Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.

[Pls_NW-1]

View attachment 171580

May I ask if you draw these? Are pretty funny, ngl.

 

[Almas_NW0]

May I ask if you draw these? Are pretty funny, ngl.

I make all the memes myself. Hardly any simpleton from Tressless would have made a meme like this, lol. Probably, I will sometimes add memes to my profile and to this thread. I like it.

Subscribe to my profile lol

 

[franzliszt]

Before HRT, when I ate some types of sweets, within a few minutes I started itching on my face and pimples in the itchy areas. The reaction of the skin to sweets was immediate, so I avoided many types of sweets so as not to suffer from itching and acne.
I recently bought a Twix bar on purpose, which always gave me this reaction. And nothing. No skin reaction. Although the reaction was even to Bicalutamide, like acne

I can draw the following conclusions and assumptions:
1) Some sweets are somehow capable of causing AR activation in the shortest possible time (a couple of minutes)
2) Bicalutamide does not completely block receptors, although it does to some extent and improves acne. For example, he reduced the area of my acne: before Bicalutamide, it was everywhere, even on the chin, under the eyebrows and under the nose. But only the forehead and cheeks remained on bicalutamide.

Bicalutamide reduces the activity of the sebaceous glands better than Isotretinoin, but it cope with acne worse. This suggests that isotretinoin affects acne in a different way.

As I've said before, I have a similar reaction. My acne returns when I eat things that would spike the blood sugar. Maybe it's because a spike in blood sugar can cause an increase in the alpha reductase enzyme. @Yar has some theories about a liver enzyme that may be a link between diet and hairloss (I can't remember the exact name, may have been hsbg or shgb). Even when on bicalutamide (75mg a day) and finasteride with estrogen injections I would only get results when I ate healthily and in limited amounts. I encourage you to try fasting for 24 hours and see how you feel, although it can be hard to resist the temptation to eat.

 

[franzliszt]

I make all the memes myself. Hardly any simpleton from Tressless would have made a meme like this, lol. Probably, I will sometimes add memes to my profile and to this thread. I like it.

Subscribe to my profile lol

The pepe, estrogen injection timeline was the best imo

 

[Experimentality]

Accutane is a dream but there are several mechanisms of the drug that can lead to a negative alteration of your hair. In an individual with hairloss, it could act as complement to deteriorate your hair.

I have boxes of accutane but need to stay away from it for safety and use only retin a . Maybe a low dose could work? I have an overkill personality, I was blasting 80 mg daily...
Also it dries up your skin too much. I mean, the drug is meant to down regulate sebum production but this also acts a moisturize so I was not confident this was trully what I wanted for my hair and skin.

Is it possible for you to elaborate a little bit about the other alternatives that you suggested? There is some talk around the forum/s about upregulation of ERb activity in skin, for which I was having a look at certain drugs but I'm not really seeing it...

I wouldn't recommend Accutane either. Skin health is all about increasing collagen content, and the molecules/hormones I mentioned do that to varying degrees (apart from many other things).

DHEA: in the dermis, a marked increase in the expression of types 1 and 3 procollagen was observed together with an increased expression of HSP47, a procollagen chaperone protein.

Progesterone: clinical monitoring showed a greater reduction in wrinkle counts (29.10% vs. 16.50%) and wrinkle depth (9.72% vs. 7.35%) around the right eye, a greater decrease in nasolabial wrinkle depth (9.72% vs. 6.62%) and a significantly higher (P < 0.05) increase in skin firmness (23.61% vs. 13.24%) in the treatment group.

Pregnenolone is a prohormone for both and can be taken both orally and/or topically. This can be advantageous because it lets the body regulate the amount of conversion (instead of providing it with an arbitrarily high amount of a particular hormone). There is many more research available which I'm too lazy too link. I personally found those three compounds amazing for optimizing my skin health. Accutane just dries out the skin which is good/bad depending on your baseline. Personally I won't go near it again.

 

[Experimentality]

@Experimentality how is going with topical E2 microdosing?
Thanks!

It's going fine, still using the same compounds. To be honest, regrowth is just a long shot with any treatment except for maybe HRT (and then again, there are many who don't regrow any cosmetically relevant amounts of hair with HRT). I have said many times that cosmetically relevant regrowth should not be expected with whatever treatment you choose. My topical maintains my hair just fine, and maybe there is some slight thickening going on (hardly cosmetically relevant). The best thing is that there have been no side effects at all, and all my blood markers remained roughly the same. In time, I will probably get a small transplant to fix my NW2 to NW1. I could have included minoxidil, but in all honesty it's just a temporary band-aid with many bothersome side effects (at least for me). I would advise anyone to stay away from it, because it does more damage than good and won't solve your problems with hair.

If I had to rate compounds in my topical in order of effectiveness, E2 would probably end somewhere near the bottom. I think that the AR antagonist (Daro) is the most important, closely followed by Dutasteride. Hence, I would postulate that I could get the bulk of my maintenance with just an AR antagonist (not RU of course, far too weak) and Dutasteride.

This is why I'm considering a once-a-week regimen I suggested @Norwoody containing just Bicalutamide and Dutasteride. It removes the trouble of applying topicals daily and would probably be as effective in maintaining my hair. However, I will stay on my topical for at least six more months before (potentially) switching to something else.

 

[Almas_NW0]

The pepe, estrogen injection timeline was the best imo

 

[Almas_NW0]

She looks like Janey

 

[MrOscar]

It's going fine, still using the same compounds. To be honest, regrowth is just a long shot with any treatment except for maybe HRT (and then again, there are many who don't regrow any cosmetically relevant amounts of hair with HRT). I have said many times that cosmetically relevant regrowth should not be expected with whatever treatment you choose. My topical maintains my hair just fine, and maybe there is some slight thickening going on (hardly cosmetically relevant). The best thing is that there have been no side effects at all, and all my blood markers remained roughly the same. In time, I will probably get a small transplant to fix my NW2 to NW1. I could have included minoxidil, but in all honesty it's just a temporary band-aid with many bothersome side effects (at least for me). I would advise anyone to stay away from it, because it does more damage than good and won't solve your problems with hair.

If I had to rate compounds in my topical in order of effectiveness, E2 would probably end somewhere near the bottom. I think that the AR antagonist (Daro) is the most important, closely followed by Dutasteride. Hence, I would postulate that I could get the bulk of my maintenance with just an AR antagonist (not RU of course, far too weak) and Dutasteride.

This is why I'm considering a once-a-week regimen I suggested @Norwoody containing just Bicalutamide and Dutasteride. It removes the trouble of applying topicals daily and would probably be as effective in maintaining my hair. However, I will stay on my topical for at least six more months before (potentially) switching to something else.

Well, asking because with topical dutasteride 0.2 mg/day and topical estriol used at 20 mg/day for several months and now at 5 mg/day, got regrowth, mainly in the mid area, but front is better than 12 months on oral finasteride , mid is definitely a different world , so more than maintainance.

I'm wondering if few mcg of E2 can do more than estriol. Left on hold WAY-200070 and probably made the right choice so far.

Started ARV-110, 0.2 mg delivered by weekly pen microneedling 0.5 mm front, 0.75 mm mid and surrounding areas. ARV-110 mw is 812 Da, 120 h oral half-life, so I had to replace my standard microneedling follica-like , 0.8-1.0 mm every other week, with this milder and more frequent treatment.

 

[Experimentality]

Thanks for your answer Experimentality. I have another question, you mentioned before that you were on TRT, have you by any chance ever had a look on anything related to GDF8 inhibition? This is my next step after I am happy with my hair lol.

Regards, Descended Dog.

Yes, I know about it vaguely. However, you have to realize that molecules that bind the AR (not myostatin) are not only beneficial for muscle hypertrophy. Specifically, the brain contains a lot of AR, and molecules that bind the AR will masculinize the brain (whereas myostatin will not. It will surpress the HPTA though, and by this cause brain deprivation of androgens.). Equivalently, molecules that bind the ER will feminize the brain (to different degrees, of course). Hence, it will not suffice to replace androgens with myostatin. Furthermore, I'm not sure if myostatin is safe. However, it will probably be a major target in the coming years for muscle wasting syndromes in the elderly. I have contemplated Nandrolone monotherapy seriously in the past. To be honest, it seems the closest we're going to have to a cure in the coming decade (with hardly any side effects. Supplementing exogenous E2 may be necessary since Nandrolone doesn't aromatize). However, what made me divert to TRT instead is the fact that you can't use 5ARI's on it (since it would impart the N > DHN conversion in skin, thus yielding a more androgenic profile than without a 5ARI). The reason this is troublesome is because there will always be leftover T from the adrenals when the gonads are surpressed. The leftover T will be converted to DHT in the skin, which will yield a small androgenic contribution. I think that oral + topical Dutasteride with testosterone is superior to Nandrolone monotherapy without 5ARI's (both can be safely combined with an AR antagonist of choice, of course). The topical component is very important, because oral only inhibits ~60% of scalp DHT. I'm not very sure of this theory, so if some day I were to start losing hair again I may look into Nandrolone again. I will not be using myostatin since it doesn't align with my anti-aging beliefs.

Well, asking because with topical dutasteride 0.2 mg/day and topical estriol used at 20 mg/day for several months and now at 5 mg/day, got regrowth, mainly in the mid area, but front is better than 12 months on oral finasteride , mid is definitely a different world , so more than maintainance.

I'm wondering if few mcg of E2 can do more than estriol. Left on hold WAY-200070 and probably made the right choice so far.

Started ARV-110, 0.2 mg delivered by weekly pen microneedling 0.5 mm front, 0.75 mm mid and surrounding areas. ARV-110 mw is 812 Da, 120 h oral half-life, so I had to replace my standard microneedling follica-like , 0.8-1.0 mm every other week, with this milder and more frequent treatment.

That's great news! I am becoming more and more convinced that Dutasteride mesotherapy (that is, combined with needling to increase absorption) is extremely potent and useful. And yes, a few micrograms of E2 will be more potent than any amount of E3. I've talked about this before, it has to do with the efficiency of the ligand at the receptor. E3 only activates about 15% of the ER-beta at saturated concentration. That means it misses out on 85% of the transcribeable genes of ER-beta. E2 is a full agonist meaning it will induce transcription of all ER-beta associated genes. I also talked about WAY in a similar setting: basically it's unknown what the efficiency of this ligand is at the receptor. Full agonists are actually quite rare, so it's not very likely to be one. Erteberel is one, and could induce a similar response at ER-beta as E2 while leaving ER-alpha. However, only a micrograms of E2 is needed to saturate the receptors, which will not give any systemic sides effects on ER-alpha. ER-alpha activation in the scalp won't happen, since the scalp hardly has any. Basically, E2 and Erteberel should be equally effective, where Erteberel is outrageously expensive and E2 basically free at the amounts that are used.

My opinion on AR degraders is this. When enough of an AR antagonist is provided, all receptors will be blocked. The body can only upregulate AR so much, so at a certain point the AR antagonist is powerful enough to block all receptors even when receptor density increased. So, I think AR degraders are superfluous and one may as well use an AR antagonist (Bica, Apa, Enza or Daro). However, I am very curious to see your results. Did you by chance use any AR antagonists in the past to serve as comparison?

Edit: everywhere I wrote myostatin should of course be myostatin inhibitor.

 

[Guru0007]

is estradiol valert good for hair?

How is ur hair now... R u responding to the treatment?

 

[Almas_NW0]

 

[Nghtly]

Hi guys am still a Norwood 1 with hairloss all over my scalp (even donor area). been having hairloss for 7 years now, i use to have zayn malik hair density and hairline The tempels are slidely receding but overall hair density slowly getting worse. I have very thick hair and tried Finasteride 3 years ago and it whent Horrible . I always had hairloss but only slidely thinning on the Hairline i used finasteride for over 8 month and it whas completely destroying me.... Oily skin, Acne all over my scalp, Burning sensation i litterly could not sleep and my hairloss when from 170 hairs falling out a day too 500. So now am really scared to start with finasteride again. I am whilling to take Female hormone i think its called HRT but i whas searching up on internet the side effects like breast cancer/stroke/blood clots in your blood vessels, And all that made me really scared... Any help or tips? PS sorry for my bad english

 

[Nghtly]

View attachment 171657

Hello Almas. Looking at this gives me some hope... Could you maybe read my message above and maybe help me or give any tips. Much appreciated.

 

[Nghtly]

Oh wow this thread's grown alooot. If anyone is interested I posted an update to my success stories thread after year+ hiatus. Oh, and hello again everyone

How is your hair now? I had reflex hyper on finasteride 3 years ago and am scared to jump on it again...... I am whilling to start HRT but super scared of cancer blood clots and strokes... Any advise hope your still around here.

 

[Almas_NW0]

Hello Almas. Looking at this gives me some hope... Could you maybe read my message above and maybe help me or give any tips. Much appreciated.

The side effects of HRT are greatly exaggerated. I have been using it for almost 5 months and cannot name any negative side effects other than gynecomastia.
However, I must tell you that, nevertheless, this is not a toy and requires determination. If you think that hair is important to you and you cannot imagine life without it - yes, this is what you need. To avoid hurting yourself, take estradiol in the safest form, and don't take CPA - it's not the best antiandrogen. I recommend injections (1 shot every 2 weeks - very convenient) and Bicalutamide

 

[MylovelyHair]

The side effects of HRT are greatly exaggerated. I have been using it for almost 5 months and cannot name any negative side effects other than gynecomastia.
However, I must tell you that, nevertheless, this is not a toy and requires determination. If you think that hair is important to you and you cannot imagine life without it - yes, this is what you need. To avoid hurting yourself, take estradiol in the safest form, and don't take CPA - it's not the best antiandrogen. I recommend injections (1 shot every 2 weeks - very convenient) and Bicalutamide

Have you seen results on hair on those 5 months you are taking HRT??

 

[Almas_NW0]

Have you seen results on hair on those 5 months you are taking HRT??

I saw the result after 2 months and 10 days. Now I am approaching Norwood 0. I think I will become one before the new year, when 6 months have passed since the start of HRT.
The bad news is that despite this restoration, hair quality is not going to improve. And this is what I want to achieve - the ideal that I had as a teenager. But I hope it’s a matter of time and I’ll meet it in 9 months.

 

[MylovelyHair]

I saw the result after 2 months and 10 days. Now I am approaching Norwood 0. I think I will become one before the new year, when 6 months have passed since the start of HRT.
The bad news is that despite this restoration, hair quality is not going to improve. And this is what I want to achieve - the ideal that I had as a teenager. But I hope it’s a matter of time and I’ll meet it in 9 months.

But you have a full head of hair with crown full too??

 

[Almas_NW0]

But you have a full head of hair with crown full too??

Before HRT, I had a Norwood 1 with thinning in the parting and crown. It is difficult to explain, but the hair in these areas did not grow longer than 1cm. Now they seem to be lengthening as estrogen increases the anagen phase. But neither the hair in the crown, nor in the parting, nor on the hairline increases in thickness and does not improve the quality. Therefore, I will not be able to wear a voluminous hairstyle for a long time.
I think hair quality will be the last to improve as it deteriorated when I was Norwood 0. So I'm not looking forward to it this year. And I'm not sure if 9-12 months will be enough for me. However, I am afraid to use HRT for longer due to changes in the pelvic bone and excessive feminization, so I may have to take a forced break. Do not know. In general, let's wait and see. The main thing is that I was able to do something about it. And everything else is little things in life