I decided to take the plunge, mainly because I can get it pretty cheap where I'm at.  Got 14 pills for my first month for $18 of real avodart, not generic.  I am going to take one pill each day the first week to load up and then take a pill sunday and thursday after that.  I stopped taking the finasteride a couple weeks in when I restarted it a few months back and stopped because I noticed a decline in libido... my hair is really showing it now so gotta do something.  So far after 2 days on no side effects.

It is going to be interesting... on the one hand, I was a very good responder to propecia.. but that was 10 years ago - i've been on and off it a few times over that span and it's surprising i still have as much hair as i do... will be interesting to see if it will recover some of the hair lost over the last couple years that propecia had been helping hold onto and stress has managed to get rid of... I will be looking to add other things as well but I'm going to add one at a time.

As far as getting it online or your doctor, that's mostly up to what your comfort level and wallet can afford.  it will be much more expensive to get it though your doctor (visit + brand name which isn't cheap) - but that is much faster than online and you know you're getting top quality.  Online you will have to wait for it to come from overseas, and it will be generic from another country but it'll be a lot cheaper.  You can pretty much get the hair loss 2.5mg dosage online for the same cost as buying the .5mg brand name in he US.  I'm lucky because of where I live I can get brand name avodart with no doctors visit for the same price as generic   if i don't have an adverse reaction to the .5mg dose, I may go up to 2.5 after a few months depending on the results i see.

Could be -- but there's a pretty small difference between 0.5mg dutasteride (avodart) and the 2.5mg dose. 90% (0.5mg) vs. 96% (2.5mg) reduction of circulating DHT - vs. 70% reduction for 5mg Finasteride (proscar).  54% (0.5mg) vs. 82% (2.5mg) scalp DHT reduction - vs. 38% for finasteride.

I would guess bumping up from 0.5mg to 1mg would not provide much difference, though the reduction in scalp DHT from the higher dose might be of some additional benefit.  No real way to know though especially since people tend to respond differently from individual to individual.  Just keep in mind the higher the dose the more likely the chance of side effects.

I would go with a topical.  A good shampoo is always a good addition, but if you're looking for extra results you want a topical.  There's also lasers too