Clotrimazol instead of monistat?

[FluffSpider]

I've tried. I've looked everywhere. Romania does not carry Monistat or miconazol nitrate, and it's final. But while scrolling through the monistat thread, a member was warned against the stuff because of an existing allergy to Clotrimazol-it seems the two substances are quite alike.
So I was wondering...has anyone tried it? If not, is anyone willing to give it a shot(ofcourse, I'm volunteering, but two heads are better than one)
Also, my tube of Clotrimazol has a warning regarding it not being suitable to treat nail or scalp fungus-I'm wondering, is this because of its containing about 96%alcohol?, or are there other factors involved?

[milk]

I've tried. I've looked everywhere. Romania does not carry Monistat or miconazol nitrate, and it's final. But while scrolling through the monistat thread, a member was warned against the stuff because of an existing allergy to Clotrimazol-it seems the two substances are quite alike.
So I was wondering...has anyone tried it? If not, is anyone willing to give it a shot(ofcourse, I'm volunteering, but two heads are better than one)
Also, my tube of Clotrimazol has a warning regarding it not being suitable to treat nail or scalp fungus-I'm wondering, is this because of its containing about 96%alcohol?, or are there other factors involved?

Hi! How did it go? Did you try it out? I can't find monistat in my homecountry either. :)

[QueenJoey]

I have some, but I don't use it enough to know of any results. good or bad. Although I once looked it up and something mentioned that a (somewhat rare) side effect of using it is a increase in hair growth rate. I'll start giving it a try again and let you know how it goes.

[archel]

I am just never going to be comfortable using a drug in an off-label manner that has never been tested for daily long-term use. It's scary as heck to me to think of what this could do to my body if I'm giving myself a transdermal dose daily of a med that MOST people would use for a couple days MAX, in a much smaller amount for each dose, maybe a couple of times in their whole lives. THAT is the kind of use that is tested for as far as safety is concerned, not slathering it over your entire head every day. I am not at all convinced that this is not dangerous.

[Mesmerise]

I've tried. I've looked everywhere. Romania does not carry Monistat or miconazol nitrate, and it's final. But while scrolling through the monistat thread, a member was warned against the stuff because of an existing allergy to Clotrimazol-it seems the two substances are quite alike.
So I was wondering...has anyone tried it? If not, is anyone willing to give it a shot(ofcourse, I'm volunteering, but two heads are better than one)
Also, my tube of Clotrimazol has a warning regarding it not being suitable to treat nail or scalp fungus-I'm wondering, is this because of its containing about 96%alcohol?, or are there other factors involved?

96% alcohol sounds extremely drying! Is it a cream formula or a sort of clear formula? I can't imagine a cream having so much alcohol. I would be concerned that it would be very drying!

Still, you could just experiment with a dilute solution of it and see what happens? I can't imagine it'd be any worse than monistat. A part of me wants to try Monistat (or Daktarin as it is here) but another part of me doesn't like the idea of whacking a medication randomly on my head without knowing what the long term effects could be!! I am tempted to do a 30 day challenge or something though...

[milk]

I am just never going to be comfortable using a drug in an off-label manner that has never been tested for daily long-term use. It's scary as heck to me to think of what this could do to my body if I'm giving myself a transdermal dose daily of a med that MOST people would use for a couple days MAX, in a much smaller amount for each dose, maybe a couple of times in their whole lives. THAT is the kind of use that is tested for as far as safety is concerned, not slathering it over your entire head every day. I am not at all convinced that this is not dangerous.

I totally get your point. I have excluded all "nasties" from my skin and hair routines (except for nailpolish), so i only use natural products all over my body. Even when it comes to health issues, I rather use natural aids than the things you can get from the doctor.

But there is a big BUT, my hair grows sooo slowly, and I'm sick and tired of wearing clip ins all the time (I really can't stand my hair without the clip ins). So i'm willing to sacrifice some braincells for a couple of inches of hairgrowth, yep!

[pink.sara]

If you read back through the Monistat thread there were people who tried clotrimazole and had no results in hair growth or shedding reduction. Some people had increased growth or shedding benefits from ketoconizole but they were few and far between.
Also the clotrimazole was drying to hair and skin.

Fair enough if you want to experiment with it though :)

Oh and I've been using Daktarin (Miconazole nitrate 2%) diluted with a bit of water since 2009 with no side effects. I did get the headaches using it neat for the first 2-3 times but after diluting it was fine. I have used it every other day for 3 months continuously, or gone a month or two without, but my use has been pretty consistent as without it my hair grows less than 1/2 and inch per month.

[Mesmerise]

If you read back through the Monistat thread there were people who tried clotrimazole and had no results in hair growth or shedding reduction. Some people had increased growth or shedding benefits from ketoconizole but they were few and far between.
Also the clotrimazole was drying to hair and skin.

Fair enough if you want to experiment with it though :)

Oh and I've been using Daktarin (Miconazole nitrate 2%) diluted with a bit of water since 2009 with no side effects. I did get the headaches using it neat for the first 2-3 times but after diluting it was fine. I have used it every other day for 3 months continuously, or gone a month or two without, but my use has been pretty consistent as without it my hair grows less than 1/2 and inch per month.

How much does it actually increase your growth rate? I really am curious about starting...hmm...and it can't be difficult to find a tube of Daktarin around here.

[milk]

If you read back through the Monistat thread there were people who tried clotrimazole and had no results in hair growth or shedding reduction. Some people had increased growth or shedding benefits from ketoconizole but they were few and far between.
Also the clotrimazole was drying to hair and skin.

Fair enough if you want to experiment with it though :)

Oh and I've been using Daktarin (Miconazole nitrate 2%) diluted with a bit of water since 2009 with no side effects. I did get the headaches using it neat for the first 2-3 times but after diluting it was fine. I have used it every other day for 3 months continuously, or gone a month or two without, but my use has been pretty consistent as without it my hair grows less than 1/2 and inch per month.

Thank you so much for the info! The thread is sooo damn long and I forgot that you can search within the thread so I havent found any info about clotrimazole there.

Ok, so in my homecountry the only creams that you can find with miconazole in have also got paraffinum in it, which is not approved if you like me are CO-washing only. I can't sacrifice the ends of my hair which I would if I would start using shampoo to wash the paraffinum out. Hmm, dilemma. Maybe I should just order som MN online from the states and pray for it to work.

My hair grows about 1/4 inch a month, and on top of that the ends breaks off even though I con't have splits in them, so my hair is actually getting shorter :(..

[pink.sara]

Well, it's pretty pathetic without it! I have a bleached streak so I can measure to the MM and without it it was growing 7mm a month... Every month... For a year. I know some people get seasonal changes etc but in the summer it slows to 5mm and in winter I managed 12mm.
With the Daktarin it takes a few weeks of applying once or twice to see a difference but then will speed to 15-20mm for a month or two. Then I take a break!
My hair thickness stays the same with longterm use but while using my shedding reduces massively and then after a week or two without, I have a big shed of all the hair that didn't fall during use.
I would normally gain between 3 and 4 inches a year and have done for about 4 years, but with Daktarin I now grow about 6-7 which isn't much, but it's a huge improvement :)

[pink.sara]

I just had a look at the Daktarin leaflet and it has liquid paraffin as a main ingredient, I've never had a problem with greasiness as I CWC. Not sure if a CO would remove it properly. :(

[MinderMutsig]

I am just never going to be comfortable using a drug in an off-label manner that has never been tested for daily long-term use. It's scary as heck to me to think of what this could do to my body if I'm giving myself a transdermal dose daily of a med that MOST people would use for a couple days MAX, in a much smaller amount for each dose, maybe a couple of times in their whole lives. THAT is the kind of use that is tested for as far as safety is concerned, not slathering it over your entire head every day. I am not at all convinced that this is not dangerous. I guess that depends on how you use it. The genric 2% miconazol nitrate cream I use is designed for use on the skin, over a period of 2-3 weeks, twice a day.

I use it twice a week over a period of maybe 2 months and then give it a rest again. So overall I get less exposure to the cream than I would if I used it as recommended.

There are also shampoos with miconazol nitrate to treat fungal infections on the scalp so the active ingredient in the cream has been tested for use on the scalp. All in all I don't really see a problem with the way I (and most people in the MN thread) use it. Although I do share your concern for people who use too much, too often, in too high concentrations, and over a long period of time.

[MinderMutsig]

I just had a look at the Daktarin leaflet and it has liquid paraffin as a main ingredient, I've never had a problem with greasiness as I CWC. Not sure if a CO would remove it properly. :(
The one I use has liquid paraffin in it too. I've found that I needed to clarify a bit more often when I used it. Once every 2-3 weeks or so?
I guess you'll have to work out for yourself if it's worth it or not for you. I didn't really mind but applying the cream was too much hassle for me so I rarely use it.

[Mesmerise]

I just had a look at the Daktarin leaflet and it has liquid paraffin as a main ingredient, I've never had a problem with greasiness as I CWC. Not sure if a CO would remove it properly. :(

I've actually read that CO can be really good at removing oils and other greasies, so maybe it would work okay for paraffin?? I don't know as I haven't actually tried it personally!

[Ligeia_13]

I just had a look at the Daktarin leaflet and it has liquid paraffin as a main ingredient, I've never had a problem with greasiness as I CWC. Not sure if a CO would remove it properly. :(


I used Daktarin for a couple of weeks and I only ever used conditioner to remover mine. Didn't seem to leave any residue :)

[kittymallow]

i started testing clotrimazol myself yesterday, and i have taken measures of my hair today, so i can give an answer to if it is going to grow faster or not. i cant get mn in norway so i am going to try canesten. i have not shedded or itched or been irritated in the scalp and i have used it twice. once before going to bed and once today :)

[Cainwen]

Hi, um, I've never tried monistat (or anything else) to make my hair grow faster, but I just want to put in a word of caution on people using clotrimazol-- the main function of this this drug is that it is an ion channel blocker. The reason it kills fungi is that it prevents the cells from attaining proper ion concentrations on either side of its membrane. It will do exactly the same thing to your cells, which is why it is recommended for limited exposure in the case of things like athlete's foot. So I'm not sure it would help hair growth overall, even if you do have a scalp fungal infection.

[FluffSpider]

Hi! How did it go? Did you try it out? I can't find monistat in my homecountry either. :)

Finally I found some Monistat in the most dilapidated-looking pharmacy around town-but they had good stock. So I haven't given Clotrimazol a whirl...to be honest, I haven't given MN much of a whirl either, as it was during school and I could only apply it once weekly, which seemed rather lame, and was improbable to yield results. I'm going to start using my tube of MN one of these days.

I am just never going to be comfortable using a drug in an off-label manner that has never been tested for daily long-term use. It's scary as heck to me to think of what this could do to my body if I'm giving myself a transdermal dose daily of a med that MOST people would use for a couple days MAX, in a much smaller amount for each dose, maybe a couple of times in their whole lives. THAT is the kind of use that is tested for as far as safety is concerned, not slathering it over your entire head every day. I am not at all convinced that this is not dangerous.
I'm not sure using it for athlete's foot or other 'proper' purpose means using less of it. Most members use MN in spurts, and not continuously...And to be honest, if it were really dangerous, with some nasty side effects... someone would have noted them. It's been in use for quite a while, and there are some people around who use it like mad-surely they would have noticed something, anything at all?


If you read back through the Monistat thread there were people who tried clotrimazole and had no results in hair growth or shedding reduction. Some people had increased growth or shedding benefits from ketoconizole but they were few and far between.
Also the clotrimazole was drying to hair and skin.

Fair enough if you want to experiment with it though :)

Oh and I've been using Daktarin (Miconazole nitrate 2%) diluted with a bit of water since 2009 with no side effects. I did get the headaches using it neat for the first 2-3 times but after diluting it was fine. I have used it every other day for 3 months continuously, or gone a month or two without, but my use has been pretty consistent as without it my hair grows less than 1/2 and inch per month.
I didn't really know about post searching before starting this thread, and I probably didn't get to said pages, so sorry for the semi-dupe thread. I don't mind it being drying to my roots, as they are rather greasy...

I guess that depends on how you use it. The genric 2% miconazol nitrate cream I use is designed for use on the skin, over a period of 2-3 weeks, twice a day.

I use it twice a week over a period of maybe 2 months and then give it a rest again. So overall I get less exposure to the cream than I would if I used it as recommended.

There are also shampoos with miconazol nitrate to treat fungal infections on the scalp so the active ingredient in the cream has been tested for use on the scalp. All in all I don't really see a problem with the way I (and most people in the MN thread) use it. Although I do share your concern for people who use too much, too often, in too high concentrations, and over a long period of time.
This.:)

Hi, um, I've never tried monistat (or anything else) to make my hair grow faster, but I just want to put in a word of caution on people using clotrimazol-- the main function of this this drug is that it is an ion channel blocker. The reason it kills fungi is that it prevents the cells from attaining proper ion concentrations on either side of its membrane. It will do exactly the same thing to your cells, which is why it is recommended for limited exposure in the case of things like athlete's foot. So I'm not sure it would help hair growth overall, even if you do have a scalp fungal infection.

I'm not really sure this is making sense. Mainly you're saying that humans have identic ion channel structures with fungi-which is something I highly doubt, and here is why:
Painkillers act as blockers to the receptor protein in the synapse, so it doesn't allow the charge(nervous impulse to pass through). There are countless painkillers out there, which are all supposed to do the same thing. BUT you may have noticed ibuprofen works great for you, while it might do nothing for a friend of yours.(or viceversa ofcourse). This is because that our receptor proteins are slightly different, and the 'cap' used to deactivate it can only fit one shape.

Now I know we aren't talking about painkillers here, but if those things differ from one person to the next, what are the odds that we have the same cellular membrane structure with a fungus?
(By the way, if my memory serves me right, they're procariots, we're eucariots-so our cells differ greatly.)

[Cainwen]

I'm not really sure this is making sense. Mainly you're saying that humans have identic ion channel structures with fungi-which is something I highly doubt, and here is why:
Painkillers act as blockers to the receptor protein in the synapse, so it doesn't allow the charge(nervous impulse to pass through). There are countless painkillers out there, which are all supposed to do the same thing. BUT you may have noticed ibuprofen works great for you, while it might do nothing for a friend of yours.(or viceversa ofcourse). This is because that our receptor proteins are slightly different, and the 'cap' used to deactivate it can only fit one shape.

Now I know we aren't talking about painkillers here, but if those things differ from one person to the next, what are the odds that we have the same cellular membrane structure with a fungus?
(By the way, if my memory serves me right, they're procariots, we're eucariots-so our cells differ greatly.)

In some cases, yes, we have the same ion channels. and in the case of clotrimazol, I have personally done research on measuring the ion channels/ion flows through human tissue and clotrimazol was one of the blockers we used on a regular basis. So from experience, I know it blocks human ion channels. We had to wear masks when we dealt with it in powdered form, even though we were dealing with less than a 1/2 tsp in total.

[FluffSpider]

In some cases, yes, we have the same ion channels. and in the case of clotrimazol, I have personally done research on measuring the ion channels/ion flows through human tissue and clotrimazol was one of the blockers we used on a regular basis. So from experience, I know it blocks human ion channels. We had to wear masks when we dealt with it in powdered form, even though we were dealing with less than a 1/2 tsp in total.

Interesting! Just out of curiosity, how did you measure it? My teacher hasn't told me yet, and now that you mention it, I'd like to know. :D

[Cainwen]

In our case, we used a technique called patch clamping, and measured the flow of currents.

*Warning, physics/bio lesson*

All ions are charged particles, and a moving charged particle creates an electrical current, which can be measured. Using Ohm's law (I=V/R), and a very very sensitive rig, we could measure the current through a cell's membrane. By using drugs, we were able to control which ions were able to flow through the membrane at a given time. The trick was to only use to drugs long enough to get data, but short enough (and in low enough concentrations) to not kill the cells.

[archel]

Fascinating!

[FluffSpider]

Awesome. I'm studying to go to med school, so this got my interest really spiked. Thanks!