Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Monistat...A Follow-up

My eldest child picked up a case of ringworm last week. Ringworm grosses me out to no end, so as soon as I discovered it, I began slathering it with the Monistat I had lying around the house. To those that are confused by this, ringworm is a fungus, similar to oral thrush or jock itch (really!) Monistat treats fungal infections of all kinds, not just those of the lady bits.

In treating my son, I ran out of the *good* Monistat and sent my husband out for more. (Interesting side note- the Monistat did nothing for the ringworm. I finally ended up trying Tea Tree Oil after finding the suggestion on the internet and within a few days, it was dried up and gone. So, if you get ringworm, try Tea Tree Oil.)

My husband, well intentioned as he may have been, picked up the *wrong* kind of Monistat.  He bought generic 2% miconazole nitrate. I figured it was a perfect time to give the other stuff a trial run. For those of you wondering if it makes a difference, let me tell you now, it does.

First off, the generic 2% made my hair greasy and piece-y looking, like I hadn't washed in a while. The brand name stuff just goes onto my scalp and my hair looks no different that it did before I applied. I washed, air dried, then applied and was horrified to see how terrible my hair looked. I had to wear it up until the next wash day. I like to wear it down the day I wash, so this upset me a bit.

Second, I saw absolutely no difference in growth. With the brand name 4%, I saw at least an inch of new growth within the same time period. I had new growth around my hairline and my hair was thicker. With the 2%, nothing, nada, nope, zilch.

Honestly, if it worked, I would suffer through the greasy hair. Since it did nothing, the generic stuff is going into the trash. I'll pay extra for the brand name next time.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for running that experiment. I have been using the 2% because I haven't found the 4% anywhere. It's good to know that it really makes that much difference. Someone said that Walmart would have 4%, so I'm going to look there. So far, the 2% does seem to be helping with my itchy, flaky scalp, so hopefully 4% will do even more to fix it (and make my hair grow!)

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  2. I wish I understood biochemistry or knew someone who is an expert.

    It would be interesting to know how the Monistat (miconazole is the generic term) acts to improve hair growth.

    If Janssen Pharmaceutica (the Belgian mfgr of Monistat) ever decides to market it as a hair growth agent, they should hire Jessica as their model!

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  3. That is very interesting! a note to add here, when we lived in FL fungal toenails and athletes foot was very common. Stacy and i both had some version of both at somepoint and there are several anti fungals out there OTC...ringworm may only be affected by the other one, but i am glad the tea tree oil worked. that stuff smells terrible though! and glad you got to do the other half of the experiment. its amazing the growth you got!

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  4. Oh, thank you, Bill. I hope they do start to market it as a hair product. I hate the weird stares I get buying three packs of Monistat at a time. ;-)

    Kim, the nurse suggested Lotrimin for the ringworm. If I hadn't been feeling lazy, I would have purchased some, but I decided to try the Tea Tree Oil first.

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  5. Jessica, am I reading right that you saw an inch of growth in a week?! If so, wow! I may have to try Monistat. I have a really itchy scalp so maybe it would help that too.

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  6. Bonnie, it was *new* growth around my hairline. My hair was definitely thicker before I noticed the difference in length in the photos. If you go back to my first post about Monistat, you'll see before and after pictures. I hope that clarifies. :-)

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