I found online that it takes 4 days for 95% of the minoxidil in your system to be cleared.

I quit the minoxidil since 5 days now. The really horrible dizzy feeling started to fade on day 4. I am still having some dizziness though, but it is slightly less severe and more similar to the PCS symptoms I am used to having. I am still more dizzy now than I was before starting the minoxidil.

Based on this experience, I would honestly never want to touch minoxidil again. But I have been dealing with hair loss for a while now and it honestly causes me a lot of anxiety and makes me really upset. Minoxidil is one of the only proven effective hair loss treatments for women and being able to get my hair loss under control would be really beneficial for my mental health.

At the same time though, I am already having trouble managing my PCS symptoms as it is and the last thing I want is to take something that could be making them worse.
The problem with minoxidil is that when you start taking it you need to take it for life if you want to maintain the benefits for your hair. Once you stop taking it, all the new hair you grew falls out. It scares me to commit to this medication when I am not sure if it caused my side effects and when I am also not sure if it will cause more side effects down the line with long-term use.

I know most people here are probably not familiar with minoxidil, but: does it sound like the minoxidil could have triggered my symptoms? Is it a bad idea to try taking minoxidil one more time to see how my body reacts (possibly a lower dose)?





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Evidence FOR minoxidil causing my symptoms
-I had very little dizziness before starting the minoxidil, dizziness is back now in full swing.
-I really felt horrible while on the minoxidil. Dizzy, brain fog, nausea. I even had some moments where it felt like I was dissociating/would have a "mini blackout" while I was in the middle of a conversation with somebody which has never happened before and was really strange.


Evidence AGAINST minoxidil causing my symptoms
-I did not experience symptoms immediately after applying minoxidil. The onset of my symptoms was 5 days after I first started using it. Also, I never noticed more symptoms right after applying it, even though the amount in my blood should be highest at that moment and that is when the worst symptoms are typically experienced.
-I stopped the minoxidil 5 days ago and am still not feeling better. I would expect that once the medication left my system, I would be back to baseline, especially since I did not use it for very long. At the same time I also worry the minoxidil may have triggered/re-activated some underlying mechanism causing my dizziness (ex, to do with BP) and that now that the dizziness has been triggered, it will remain even after the trigger has been removed.
-My PCS symptoms flare up sometimes so the timing could have been completely coincidental. Usually a flare up is triggered by some sort of head bump or incident which causes me anxiety though, and I did not such an incident recently.
-The symptoms I experienced are not at all typical minoxidil side effects. They also do not really make a lot of sense considering the mechanism of action of minoxidil because (1) I was using it topically so it would have barely been in my system anyway and (2) minoxidil has been reported to cause effects such as headache, lightheadedness, fatigue, and heart palpitations - none of which I experienced.

A possible mechanism I can think of is blood pressure. I already have quite low blood pressure, so maybe the slight decrease in blood pressure from the minoxidil pushed it over the edge and made me symptomatic.