I went to Rite-Aid last night and was laughing and shaking my head at the same time. You are right, Ravensunshine, Miconazole was on 3 or 4 different aisles, with different packaging for different uses. It was in Monistat on the feminine products aisle, it was in some jock itch stuff somewhere else, it was in the firstaid aisle for ringworm. All different packaging all same stuff.
Interestingly enough, why should one spend $15.99 on Monistat, when on the first aid aisle there is straight 2% miconazole nitrate cream--but says "cures athletes foot"?
Also, I take a multitude of vitamins and other supplements, none of which is FDA-approved for certain usage. The FDA is not the say-all-end-all for the efficacy of drugs, they approved Vioxx and look what's happening now. Anyway, I am not a doctor or a pharmacist. I'm just a crazy lady with internet access! I wanted to see if there was any "science" behind these claims and it led ME---please read ME, ME, ME, and only ME--to this conclusion: some members of the imadizole family of drugs treat various anti-fungal infections and are also anti-androgenetic--->>anti-androgen products block DHT in the hair follicle, where male and female pattern baldness starts--->>miconazole, clotrimazole, and ketoconozole increase the diameter of the hair shaft thus increasing the diameter of the hair strand--->>since I already have active scalp flora for which I am using Nizoral, I don't see miconazole or clotrimazole cream hurting me.
Everything I have found out is not my own imagination, and I am not even the one who started the thread. Anyone can go to
www.pubmed.com, type any of these ingredients in the search field, and FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF. The same studies that led me to the same conclusion. It may not lead YOU there, and that is okay, and I won't call anyone (or even silently think to myself) a "desperate-Black-woman-trying-to-grow-hair" for the MULTITUDES of other products that people jump on (but that's another thread that we may be waiting on). Go to any forum discussing hair loss and the same information is right there. I have been a member here for what, 2 years...Lord knows I don't say much and there is a reason for that. I advocate one thing, and one thing only, that is
KNOW FOR YOURSELF.
ETA: It's bananas! I was thinking, can we move away from calling this "Monistat for the hair"? Because really, although the OP was talking about Monistat, we have since found that the active ingredient of miconazole nitrate, which is just an anti-fungal agent, is in a bunch of other products too. So maybe we need to talk about if ANTI-FUNGALS aid in hair growth (like...um...MTG) and see if maybe we are on to something. What do you all think?