- Reaction score
- 294
Edit. I changed this post up to move my original pre-finasteride regime to this thread so my current thread is less of a massive text wall.
Original Regime:
Pictures: (periodic updates)
Overall - https://imgur.com/a/KcCoKEU
Hairline - https://imgur.com/a/AARrnqD
Pictures: (I've got about 3000 pictures of my scalp now and I've been too lazy to update, if you want more pictures just ask, hair growth seems to be continuing steadily.)
Orginal Post -
I've been in denial about this hair growth for awhile since people have always been so negative about not using minoxidil or finasteride and often those are just considered temporary options until you can afford a transplant. The whole hairloss community has been a pretty shitty place but it's understandable since hairloss makes you feel shitty and has emotions all over the place. A week ago I posted my gains to Reddit with a lot of positivity and since then the hair only continues to increase by the week. My hair currently looks great in terms of baldness but I'm not a fan of my haircut, I'm currently planning to grow my hair out thick and long so I'll update slowly on that over the year. I'm extremely happy with the results thus far, I actually had severely inhibiting depression and anxiety before this regrowth, I hadn't left my house in 4 months and I was borderline ready to kill myself, it's superficial but my hair meant so much to me and my identity especially as an artist around the alternative crowd.
(Pictures don't even do justice to how badly I was balding, I had barely any hair to work with at all during the worst of it and it was impossible no matter how much I brushed or washed it to actually hide my scalp anymore.)
The two biggest benefits to my hair growth was likely the 1.5mm derma roller, I've been seeing hair growth by the week since I started using it on the 11th of July. Aside from that scalp massages would be second, they got rid of the last of my dermatitis before even using Nizoral.
There are some things to consider before considering my regime especially over minoxidil or finasteride, the former in most cases would be better. Primarily my regime is more for if you are on the fence about treatments with side effects, not everyone has perceivable sides and if something works for you that's great. Just like how genetics determine how we bald they also determine how we react to certain treatments. I do think mechanical stimulation would be beneficial in addition to those though.
How do I plan to keep my hair
I'm not entirely sure yet. I've been able to promote hair growth but I haven't actually stopped the balding process, much like using minoxidil without finasteride. Currently I'm hoping to be able to regrow hair faster than I lose it, I lost a lot of hair density over the last few years and I was in denial. I was balding up until earlier this year. Since I'm only 20 and it appears I balded at a relatively slow pace excluding the sheds I'm hoping I'm able to grow faster than I lose in the meantime until there are a better options for hair growth. I'll see how I go over the next few months but if I start losing a lot of ground I'll jump on dutasteride. As I get older the rate at which I bald will likely increase so if there ends up being no new treatments I will likely have no choice.
Why I'm not using Minoxidil
It's expensive, literally $50 a month here for the foam which means I'd have to get the liquid which is still expensive (cheapest I can find is $44 for a 3 month supply) for someone who can't even afford to go to University it's not ideal. The main downside to the liquid is that it's more difficult and time consuming to apply and takes a long time to dry, I'm lazy and I just want to put it in and go to sleep except if I do that it'd rub off onto my pillows and sheets and have negative consequences on my face. There are a lot of anecdotal reports of dark circles, water retention and wrinkles and in theory minoxidil inhibits collagen production although there are no in-vivo studies about it sadly. At that point I'd rather buy a wig and be done with it than trade my face for my hair. You can minimize the harm by just being careful with your application but it just seems like a lot for me considering the price and the one last major factor. Why do I want hair if I have to have minoxidil in it almost 24/7 making it all greasy?
Why I'm not using Finasteride
Honestly it was primarily just the barrier of it being a prescription, it's just less accessible, the sexual side effects don't bother me too much and I really love the idea of decreased body hair. The only potential side effect that bothers me is brain fog. Currently I'm experiencing regrowth so I'll be staying away from finasteride for now but if I start shedding and losing hair again I'll likely jump on it.
Reddit Post:
"Current progress on hairloss, I'm unsure if it's gotten any thicker in terms of follicle density although it's possible each individual follicle is thicker. Overall scalp condition has improved which gives it more life, folliculitis, scalp itch, excessive greasiness and shiny scalp qualities are no longer present. Hair seems to have more life, it's stronger, springy and can support its own weight as opposed to just flopping down.
When I run my fingers through my hair it feels all fuzzy and prickly indicating there is hair growth although when I actually take pictures of my scalp there isn't really any terminal hair growth to be seen. Recently I took a single picture under rather poor lighting and I noticed there was actually hair there although it was incredibly thin and clear, some were even as long as 3-4cm. More likely than not this is hair that has already miniaturized and isn't in the process of regrowing. I'm going to dismiss this as hair regrowth until I can see plenty of visible terminal hairs growing from my scalp."
Two instances worth adding, I was in a bathroom at a fast food restaurant with no hat on and I noticed under the light you couldn't see any of my scalp anymore, normally I always hated looking in bathroom mirrors and having to witness my awful scalp shining through so that was promising at the least.
Also as we were leaving my sister was messing around on Snapchat and filmed me and was like "Ahhh you're on Anon Vlogs" and filmed around in the circle. When I saw the video being played back I noticed you couldn't really see any of my scalp on my crown or anything which was also a pleasant surprise. My haircut still looked stupid though, makes me feel like a overgrown twelve year old.
These are mostly relevant since beforehand my hairloss was so bad I couldn't hide it, no matter how I brushed or styled my hair you could see my scalp and tell I was obviously balding pretty badly, now I can at least hide it a little although my fringe is a little thin considering my awful hairline and you can see through it as it moves around if it's greasy.
Original Regime:
- Derma Roller 1.5mm - weekly, Also worth noting that stamps are more effective and clearly better, the only reason I'm using a roller is because I couldn't find any quality stamps in Australia. I'm using a Dr. Roller
- Nizoral - weekly
- Zinc Pyrithione - daily
- Scalp Massage - daily (I try to aim for 5 minutes daily, I expanded on scalp massages in this thread) The massages are based on Rob at Perfect Hair Health
Scalp Exercise - Based on Tom Hagerty (WARNING! Improper technique of scalp exercises will cause rather bad forehead wrinkles)
- Fish Oil - Taken casually, used to be daily
- Lipogaine The Big 5 - Weekly (Added September 4th)
Pictures: (periodic updates)
Overall - https://imgur.com/a/KcCoKEU
Hairline - https://imgur.com/a/AARrnqD
Pictures: (I've got about 3000 pictures of my scalp now and I've been too lazy to update, if you want more pictures just ask, hair growth seems to be continuing steadily.)
- Overall - https://imgur.com/a/sbORLf9
- Hairline - https://imgur.com/a/AARrnqD
- Crown - https://imgur.com/a/2bEfC1g
- Hairline - https://imgur.com/a/4yivctR
- Overall - https://imgur.com/a/dTupbe2
Orginal Post -
I've been in denial about this hair growth for awhile since people have always been so negative about not using minoxidil or finasteride and often those are just considered temporary options until you can afford a transplant. The whole hairloss community has been a pretty shitty place but it's understandable since hairloss makes you feel shitty and has emotions all over the place. A week ago I posted my gains to Reddit with a lot of positivity and since then the hair only continues to increase by the week. My hair currently looks great in terms of baldness but I'm not a fan of my haircut, I'm currently planning to grow my hair out thick and long so I'll update slowly on that over the year. I'm extremely happy with the results thus far, I actually had severely inhibiting depression and anxiety before this regrowth, I hadn't left my house in 4 months and I was borderline ready to kill myself, it's superficial but my hair meant so much to me and my identity especially as an artist around the alternative crowd.
(Pictures don't even do justice to how badly I was balding, I had barely any hair to work with at all during the worst of it and it was impossible no matter how much I brushed or washed it to actually hide my scalp anymore.)
The two biggest benefits to my hair growth was likely the 1.5mm derma roller, I've been seeing hair growth by the week since I started using it on the 11th of July. Aside from that scalp massages would be second, they got rid of the last of my dermatitis before even using Nizoral.
There are some things to consider before considering my regime especially over minoxidil or finasteride, the former in most cases would be better. Primarily my regime is more for if you are on the fence about treatments with side effects, not everyone has perceivable sides and if something works for you that's great. Just like how genetics determine how we bald they also determine how we react to certain treatments. I do think mechanical stimulation would be beneficial in addition to those though.
How do I plan to keep my hair
I'm not entirely sure yet. I've been able to promote hair growth but I haven't actually stopped the balding process, much like using minoxidil without finasteride. Currently I'm hoping to be able to regrow hair faster than I lose it, I lost a lot of hair density over the last few years and I was in denial. I was balding up until earlier this year. Since I'm only 20 and it appears I balded at a relatively slow pace excluding the sheds I'm hoping I'm able to grow faster than I lose in the meantime until there are a better options for hair growth. I'll see how I go over the next few months but if I start losing a lot of ground I'll jump on dutasteride. As I get older the rate at which I bald will likely increase so if there ends up being no new treatments I will likely have no choice.
Why I'm not using Minoxidil
It's expensive, literally $50 a month here for the foam which means I'd have to get the liquid which is still expensive (cheapest I can find is $44 for a 3 month supply) for someone who can't even afford to go to University it's not ideal. The main downside to the liquid is that it's more difficult and time consuming to apply and takes a long time to dry, I'm lazy and I just want to put it in and go to sleep except if I do that it'd rub off onto my pillows and sheets and have negative consequences on my face. There are a lot of anecdotal reports of dark circles, water retention and wrinkles and in theory minoxidil inhibits collagen production although there are no in-vivo studies about it sadly. At that point I'd rather buy a wig and be done with it than trade my face for my hair. You can minimize the harm by just being careful with your application but it just seems like a lot for me considering the price and the one last major factor. Why do I want hair if I have to have minoxidil in it almost 24/7 making it all greasy?
Why I'm not using Finasteride
Honestly it was primarily just the barrier of it being a prescription, it's just less accessible, the sexual side effects don't bother me too much and I really love the idea of decreased body hair. The only potential side effect that bothers me is brain fog. Currently I'm experiencing regrowth so I'll be staying away from finasteride for now but if I start shedding and losing hair again I'll likely jump on it.
Reddit Post:
"Current progress on hairloss, I'm unsure if it's gotten any thicker in terms of follicle density although it's possible each individual follicle is thicker. Overall scalp condition has improved which gives it more life, folliculitis, scalp itch, excessive greasiness and shiny scalp qualities are no longer present. Hair seems to have more life, it's stronger, springy and can support its own weight as opposed to just flopping down.
When I run my fingers through my hair it feels all fuzzy and prickly indicating there is hair growth although when I actually take pictures of my scalp there isn't really any terminal hair growth to be seen. Recently I took a single picture under rather poor lighting and I noticed there was actually hair there although it was incredibly thin and clear, some were even as long as 3-4cm. More likely than not this is hair that has already miniaturized and isn't in the process of regrowing. I'm going to dismiss this as hair regrowth until I can see plenty of visible terminal hairs growing from my scalp."
Two instances worth adding, I was in a bathroom at a fast food restaurant with no hat on and I noticed under the light you couldn't see any of my scalp anymore, normally I always hated looking in bathroom mirrors and having to witness my awful scalp shining through so that was promising at the least.
Also as we were leaving my sister was messing around on Snapchat and filmed me and was like "Ahhh you're on Anon Vlogs" and filmed around in the circle. When I saw the video being played back I noticed you couldn't really see any of my scalp on my crown or anything which was also a pleasant surprise. My haircut still looked stupid though, makes me feel like a overgrown twelve year old.
These are mostly relevant since beforehand my hairloss was so bad I couldn't hide it, no matter how I brushed or styled my hair you could see my scalp and tell I was obviously balding pretty badly, now I can at least hide it a little although my fringe is a little thin considering my awful hairline and you can see through it as it moves around if it's greasy.
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