Hemingway used to post here in the past. He has such a wonderful bedside manner in which he "counsels" others related to hair loss.
His thread which appears in hiatus, is what I mentioned yesterday although there are a handful. It's overly complicated for virtually everyone and it is based upon conjecture related to what might work. We know that HRT works and we don't have to whip up our own meds since most of them except bica are cheap. The experimental meds are expensive and haven't much history of human use nor have they been used in hair contexts.
Even though hair loss and prostate cancer are related, they are apparently regulated by different forms of reductase meaning that prostate meds might or might not work in a hair context. Beard and scalp skin appear able to synthesize DHT themselves even in the absence of circulating reductase. For whites, that's how strong the body clings to its sexually dimorphic signalling above the neck. I continued with serious dermatitis that only relented after substantial beard removal and it appears to be gone forever with no follicles to promote it and very little circulating androgens.
Again, with the exception of estrogen, which appears to vastly improve skin quality and is able to "heal" dormant follicles, nothing else grows hair. Rather these AA's on their own, seem to impact upon anagen cycles and mathematically, increasing the amount of anagen time for a follicle, presents as "regrowth" as the term is commonly known. Even dutasteride and finasteride "regrowth" is rarely cosmetically significant for people past say the age of 25 perhaps.
It is also not advised to use AA's ever without estrogen for any significant period of time as this might particularly wreak havoc on bone structure as well as upon strength. AA's are more feminizing than estrogen in most of the areas that are likely to concern cis-males anyway. Generally we all have a dominant hormone and mixed levels of T and E2 appear to be safe long-term but not having any dominant hormone or at least substantial serum levels of estradiol or testosterone, is deleterious to health. MtFs know this because it is frequently reiterated on MtF HRT sites. Estrogen and testosterone are almost identical in chemical structure and presumably can attach to the same receptors when such receptors are not sexually dimorphic in terms of effects. Women do have muscles and many are quite strong, especially the bigger ones and they can be strong without much circulating T although T obviously increases their strength and musculature but working out and weight lifting do as well.
By the way, the DIY HRT reddit site is now only MtF-oriented essentially. FtM anagens are highly dangerous when unmonitored and the reddit sites do not allow facilitation of scheduled meds which essentially all androgens are. To my knowledge, no female estrogens or blockers are scheduled which seems unfair but estrogen doesn't cause "roid rage" or promote baldness and skin afflictions or heart disease and cancer. Estrogen increases life spans; testosterone shortens them and is harmful to looks when used in excess. Estrogen and pregesterone use is employed in birth control, fertility meds and for menopausal reasons and it has a long history of safe use and restriction of use seems untenable. Presumably cis-females tend not to get "roid rage" from estrogen supplementation.
I give Hemingway and others much credit for doing valuable anecdotal research. He ended up down on bica, and virtually everyone who has posted about RU or topical spironolactone or topical reductase inhibitors walks away disappointed.
Here, again, we are using things that we
know can work and which can promote female-types of scalp hair by regenerating follicles. We hope to provide feedback to each other about what dosages and/or combinations work for us anecdotally and by providing pictures not just once but over time so that improvement can be verified and monitored. I am still waiting for Hemingway's pics and I never saw any pics on that thread which is probably at 7 pages pretty long compared to many threads.
People who report hair growth without pics are still perhaps doing a service but we need the evidence that pictures provide. It is simply too easy to delude oneself about either improvement, regrowth or mild sheds. Nobody worried about minoxidil-dependent hair or hair sheds related to minoxidil or finasteride 20 years ago. We took them and didn't expect sheds and many of us never had sheds that were noticeable at all.
I get that many of us are too hurt to talk to others about baldness or take pics but it is absolutely essential in order to account for different lighting and hair styles which over time become less and less important in evaluating results. How does one know when he or she isn't bald(ing) anymore? Generally this is based upon the reactions of others. That's how I discovered that I was losing hair at age 20. Another way is noticing that the wind doesn't destroy one's hair anymore and that we don't look bald in a hand mirror, regardless of lighting. Pictures of what appear to be hair in between terminal and vellus stages are unhelpful because it is very difficult to determine whether they are "coming or going". The temples can further disappoint us because they might have actually moved apart from each other due to surface tension and over-development of the masseter chewing muscles which would explain why regrowth in the crown and improvement of diffuse thinning is more viable and more easily confirmed.
I currently think that hairline improvement especially in the corners might more so be due to relaxing surface tension and the corners moving slightly together and slightly downward in an imaginary oval-shaped band and a thickening and increase of anagen overall rather than being due to seeing new little hairs growing, although I do see those but the front is recovering quite differently than I would have expected and by extending downward the imaginary hair band, we can see that a lot of necessary regrowth is needed in the side burns area which I never considered a particular concern as I had more so diffuse thinning.
TL
R:
Use estrogen and oral minoxidil first and then if an "AR" is needed, consider medroxyprogesterone, also known as MPA and provera as this med appears to have few side-effects. Do not increase, decrease or change AA's frequently when using one since changing things up appears to be associated with sheds.
