We often lead busy, stressful lives. Ranging from a high amount of traffic, personal problems, to trying to fit in our hobbies in the little free time we might have.
All of this means that it is possible to forget applying a minoxidil dose.
That’s why we’ll be answering the question, “what do I do if I missed a dose of minoxidil”?
Let’s get started.
What do I do when I forgot to apply minoxidil?
Let me explain what you should do when you forgot to apply minoxidil.
Let me start off by saying that missing one dose of your topical minoxidil appliance is not the end of the world.
If possible, you should apply a missed dose of minoxidil as fast as possible.
If there is not at least 4 hours between applying the missed doses and your next planned dose, then you should just skip the dose.
So to summarize, apply the missed minoxidil dose as fast as possible if possible, if not possible due to circumstances or because it is almost time for your next appliance, don’t fret it and just skip it altogether. You won’t suddenly lose all your gains just because you missed one dose.
What happens if I miss a dose of minoxidil?
Technically speaking, your body for oral minoxidil and your skin for topical minoxidil reaches and keeps maximum saturation when you keep fatefully applying your doses of minoxidil every day.
When you skip a dose of minoxidil, there’s technically speaking less minoxidil circulating in your body and skin. Thus, this will lead to diminishing results the longer you decide to skip doses.
Missing one dose or day of minoxidil is not as bad as it might seem at first. You won’t suddenly lose all your hair or beard gains. When minoxidil is not applied for a longer period of time, you will start to lose the hairs you’ve regrown on your scalp. No matter if they’re velus hairs or permanent ones!
When discontinuing minoxidil on one’s face for beard growth, the velus hairs will be lost over time, while the hairs in the permanent stage will be maintained.
How many days can you skip rogaine?
Skipping rogaine for a day is not the end of the world. However, each day that you forgot to apply minoxidil will lessen the amount of minoxidil circulating in that target area. As the half life of topical minoxidil is about 22 hours, give or take, and 1.49 hours for oral minoxidil.
Thus, when topical minoxidil appliance is skipped for multiple weeks, velus hairs will start to fall out while the hairs in the terminal phase will stay. Again, this is only the case for beard hairs! If you stop minoxidil after a month, then all your hair gains will inevitably be lost once more.
For hair growth or regrowth, the use of topical minoxidil must be continued in order to not lose the progress/gains made. That’s why stopping minoxidil and starting again is not recommended. It’s much more effective to stay on permanently.
Skipping one or a few days occasionally will not be that impactful, though.
Conclusion
It isn’t a disaster if you skip a single dose or a day of minoxidil appliance. In fact, chances are large that it would have very little negative immediate and long-term effects.
However, the longer one decides to discontinue minoxidil doses, the less minoxidil will be circulating in the body or skin and thus, hair growth will be lost or in the best case in regard to beard growth, maintained.