24 years old, lost over 50% of my hair in a year

[progosu]

Hello, I've started baling a year ago, maybe a little bit longer, back then I had probably the thickest and densest hair you could've imagine
before I started to lose my hair it looked like this - photo from
April 2011



One day I looked into the mirror and all of a sudden this is what I see... photo from
May 2012

(the picture doesn't show how terrible the situation really was though)

I was shocked and decided to cut my hair really short, because it started to get worse and I hoped that somehow it will get back to the normal density and thickness after some time, but this is what I saw, photo from
August 2012



It made me so depressed I had to go to a psychiatrist and dermatologist. The dermatologist asked if my mom has brothers and how's their hair, and yeah, they are not completely bald but both of them have extremely thin hair, then she said this is a genetic male pattern baldness and prescribed me minoxidil 5%.
after two months of taking minoxidil it looks like this


15th October 2012)

right temple (after and bofore):


left temple (after and beofre)


and front, (before and after)


Well I think that this med may work, or I don't know, maybe the lighting was just better, you judge. Anyways I'm gonna stick to minoxidil and I'm adding Nizoral soon. Basicially what I take now is
- minoxidil 5%
- Vitamin B complex
- Iron
- Zinc

I'm too afraid to take propecia, don't wanna mess up my life even more.

 

[wstef]

It looks like it is gaining more ground for you, but it's relatively early and you might not see proper re-growth until around 4 months (that's when I started seeing my hair thicken up, and I assume it was from the minoxidil).

Keep up with this regime and see how much gain you get. Nizoral may help so it's good you're adding that.

I take Propecia and I have experienced one recurring side effect so I have halved the dose. If it doesn't correct it I'll quarter the dose, and if that fails I'll just quit. It's not worth it. We are more concerned about our appearance than anyone else is.

If you get no luck with minoxidil then consider Propecia (or a generic finasteride brand) but it depends on the chance you want to take with it. It generally takes a lot longer to work but results are often better and longer lasting.

 

[TravisB]

It's not the lighting - your hair is definitely better, and I gotta say much better for only 2 months of treatments.

minoxidil alone however won't get you far. You'll start losing hair again at some point. You should add finasteride if you think seriously of saving your hair.

 

[Night]

Dude, you shouldn't be afraid of Propecia. You have more chances of dying in a car crash then getting side effects. Think of it this way, you'll take it... then most likely you won't get a side effect and keep your hair for more years. Worse case you get trouble getting a boner, you stop and you are still at where you started. I say it couldn't hurt, but its up to you.

 

[progosu]

guys, photo from today


I'm a little bit shocked, giving a fact that my hair is actually shorter than here (before I started my regimen)


some people acutally asked me If I dyed my hair... now I'm looking for a widely available topical dht blocker but it doesn't seem like there is any..

 

[asdf_man]

Have you looked at topical spironolactone?

 

[progosu]

yes I did, but I also watched this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8lh0_ctW8g which made me very sceptical, this guy has no reason to lie and he tried like everything on the market.

 

[progosu]

newest photo, may 2012 vs december 2012

http://i.imgur.com/AlPmW.jpg

 

[ChrisW1980uk]

Big improvement man! You still not taking finasteride?

 

[progosu]

nah, finasteride scares me too much, but one day I'm gonna start using it, for sure.

 

[WillNotLetItHappen]

nah, finasteride scares me too much, but one day I'm gonna start using it, for sure.

If that day is sooner rather than later you will save more hair.

 

[progosu]

update:


what's new?
2 months ago I added a ketoconazole shampoo and since then I started to wash my hair everyday.

 

[Kirby]

Are you taking finasteride now?

 

[kadir657]

damn brooo

how many times a day you apply minoxidil ?
whitch brand do you use ?
How long it taked you before you saw the first signs of thickness..

 

[progosu]

Are you taking finasteride now?

nope, I'm not and I think I'm gonna take dustasteride instead, because it seems like a better option.

damn brooo

how many times a day you apply minoxidil ?
whitch brand do you use ?
How long it taked you before you saw the first signs of thickness..

2 times a day, every 12 hours
there's only one minoxidil brand available in my country - "Loxon" and it's for prescription only so I assume this is a high quality solution.
I'm not entirely sure but I think it took about 2 months for the first noticeable results to come out

 

[kadir657]

i'm using finas for 8 months now with no results.. so i added minoxidil kirland 5 % lotion to my regimen and i'm using it for 2 weeks now hope that it will work ..

 

[talmoode]

i'm using finas for 8 months now with no results.. so i added minoxidil kirland 5 % lotion to my regimen and i'm using it for 2 weeks now hope that it will work ..

Good luck, mate!!

 

[MrBastard]

Too scared to use finasteride, but is considering dutasteride... Seems legit. A little exaggeration with the over 50% part too

But nice results on the last pic

 

[LawOfThelema]

well, the minoxidil improved your hair greatly!

 

[progosu]

I'm having massive shedding and thinning, gotta use propecia. I'm going to a doctor tomorrow, I'm planning to take 0.5 mg EOD, it should be almost as effective as 1mg ED http://i.imgur.com/23L9rG6.gif hopefully it'll work