21 years old want to know what to do

[Needthehair]

Hey guys. I was debating posting here but since none of my damn friends take me seriously I decided I would give it a shot. I'm 21 years old and since I was about 17 I've a bit of a receding hair line around the temples. This didn't bother me very much because my hair was very thick and I didn't think it would really effect me until later in life. Now my temples are the same....probably a norwood 3? My frontal area seems to be thinning out. When I spike my hair you can see my scalp in the frontal area. No one notices it until I pull my hair back because I do have longer hair now. I first noticed it when I saw some pictures of myself and I was sweaty and I could see my scalp through my wet hair when it was short, but not the other parts of my hair.

My mother's side of the family is bald and my dad is the only one without a full head of hair but he has it all in the back and just receded back alot. I am not sure when the guys on my mother's side started losing their hair but my brother is 24 and his hair is receded and thin. He has completely different hair than I do though, our whole life he has had thin hair and i have had really thick hair. Plus he looks good with a shaved head....I don't.

I want to stop this in it's tracks beacuse I like to spike my hair or comb it back. What are my options? I have tried propecia but have stopped a few times because I just didn't think I needed it yet but now I know I do. I hate rogaine because of how much you have to work at it. I party alot and could see myself stumbling home in a drunken state and forgetting. My hair is definitley thinning and I even feel like it is happening in the back. It is not noticeable but I feel like I can feel it thinning when I touch it, could be in my head. No one notices the problem until I pull my hair back though so it isn't a complete emergency but I have heard that if you tackle it early you can wake up at 50 with a full head of hair.

Do you all have suggestions or anything? Does propecia really work and how long will propecia work? I have tried it off and on you can't develop an immunity to it can you? Could I prevent hair loss forever if I start now? If I use propecia and a good shampoo would that be enough? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks guys.

 

[Hawaii male]

Yes Propecia really works for some. It will at least maintain your hair and if your lucky maybe regrow some. I would suggest using Nizoral as a shampoo 3 times a week.. M-W-F etc.

 

[Needthehair]

Thanks for the quick reply, do you think that baldness is really preventable if you attack it early? I go in the water alot so I am also afraid that if I tried rogaine I would end up washing it out all the time. If I don't use rogaine would you say that it could still be prevented? Looking at my hair line it is not strong at all anymore, definitley goin back. Makes me pretty self conscious.

 

[Hawaii male]

Im not familiar with minoxidil, but i would venture to guess that as long as you let it absorb for at least a hour before going swimming things would be ok.

 

[dem]

Propecia does work but you have to be consistent. Don't take it off and on; that won't help. Take it every morning before you leave the house. It really isn't that difficult. Stop hairloss in its tracks now before it gets worse. I agree that nizoral shampoo would also be a great addition also.

 

[Needthehair]

Do these things just delay the inevitable or can I stop it?

 

[Guest]

in most cases your hair count will maintain for a few years on propecia, and then gradually decline again. but your hair count will decline MUCH slower than it would without the drug. if this starts to happen, you can switch to avodart, the more powerful dht inhibitor, and this could possibly add another 10 years to your maintenance. conceivably you could keep what you have right now for 15 years. if cloning is ever to come out it will be out by then, and then this stuff won't be as big of a deal.

you also have other weapons at your disposal like tricomin and rogaine, which have been fda proven to regrow hair. so while you're slowly thinning on propecia later on, you can use those two to regrow hair and fight the hair loss from different angles.

if you're nw3 at say 21 and your hair loss is recent, it's not inconceivable that you could regrow some hair and only be a nw3 or so again by age 50.

look at this graph:

The top green line is people who were on propecia for 5 years. The bottom red line is people who took nothing for 5 years(a placebo). Look at the staggering difference. The Propecia group does have a declining hair count after 2 years but they decline only about 15-20% as fast as the placebo group. If we're talking about an area on the scalp, maybe the propecia group only loses 15-20 hairs in that area for every 100 hairs the group loses on the placebo.

Bryan has theorized that some of this thinning is just the general thinning that comes with age, which maybe can't be stopped by drugs.

And as I said earlier, if you start to thin again on propecia you can always switch to avodart, which is more expensive but also much more powerful. It blocks 98.5% of type II dht at 0.5 mg a day which is much m ore than propecia blocks. and as i said earier if you are using things like tricomin and rogaine to regrow hair while on avodart or propecia, you should find very good results in your overall hair.

 

[abcdefg]

Im not sure about the general thinning with age thing. I mean if your like 50 maybe thats the case. I know 30 even 40 year olds with every single hair and a very thick teenage hairline. They could almost pass for being 20, because most men you can tell how old they are by there hairline alone. So something causes this hairloss in other people because some people dont lose hair.

 

[Guest]

Im not sure about the general thinning with age thing. I mean if your like 50 maybe thats the case. I know 30 even 40 year olds with every single hair and a very thick teenage hairline. They could almost pass for being 20, because most men you can tell how old they are by there hairline alone. So something causes this hairloss in other people because some people dont lose hair.

everyone's hair thins naturally as they age, it may just be more noticeable in some people than others.