Advice needed: Is Finasteride the only real option?

[Jrthomas85]

First off, here's my situation:

I'm 26 and I've only been experiencing a pretty slow temporal recession for about 3 years. I was pretty much born a NW2. I never had the "juvenile hairline" for as far back as I could remember. Now, I'd say that I've receded just about an inch or less at each temple (possibly a Norwood 2.5). However, I have noticed some thinning in the past year or so that progresses another half inch or so into the frontal/crown area, so I know the loss will continue at about this same rate if I don't do anything. Still, I feel relatively lucky for the time being that I have quite thick hair and no crown loss. I'm happy (for now) to just maintain the hair I have, and hopefully thicken up the small areas in the frontal/crown region that are slowly thinning.

For the past 3 months, I've been using Revivogen topical spray (and occasional Revivogen shampoo), as well as Nizoral shampoo. I feel that it's too early to say that I've seen any results from the Revivogen yet. I do believe that, at the very least, the Revivogen shampoo is effective at making the hair appear thicker (and it has a pleasant smell).

My question is: Is there any real option for me to accomplish my goals without taking finasteride? It seems like a lot of people on this forum are quick to advocate finasteride, and I'm sure it would work, but small chance or not, I'm not sure I want to risk the sides. There also seems to be a real lack of support for many of the topical DHT blockers, such as spironolactone cream, Revivogen, etc. Can anyone offer any advice on something topical that has worked for them? Or am I only kidding myself and finasteride is the only real way to delay further loss?

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Chris87]

First off, here's my situation:

I'm 26 and I've only been experiencing a pretty slow temporal recession for about 3 years. I was pretty much born a NW2. I never had the "juvenile hairline" for as far back as I could remember. Now, I'd say that I've receded just about an inch or less at each temple (possibly a Norwood 2.5). However, I have noticed some thinning in the past year or so that progresses another half inch or so into the frontal/crown area, so I know the loss will continue at about this same rate if I don't do anything. Still, I feel relatively lucky for the time being that I have quite thick hair and no crown loss. I'm happy (for now) to just maintain the hair I have, and hopefully thicken up the small areas in the frontal/crown region that are slowly thinning.

For the past 3 months, I've been using Revivogen topical spray (and occasional Revivogen shampoo), as well as Nizoral shampoo. I feel that it's too early to say that I've seen any results from the Revivogen yet. I do believe that, at the very least, the Revivogen shampoo is effective at making the hair appear thicker (and it has a pleasant smell).

My question is: Is there any real option for me to accomplish my goals without taking finasteride? It seems like a lot of people on this forum are quick to advocate finasteride, and I'm sure it would work, but small chance or not, I'm not sure I want to risk the sides. There also seems to be a real lack of support for many of the topical DHT blockers, such as spironolactone cream, Revivogen, etc. Can anyone offer any advice on something topical that has worked for them? Or am I only kidding myself and finasteride is the only real way to delay further loss?

Any help is appreciated!

Finasteride is definitely the most powerful, effective tool we have. If you go over to the success stories forums and read through them you'll see page after page is either finasteride, minoxidil, or a combo of both, with the most dramatic results being finasteride most likely. The success stories speak for themselves...if revivogen or whatever worked so well, more people would be posting about it with pictures to prove it. Theres a lot of denial in the hair loss community and people want to believe theres some secret product that will work as good or better than finasteride..but..the reality is that finasteride is still our best tool for now.

 

[andersonlynch]

Ok, Actually you have 4 choices namely finasteride, minoxidil, both or do nothing! if you try finasteride or minoxidil you have a almost 100% of success so if or much better if both but you choose to do nothing then you only have 0% chance to solve your problem. So if I were you? will take the risk beside either you use it or not you will loss your hair but if you try finasteride or minoxidil you have a chance to solve your problem and forget the baldness time of your life. Well still it's up to you. What ever your decision it's your choice.

 

[brian liles]

exactly what chris and anderson said. Finasteride so far is the gold standard when it comes to hairloss.


as finasteride is prescription drug, talk to your doctor before using it.