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Permalink Reply by Amy on July 19, 2009 at 1:26pm

DPCP is supposed to be slightly more effective, but they have found that people who do not respond to DPCP sometimes respond to SADBE. There is also a recent study out that taking fexofenadine along with treatment can help (see below). 3 months may not have been enough time to respond- I've heard if not response at 6 months they consider the chances low. How is he tolerating the treatment? Best wishes to you both.



Fexofenadine hydrochloride enhances the efficacy of contact immunotherapy for extensive alopecia areata: Retrospective analysis of 121 cases.Inui S, Nakajima T, Toda N, Itami S.
Department of Regenerative Dermatology, Osaka University, Japan. inui@r-derma.med.osaka-u.ac.jp

To study the effect of fexofenadine on extensive alopecia areata (AA), we evaluated retrospectively 121 patients with AA having alopecia in more than 50% of the scalp and followed them for at least 6 months. Patients were treated by immunotherapy using diphenylcyclopropenone or squaric acid dibutylester with or without oral fexofenadine. The regrowth score was estimated as decrease of Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) score. In AA with atopic background (atopic AA), the mean regrowth score of the fexofenadine group was 1.333 (n = 33) and that of the control 0.471 (n = 34). The fexofenadine group showed significantly better regrowth than control by Mann-Whitney's U-test (P = 0.00213). In non-atopic AA, the mean regrowth score of the fexofenadine group was 1.303 (n = 33) and that of the control 1.048 (n = 21). There was no significant difference by Mann-Whitney's U-test (P = 0.872). Together, fexofenadine is a helpful reagent in the treatment extensive atopic AA with contact immunotherapy

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Permalink Reply by Tony J. on July 19, 2009 at 10:23pm

Is this pure fexofenadine? Or do you mean Allegra D or some other allergy medicine with the antihistamine ingredient fexofendadine?

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on July 19, 2009 at 8:52pm

Hi Debbie, my 7 yr old daughter is currently using Squaric Acid. She did not respond to topical steroids. I am happy to say that she is wig free for the first time in a year. I do think 3 months was not long enough to give the DPCP a chance. Sam started the process which included the sensitization in of Nov 2007 and by June 2008 she started getting fuzz and by Sept colored hair. The side effects of this this treatment are an itchy scalp and rash. Samantha did initially blister from the sensitization so we had to wait for her arm to heal before moving forward. Once the doctor felt she was ready we took it slow. We did a small spot, quarter size and then several weeks later we did it again. The initial applications were spread out over a few weeks and we gradually increased frequency and size. In May she developed a full body rash that took almost a month to heal. Needless to say we did not do any treatments for a month. It was right after that her hair started growing as the doctor predicted. Today, she gets periodic rashes on her body, but not very severe and we have a cream that heals it in a matter of a few hrs. The SADBE is supposed to work your your entire immune system and attack all the hair follicles. Sam still has no growth on the brows or lash area, although I have seen hair pop up. In addition, I give her aloe vera juice, cod liver oil, biotin, b-12 and a multi-v. If you visit my page you will see pictures of various stages of regrowth. I hope this info helps and feel free to ask me any questions. good luck with your decision. I think what you and your son is a personal choice and don't let others opinions influence you decision and make your doubt what you decide. Cindy

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