I’ve been using rogaine for around a year now and don’t have any face sides like wrinkles or bags, but I’m thinking about starting oral minoxidil. If I do notice sides like premature aging and stop, do they reverse?
Can I take collagen supplements to proactively fight it?
It depends on your hormonal profile, just remember that oral collagen has a very sh*t systemic use rate as compared to your body producing and using its own. I would say no, unless your hormones suggest otherwise.
I have forehead lines from it which I am going to get treated with laser and my eyes never quite looked the same underneath after I tried it, they did improve somewhat but again it will depend on your hormonal profile.
My experience with minoxidil was enough to convince me that I would rather have my skin look nice than to use that as a mainstay for my hair.
Personally I'm now convinced that for men who don't respond well to minoxidil, the solution is going to have to be a very low dosage of estrogen, because
- estrogen is a vasodilator just like minoxidil
- estrogen is an anti-inflammatory
- estrogen directly antagonizes testosterone at the follicle level when topically applied
- estrogen when it goes systemic improves insulin production AND increases collagen production
The big strategy is going to be about finding out how much topical estrogen you can handle, while still getting beneficial results, one thing you can do is increase your methylation, esp taking betaine hcl as that directly increases the amount of estrogen you will process out of your body.
It's that whole "good effects in", "bad effects out" kind of thing.