Where do you keep your Minoxidil?
- Gwen Adey
- Jun 29
- 4 min read
My latest bottle of freshly compounded 6% topical minoxidil arrived in the post this morning.
I unpacked the little 30 mL bottle and left it at the bottom of the stairs, intending to take it upstairs later.
Then I made myself a hot chocolate and sat down as I usually do on Monday mornings, to read some newly published hair loss research papers.
Within a few minutes, I’d got up and moved the bottle because of what I’d just read.
I like to think I’m pretty careful with medicines. Tablets and other medicines in our house are stored high up and out of the sight and reach of my children.
But if I’m honest, I haven’t always treated my bottles of topical minoxidil with quite the same respect.
The paper that made me move the bottle
The paper is a case report describing a 21-year-old man who intentionally swallowed an entire 60 mL bottle of 5% topical minoxidil.
Topical means it must be applied to the skin - never swallowed.
This patient intentionally drank the liquid topical minoxidil.
Within an hour, his blood pressure had fallen to 70/40 mmHg, his heart rate had risen to around 130 beats per minute, and he had developed circulatory shock. Despite receiving intravenous fluids, his blood pressure remained dangerously low and he required treatment in intensive care.
What struck me most wasn’t just how ill he became.
It was how long he remained critically ill.
He required powerful medications to support his blood pressure continuously for almost six days, spending a full week in intensive care before he recovered.
During his admission he also developed fluid in his lungs, fluid around his lungs and a small amount of fluid around his heart.
This was critical illness.
This wasn’t an isolated case
The authors also reviewed previously published reports of topical minoxidil poisoning from around the world.
Several patients developed severe shock requiring prolonged treatment in intensive care.
One previously reported patient required more than seven days of medication to support their blood pressure. Other published reports describe pulmonary oedema, heart failure, ECG abnormalities, acute kidney injury and, in one case, a heart attack following overdose.
The reassuring news is that, with prompt intensive medical treatment, the published outcomes have generally been good.
The review notes that no deaths have been reported in the published cases it discusses.
These are exceptionally rare events.
But accidental oral consumption of minoxidil could happen. This is what I was thinking. Children are curious.
For me, this paper is an important reminder that the little bottle many of us keep on a bedside table or bathroom shelf contains a medicine that deserves the same respect as any other.
Why is swallowing topical minoxidil so dangerous?
Many people don’t realise that the drug minoxidil wasn’t originally developed as a hair loss treatment.
It was introduced in the 1970s as a medicine for severe, treatment-resistant high blood pressure.
Doctors later noticed that many patients taking it developed excessive hair growth, leading to the development of the topical formulation now used to treat androgenetic alopecia.
When topical minoxidil liquid or foam is applied correctly to the scalp, only a small proportion of the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream.
Swallowing topical minoxidil is a completely different matter.
Large amounts can be absorbed rapidly, causing blood vessels throughout the body to relax dramatically. Blood pressure can fall to dangerously low levels, the heart beats faster to compensate, and fluid can accumulate in the lungs or around the heart.
There is no specific antidote.
Treatment is supportive while the body gradually clears the drug.
! To be clear - I am not talking about Oral Minoxisl tablets in this blog. Oral minoxidil is designed to be swallowed and has the correct dose determined by your doctor or clinical pharmacist to be safe.
Why I wanted to write this
This article isn’t intended to make anyone anxious about using topical minoxidil.
Quite the opposite.
Topical minoxidil remains one of the best-studied and most effective treatments we have for androgenetic alopecia, and millions of people around the world use it safely every day.
The paper simply made me stop and think - not about whether I should use minoxidil (I definitely need it!), but where I should be storing it.
Moving my bottle upstairs and into the medicine cabinet took two minutes.
That’s where I’m going to make certain it lives from now on whenever I’m not using it.
I’ve written another blog about protecting cats, dogs and other pets from topical minoxidil, so if you share your home with animals you might like to read that one too.
If reading this article prompts a few other bottles to find a safer home, that would be a good outcome.
You can read the paper yourself if you like:
The paper that prompted this article has just been published online ahead of print and is available as an open-access article.
Mulate S, Kiflu Z, Chekole K, et al. Life-threatening toxicity after the ingestion of a topical minoxidil solution: a case report. Journal of Medical Case Reports. 2026. Online ahead of print.
Read the full open-access paper here:
Thank you for reading.
If you have a question about hair loss, hair treatments or the science behind them, I’d love to hear from you.
I’m not the person with all the answers. I’m a person with a lot of questions. Through this blog I explore the latest research, explain it in plain English and share the ideas that make me stop, think and sometimes change my own practice.
Dr Gwen Adey
Founder & Clinical Director
Growth Factor Hair Clinic
