it’s body hair i need to get rid of, and it’s body hair spiro is supposed to work best on. so here’s hoping…
I don’t have “the answers” to everything, but I do know from experience that some manufacturers have more effective spiro than others, and in my case, even differing pills within the same brand are different. When I was taking the 100mg pills, they were nowhere near as effective as the 25mg I was taking before and am taking now. And they were from the same manufacturer. So that may be part of it.
One thing is for sure: Spiro will never cause hair growth. It can’t!
Now my guess is, aside from the above being a possibility, is that you have a more serious case of PCOS than you realize, and may need to be on other meds, as well. That’s why I said I was surprised you weren’t on Metformin (glucophage). From the people I know, that did a lot for body fat and body hair both, because it controls insulin and androgens both (I haven’t researched exactly how). It’s not a matter of being consumed with your weight (you’d mentioned you weren’t too worried about the scales); it’s a matter of, is your weight (and body hair) caused by PCOS. If it is, then it isn’t going to get any better until the cause is treated–not just the symptoms. Am I making sense?
I’d talk to you doctor about this. Or get a second (or third) opinion. Spiro can only help, but for you, it may not be enough.
By the way, I noticed that things got worse for me before they got better, when I first started taking Spiro. Especially acne, which really wasn’t that bad but got worse for awhile before my skin got pretty close to perfect. But it was the same somewhat with the hair. It was as if Spiro was sort of cleaning house or something!
I really hope I don’t have to take Metformin… I know it seems petty but if I have to start taking a med that I can’t drink on, it will really kill my social life, which will send me into depression again. I had a really hard time meeting people when I moved here and finally I have friends now, but if I can never go out with them, I’ll have nothing to do…
So even though Spiro is supposed to block androgen receptors, it might still do nothing for my hair if I’m not on Metformin?
You mean you can’t be social without drinking? I have a great social life and I don’t drink at all. Nor do I smoke. It’s not healthy stuff. Will your friends not go out with you if you don’t drink?? Wow, how shallow. With friends like that, who needs enemies? But I won’t lecture you.
Spiro blocks the receptors, but if you have a whole lot of the androgens in your blood, it needs to be addressed. I am not a doctor so I can’t tell ya. I just go by the ones I know who are on it. There may be a point to where you have to decide, “Should I drink and be hairy, or should I not drink and get hair-free?” Metformin is not just about the hair–or weight loss for that matter. It’s about health and fixing what’s wrong before it gets worse and affects a lot more than hair or weight.
Not to toot my own horn here, but I am going on 39 years old. Because I stay fit, use sunscreen, and don’t engage in risky behavior (even mildly risky like booze and smoking), nobody ever guesses me to be over 25. Okay, I drink coffee but there is a lot to what I’m telling you. You’ll have to decide what and who ultimately matter to you.
By the way, if you have problems with depression, the LAST thing you want is any kind of alcohol. It will come back to haunt you eventually. Exercise is a much better anti-depressant!
Unofrtunatley England’s social culture is generally focused around bars or pubs, basically involving alcohol. Whether it be 1 or possibly 2 drinks over a night to 7 or 8 plus. Sounds bad eh? I personally enjoy shopping and a coffee. But in the evening there’s pretty much nothing else to do, with the odd exception of the cinema etc.
Although it certainly has been interesting for the past week since Iv’e been on antiobiotics for a chest infection, as I get to watch everyone else get silly while I don’t drink (of course with the reason of medication), although I don’t drink much anyway. But hey, we didn’t get the crown of Europes biggest binge drinkers for nothing :o
But if it did come between a couple down the pub with your friends or medication that will help your body return to its normal state of affairs, I would go for the latter, especially as it’s not just for aesthetic purposes.
I can completley empaphise with you in regards to wanting to maintain friendships and so on. The worried feeling that comes about when you’ve finally managed to fit in, but then you may need to deviate from the crowd. Meh, but so what, if they really get funny just say your on medication and flash the chemist packet. No one cares to read it, so you can just use that as a reason
Regards,
Benji
I knew by saying that I would get people lecturing me, but the fact is that I am 23 and in college, and there isn’t much else to do in this town but drink. Of course my friends will still like me if I don’t drink! But I will be excluded from most of their social gatherings unless I feel like sitting at a bar without drinking. My friends all work or have class all day, and when we go out, it’s in the evenings for a few drinks. It’s just what the culture is in this area/age group and I enjoy it. It’s not like I am getting drunk every weekend… I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been really drunk. I usually have 2 or 3 beers and just hang out.
Of course if my doctor says I absolutely need Metformin, I’m going to go on it. But if it’s a “maybe” type issue or if she doesn’t specifically recommend it, I’m not going to push to get on it. I don’t really have any other PCOS symptoms other than irregular periods (which has been fixed completely by birth control) and the hair. I am not significantly overweight (20 lbs or so) although I do have the typical PCOS fat distribution.