Reverse Gray Hair, Hair Repigmentation

Yes this would be the correct amount reflecting the change to the paper. I only looked at the “accepted paper” print rather than the online version. Thanks for finding the correction. The quantity of ~2.5 mg for a 100 g solution seems way more reasonable compared to the original 0.012 mg based on the 124 ng/ml number. Now it seems we should be able to order the 0.5 mg tablets and be able to accurately mix to the paper quantities.

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I second reaching out it Melissa Harris on this. I’ve corresponded with her before and while I don’t know how much she can disclose, she’s usually always happy to answer and chat

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I was only able to find a couple of places on Indiamart that had all three drugs, Kachhela (Globestar was the other). I ordered the following:

Cyclosporine 25 mg, 7 strips of 10 for $21
Tacrolimus 0.5 mg, 7 strips of 10 for $14
Minoxidil 10 mg, 300 total pills (I think it was also 30 strips of 10) for $32
Shipping was about $37,
Total of about $110 sent through Wise.com.

Overall, this seems like a good price. This should be a year’s supply of solution assuming I’ll use 100 g per month. A 2 oz bottle of 2% minoxidil solution on Amazon is around $25, so it would cost quite a bit more if using a pre-mixed solution and adding the cyclosporine and tacrolimus. The downside there is that you don’t know the ratio of ethanol, PEG, and water are in it. My plan is to make and use a 2% minoxidil solution for the first few months rather than the 5% in the paper because my hair is already very thick. If someone were to make a year’s supply of 5% solution, 60 strips of the minoxidil would be needed.

One potential issue is that the cyclosporine pills may not be crushable. Most all the cyclosporine I found were labeled as “soft gelatin capsules” including the Biocon Cyclophil ME that Kachhela sells. So, TBD on whether it will be easy to either dissolve the pills in the hair solution or if there’s some other way to get the cyclosporine out such as cutting the capsules open.

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Cyclosporine will be in liquid form inside the gelatin capsule. It will dissolve easily.
Problem is to dissolve tacrolimus as every brand uses magnesium stearate as filler. It doesn’t dissolve in any solvent.

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You can get tacrolimus ointment, though it is very greasy almost like vaselin

I have not seen this as a significant issue. In my DIY toothpaste it was not a noticeable problem. There may be some residue, but its not significant. @Agetron and others have already been using rapamycin tablets in their hair formulation without significant issues noticed or reported. See discussion here: Rapamycin for Hair Growth, Hair Pigmentation, Skin Anti-aging

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Based on this info, magnesium stearate is soluble in hot ethanol. The boiling point of ethanol is about 78 C, and the melting point of tacrolimus is 126 C. If dissolving the crushed tacrolimus pills ends up being an issue when mixing the formula, then it stands to reason that we should be able to heat the ethanol to near boiling, mix the tacrolimus (and magnesium stearate) in to dissolve, and not risk harming the tacrolimus. The tacrolimus should dissolve in the ethanol.

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Small update after 2 months of using generic tacrolimus ointment on half my face.

I’m not going to say which is which and on which half of my face I used the tacrolimus. Can anyone see a difference. I made 2 collages one unfiltered 1 with a slight enhancing filter


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The right side of the image (left side of your face) seems to have a large patch of darker hair.

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Right side on pic, lower pic is post treatment. I wasn’t very careful applying on my chin as I was more focused on the sideburn area which didn’t show any change (yet)

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Hair is a real challenge, I think that is because you need such a range of different cells to function and also often the blood supply is not that good. As you may know my thoughts are that Interleukin-10 is the driver for senescence and it would appear that it does not travel far (it is part of SASP) which is probably why minoxidil, JAK inhibitors and Rapa all make some progress on this issue.

That is also why when hair receeds and also when reinstated it tends to progress. I have found it a lot easier to make progress on a range of biomarkers than hair where I am making some progress, but very slowly. Yesterday’s blood test gave me an MCV of 93 which was over 100 earlier in the year. It was a slightly unusual lab, however, and I am never that certain as to comparability.

What I have found, however, is by improving my metabolism which makes hair more likely to grow the areas with better blood supply (eyebrows, beard, moustache) also grow more productively.

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tacrolimus

What do you say to that?

tacrolimus has a limited cutaneous side effect profile. In one study, 29% of patients taking tacrolimus developed a telogen effluvium, a nonscarring, diffuse alopecia. Telogen effluvium involves a large proportion of hair follicles prematurely shifting into the telogen phase, leading to widespread thinning and shedding of hair

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajt.14337

Hi Gambi - welcome to the site and thanks for posting.

This paper you’ve quoted and linked to is focused on medication use in transplant patients (typically very sick people, who have been sick for a very long time, and who are on many medications) taking ORAL Tacrolimus.

This entire thread on gray hair reversal is focused on low dose TOPICAL (on the surface of the skin) tacrolimus. These are very different use cases and patient populations. The two are not comparable.

In the topical rapamycin skin cream experiment they did (using transcutol as the exipient / base) there was no entry of the drug into the bloodstream. I suspect the same would be true if using a tacrolimus (with Transcutol base) formula for your scalp.

We have seen, however, that if you are using a DSMO base it may penetrate the skin more fully and get into the blood system, as mentioned in this thread here: Side Effects of Rapamycin (part 2) - #283 by RapAdmin

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I might try oral tacrolimus though if the topical results are good in a few months though I do not know which dose and which schedule yet. My topical schedule for now has been twice per week…

So, you’re only using the topical tacroliomus, and not the other two components of the RiverTown formulation: minoxidil and cyclosporin

Why only the single drug?

Because tacrolimus ointment is cheap and easy to get hold of and both tacrolimus and cyclosporin are both calcineurin inhibitors so cyclosporin seemed to be superfluous to me anyway

can’t see any noticeable difference.

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The right lower side definitely seems darker

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I suspect (from what I’ve read in the research papers) that you’d get better skin absorption using the powder dissolved in transcutol (or DSMO), but perhaps they use one of these or some similar excipient in the manufacturing of the tacrolimus ointment.

Similar to the rapamycin topical skin cream: Formulation and characterization of a 0.1% rapamycin cream for the treatment of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex-related angiofibromas - PubMed

It wouldn’t be allowed on the market if the formulation didn’t work.

Edit I checked the ingredients it contains propylene carbonate which aids in dissolving

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