24 y/o, meds working, but I want off. Help please..

[dji_21]

Hi, I'm new the the board.

If anyone could help me out, it would be really greatly appreciated.

I am taking dutasteride, proscar and rogaine. Lately, sometimes, I've been taking more than 1 pill of dutasteride..

dutasteride is working- my hairline is amazing, but hair quality is not great... but I've had enough - these drugs are taking away my manhood (muscle, sex drive, become less of a "man") etc...

If decided to start reducing and hopefully eventually quitting dutasteride.

I am sure I would have been completely bald by 20 if I didn't start the meds (my grandfather was completely bald by 20, and my loss was going a really fast rate)

I am going to try a buzz cut for the first time ever in a couple weeks when I have an opportunity to hide from public to see if I look half decent.

My question to you is.... Can I get multiple FUE procedures and keep my head buzzed and make it look like I have decent coverage. I make alot of money for my age and it doesn't look like that is going to change (worked very very hard) and would be willing to spend almost unlimited amounts on fue procedures. I have to deal with clients everyday, and I honestly beleive image is important...

Is this even an option? Can you let me know before I start researching FUE like crazy. I've met talked to a couple doctors and they all said they wouldn't operate on a 24 year old, but I didn't really press or talk about multiple procedures, etc.

I am the type of person who rather face the problem and have a plan to fight it (start with multiple procedures). Is it possible to plan for the worst and start from there?

Any thoughts / help please... I really want to quit the drugs.

 

[s.a.f]

If you're quitting the meds forget surgery. Especially if you have such bad family history.
And Taking dutasteride and Proscar? Never heard of anyone doing that before, usually its just one or the other.

 

[Petchsky]

Yes, dutasteride and finasteride is overkill, personally i'd quit the dutasteride.

What you're suggesting sounds feasable, but you're better off asking the H/T docs during a consultation, and pics of your hair would help improve the advice given to you.

 

[Hiker]

Take Propecia or Dutasteride, not both. Don't mess with your body's chemistry. FUE will not magically expand your donor supply. If you go off the hair loss med and lose a ton of hair, it will reduce your transplant options considerably. If you want to keep your hair cut short, I think FUE is the way to go.

 

[timbo]

Taking finasteride with dutasteride isn't overkill, it's just redundant. Dutasteride is already taking care of 98-99% of type 2 5-a reductase. My advice would be to quit dutasteride and see if you feel any better with just finasteride. I don't think getting a transplant is a good idea if your hair loss is as aggressive as you say, especially is you want off the drugs. Also, just remember that FUE doesn't mean that there is no scar, it means there is no linear scar, like with a strip procedure.

 

[dji_21]

Thanks for your responses...

I am not that educated with FUE, but have seen photos of patients that have had FUE and keep their hair buzzed and it looks great.

Say without the drugs I would be the extreme on the Norwood scale... can the donor area (which would be very small) be reused?

 

[cuebald]

What do you mean reused?
Once a hair is taken from the donor area, it's no longer in the donor area. hair transplant's are only good for NW3-4 maximum, unless you're one of those rare people who have had massive megasessions including body hair grafts.
If I were you I'd quit the dutasteride and stay on 1mg of finasteride daily for at least 6 months - see how that goes - before you consider a hair transplant.
If you were a stable NW3 on finasteride and had a lot of grafts put in to recreate a NW2 - and then quit finasteride - you would continue to recede beyond the transplanted area. You could end up a NW6 with a weird strip of hair in the NW2 area.