Gave Up on Treatment Trying Again After Almost 20 Years

[i_hate_my_hair]

I started losing my hair in late 2001 at 22.

At first I thought it was stress. I was shedding like crazy. Then I thought something was wrong with me. Doctors dismissed it as male pattern baldness. It didn’t look like that to me at the time.

And there was a major problem no one could explain - it f*****g hurt!!!

At first I thought I hit my head on something; the top of my head hurt. Then as I started noticing the hairloss, there was a tightness and discomfort along my part.

My hair continued to thin all over and as my hairline rapidly receded it because obvious that it was androgenic alopecia. My hairline hurt and eventually my whole scalp did.

More and more hairs felt like coarse, straight sticks stuck in my scalp. The feeling made me picture a hair ending in a point inside the follicle and stabbing me every time I move it. It got so bad that I starting plucking out the “bad” hairs, thinking I could make myself more comfortable while I tried to treat the problem.

I was an absolute emotional wreck. I knew I looked horrible and that it would just get worse. Mental illness that’s probably been with me my whole life took off at the same time (not unusual at that age) and made it all worse. I quit grad school, then quit a job, then didn’t work for almost two years before finally taking my current job, something far beneath what I should be doing with my life.

I tried treatments from 22 until about 28. Minoxidil up to 15%, topical spirolactone, finesteride (sexual side effects but hard to separate from the effects of psyc meds), duestetide (stopped after getting weird pains around my ribs at 2 weeks), 2% nixoral, various other shampoos, some blue copper peptide bullshit (felt good though) and other stuff I can’t even remember. If anything helped it wasn’t enough.

I kept losing hair from my head. My scalp still hurt. All my hair (everywhere) got less dense, thinner, coarser, longer, and went from dirty blonde/brown to a dull lifeless grey-brown.

I’d started clipping my hair short which I didn’t like but I knew the alternative would be worse. Once I started seeing white hair on the sides of my head (30 or earlier) I just shaved it all off.

I don’t like how it looks but it’s easier to ignore thoughts of getting your hair back if you just get rid of it all. And it was the only way I could get rid of that feeling that my hair in some areas was poking into my scalp and hurt if it moved. If it was shaved down to the skin there wasn’t really anything left to move around. My scalp still hurt though and sometimes itched. Nothing would make that better.

Over the years I occasionally tried minoxidil several times to see what it would do but never stuck with it that long.

Now we’re almost at 2021. I’ve lost about as much hair as it’s possible to lose, though my father who is in his mid-70s continues to have his sides thin out and may eventually lose it all. He’s pretty much lost his eyebrows which got me slightly back into looking at hairloss treatments 1-2 years ago.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

I was focused on not losing my eyebrows. I lost significant hair there soon after my hairloss started. They’re thinner, less dense, don’t come as close to each other as they did and are very sparse at the opposite ends. To complicate trying to keep them looking OK, some are thick, dark, curved and way too long while others are totally straight, stiff, and blonde or grey!

I tried some expensive eyebrow serum from Amazon and couldn’t tell if it was helping. I tried castor oil. Same problem though I think it did irritate my skin some times. I’d tried minoxidil before, but decided I was going to try again and really stick with it (Rogaine 5% foam 2x per day) long term. It’s been about three months. Still waiting to see how it goes.

I also started using the minoxidil on my head again. It’s certainly not difficult to put on. It may be helping a few hairs but not much. It’s so weird to let any grown. I run my hand over what seems like so much hair only to look in the mirror and barely see a few strands lol.

My girlfriend has been wanting me to grow a beard. I didn’t want to do it with a completely shaved head so I’m back to using a 1 mm clipper. The minoxidil may actually be helping very slightly on the back of my head. Compared to when I’ve just been lazy and not shaved my head fit a few days, the hair below my vertex (way low) is growing slightly higher than I expected. Good but no major improvement.

Thinking I might try some additional things now that I was looking at the very short version of what remained of my hair every day, I looked online to see what was new. Hmm did that RU-what’s-it’s-number ever solve anything?

I wasn’t seeing anything that I was ready to start with other than breaking out the old bottle of 2% nizoral and buying some Lipogaine Big 5 to use as normal shampoo. I use so little it will last forever.

Then I saw microneedling...

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

Microneedling!

That looks like the kind of crazy, desperate sh*t I would do haphazardly back in my 20s!

So I bought a Derminator 2 and some 12 needle cartridges. Despite what the website said it didn’t take months to arrive.

I got it this week and decided to try it out immediately after work today praying that all signs of use will be gone by Monday. I’ve worked at the same place for 15 years. I primarily wear contacts but wear glasses on occasion. I wore my glasses for several months earlier this year (yes still working on site!). I switched back to contacts and within a week I heard there was a rumor circulating that I’d gotten LASIK! You people have seen my with and without glasses for years! I really don’t want a red scalp and “I think he got a hair transplant”!

So...

Cleared the bathroom sink counter. Got everything nice and clean. Got the Derminator set up. Read the manual. Washed my scalp with antibacterial soap. Wiped it with a paper towel dampened with 70% isopropanol.

Set the Derminator to 12 needles, fast, 1.5 mm.

Tried to hold it against my skin properly (not always successful) and cover my entire scalp in small circles from where my hairline would be all the way back to where I’ve still actually got some hair. Also went into the not totally bald area around the top of my scalp and down below my temples back towards my ears where my hair was obviously thinner.

The blood helps you keep track of where you’ve covered!!! I’ve seen pictures so I knew how bad it might look. My girlfriend knows how much my hair upsets me and she can get pretty emotional. I’m sure she would have broken down in tears if she saw me (micro)needling my head.

I spent about 15 minutes doing it because I had a hard time getting my vertex and the back of my head as well as I got the front.

It’s not comfortable but not terrible. In a way it felt good. Plus since I was having a day when my scalp was feeling sore and tight I think it actually made it feel a bit better. Oh you think you’re going to keep pulling this painful sh*t? How about I stab you with needles? How do you like that? Hahaha!

Washed off the blood with the same soap and wiped with isopropanol again.

immediately after it looked like a bad sunburn. It’s faded a bit after an hour. I really really hope nothing shows by Monday morning!

No minoxidil or anything else tonight.

I don’t have high hopes of this really growing much hair back but maybe it will finally stop this scalp pain.

 

[spring15]

Interesting life story. Is English your first language btw? Good luck with needling, I've been doing it just over a year

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

If you have scalp pain it sounds like it's probably inflammatory unless you have something else going on like a bacterial or viral infection.

You really should try going to your doctor and trying topical corticosteroids, mometasone or betamethasone and possibly even something like dovonex in the event that it's some kind of other inflammatory hairloss.

Your scalp shouldn't hurt, that's one of the first signs you're not dealing with androgenic hairloss, those doctors are f*****g morons.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

Interesting life story. Is English your first language btw? Good luck with needling, I've been doing it just over a year

It is LOL! Does it not sound like it? I probably threw in some nonsense wording .

 

[Will Be an Egg in 5 years]

If you have scalp pain it sounds like it's probably inflammatory unless you have something else going on like a bacterial or viral infection.

You really should try going to your doctor and trying topical corticosteroids, mometasone or betamethasone and possibly even something like dovonex in the event that it's some kind of other inflammatory hairloss.

Your scalp shouldn't hurt, that's one of the first signs you're not dealing with androgenic hairloss, those doctors are f*****g morons.

I remember my crown hurting even before I started thinning. So it's not male pattern baldness? Even if the pattern is exactly the same? I remember some very specifics episodes of SEVERE itching and burning scalp at night a few years before I notice the very first possible male pattern baldness sign. It only happened exact 3 times when I was between 18-19. Not a single time after it. My scalp still itches a lot, but not in a burning way and it don't hurts.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

If you have scalp pain it sounds like it's probably inflammatory unless you have something else going on like a bacterial or viral infection.

You really should try going to your doctor and trying topical corticosteroids, mometasone or betamethasone and possibly even something like dovonex in the event that it's some kind of other inflammatory hairloss.

Your scalp shouldn't hurt, that's one of the first signs you're not dealing with androgenic hairloss, those doctors are f*****g morons.

Oh how I pleaded with doctors in the beginning to explain to me why it hurt so much. Nobody cared. Multiple dermatologists, general practitioners, every psychiatrist or psychologist I’ve ever gone to, and I don’t even remember what other specialists.

It became obvious that it was androgenic hairloss. The pattern is so obvious and the loss is so extensive; probably a NW7 now. I think there’s just always been serious inflammation associated with it that’s I’ve not been able to get rid of totally.

Something totally changed in me when my scalp hairloss started. I’m sure I mentioned the body hair changes in my long posts above.

And the concurrent start (or ramp up) of my bipolar disorder (10+ years before it was decided it wasn’t just depression) was f*****g terrible. For me it’s alternating anger and dispair, not the sad/happy situation that people think it is. It’s as controlled as it will be with medication now. But losing my hair and hate how I looked, going “crazy”, and essentially losing a career at at once was...not fun.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

I remember my crown hurting even before I started thinning. So it's not male pattern baldness? Even if the pattern is exactly the same? I remember some very specifics episodes of SEVERE itching and burning scalp at night a few years before I notice the very first possible male pattern baldness sign. It only happened exact 3 times when I was between 18-19. Not a single time after it. My scalp still itches a lot, but not in a burning way and it don't hurts.

I replied below that I eventually decided it was related to androgenic hairloss for me. My scalp does still hurt at times and if I let my hair start growing it can be uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels like the hair is growing out of the follicle and either hurting there or jabbing me in the scalp near where it’s growing. I know that sounds crazy but the hair on top of my head grows forward and if it gets even a few mm long I can feel and and I find myself pushing it backward or digging at it (slightly!) with my fingernails to raise the ends of the hairs of my scalp.

But hopefully good news below!

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

I remember my crown hurting even before I started thinning. So it's not male pattern baldness? Even if the pattern is exactly the same? I remember some very specifics episodes of SEVERE itching and burning scalp at night a few years before I notice the very first possible male pattern baldness sign. It only happened exact 3 times when I was between 18-19. Not a single time after it. My scalp still itches a lot, but not in a burning way and it don't hurts.

IMO the same follicular vulnerability that can be caused by androgenic pattern hairloss is also a vulnerability to other disorders.

All I can say is I lost hair in a pattern style and it clearly has not been your typical androgenetic alopecia. I lost a lot in a patterned style back when I was 26 and basically got it all back on that occasion taking topical corticosteroids.

The best way I can describe people who are vulnerable to Androgenetic Alopecia pattern type hairloss is basically that those hair follicles are vulnerable in GENERAL to a wide variety of potential conditions and hormones. Just because it follows a pattern doesn't mean it's solely androgens, at least that has been my experience.

IMO now I don't believe that half of cases in the west are exclusively mediated by testosterone, I think a lot of them are due to insulin/blood sugar issues and high prolactin as a result of the stressful and poor dietary nature of western living, as well as underlying health issues.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

So, redness from my first microneedling session was largely gone by Saturday and I couldn’t really see anything by Sunday. This is still going to be hard to time because I do go out some weekends. I may have to skip needling some weeks and eventually I’ll have to tell my girlfriend “Hey, so I’ve been using a machine to poke needles into my head.”

Good new is that I think it makes my scalp feel better! I don’t want to get my hopes up too much but it seemed to help.

I was also trying to do some scalp massaging. I looked online for a scalp massager - I’m so lazy! I didn’t see anything that looked good and I’m not sure anything would get as deep as I was trying to with my fingers.

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

So, redness from my first microneedling session was largely gone by Saturday and I couldn’t really see anything by Sunday. This is still going to be hard to time because I do go out some weekends. I may have to skip needling some weeks and eventually I’ll have to tell my girlfriend “Hey, so I’ve been using a machine to poke needles into my head.”

Good new is that I think it makes my scalp feel better! I don’t want to get my hopes up too much but it seemed to help.

I was also trying to do some scalp massaging. I looked online for a scalp massager - I’m so lazy! I didn’t see anything that looked good and I’m not sure anything would get as deep as I was trying to with my fingers.

If you are vulnerable to inflammation you need to be very careful about how often you do that, I do dermaroll myself but I do it once every three to four days and only if my scalp has not experienced any sudden uptick of inflammatory action. You want the "good" kind of inflammation to spur growth and if your follicles are constantly being stressed or vulnerable to the bad kind, you can absolutely overdo it.

 

[Will Be an Egg in 5 years]

I replied below that I eventually decided it was related to androgenic hairloss for me. My scalp does still hurt at times and if I let my hair start growing it can be uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels like the hair is growing out of the follicle and either hurting there or jabbing me in the scalp near where it’s growing. I know that sounds crazy but the hair on top of my head grows forward and if it gets even a few mm long I can feel and and I find myself pushing it backward or digging at it (slightly!) with my fingernails to raise the ends of the hairs of my scalp.

But hopefully good news below!

With it's like this: It itches, I scratch the area (gently) and BAM, 3 strands on my hand, 3 or more on the desk. And of course, thin ones.

 

[Will Be an Egg in 5 years]

IMO the same follicular vulnerability that can be caused by androgenic pattern hairloss is also a vulnerability to other disorders.

All I can say is I lost hair in a pattern style and it clearly has not been your typical androgenetic alopecia. I lost a lot in a patterned style back when I was 26 and basically got it all back on that occasion taking topical corticosteroids.

The best way I can describe people who are vulnerable to Androgenetic Alopecia pattern type hairloss is basically that those hair follicles are vulnerable in GENERAL to a wide variety of potential conditions and hormones. Just because it follows a pattern doesn't mean it's solely androgens, at least that has been my experience.

IMO now I don't believe that half of cases in the west are exclusively mediated by testosterone, I think a lot of them are due to insulin/blood sugar issues and high prolactin as a result of the stressful and poor dietary nature of western living, as well as underlying health issues.

Yes, sure diet, stress and stuff acelerated it for those who already are MBP prone.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

Week 2

After reading up on the supposed Folica procedure this week, today I tried using the Derminator 2 at 0.75 mm. I knew it would take a long time to achieve the required wound density with the Derminator 2. I made several passes which took awhile because my control with the tool is not great. I had a few small blood drops and some redness. The redness seemed to be about as intense as at 1.5 mm but I wasn’t feeling any of the sunburn-like feeling I had before.

I decided to go again about 30 minutes later at 1.5 mm and to cover some areas I didn’t get before, specifically from my temples down to my ears and back to the middle of my head. Now that I’m using clippers on my hair every few days rather than shaving my head I can see a lot of miniaturization in that area.

Attached are pics after the 1.5 mm session. I cannot get a good picture of the back of my head! I posted one from before I started so you can at least see the extent of the loss. I didn’t post any other before photos. They’d just be the same without blood - there’s individual hairs but no coverage at all.

I think I am going to use numbing cream next time. The pain is not bad but I need to improve my technique and that should help me focus on it more.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

Update

I’ve continued to microneedle with the Derminator 2 at 1.5 mm weekly. I have to do it on Friday and let my scalp heal over the weekend so that it looks normal by work on Monday. I had one week when I could not microneedle due to weekend activities.

I let my girlfriend know that I was doing this. She thought it sounded crazy but talked to her therapist who must have been looking it up online while there were on the phone because he told her there might be something to it. We joke about me “stabbing” my head but she still doesn’t like it. I told her it would be easier if she would do it for me but I don’t think she’d be able to handle “hurting” me.

The tightness and pain I have felt since I started losing my hair is largely gone. I do still have an uncomfortable feeling where my “temples” would be if they weren’t so super receded. Does that make sense? I still do have a tiny area of hair closer to my forehead. The sides of that and the points where it connects to the sides of my head waayy back on top of my head still itch and sometimes feel tight.

I’ve shaved my head with a razor for a long long time but there were plenty of times I got lazy and let it grow for a few days. Now I’ve grown a beard (which I keep at 3 mm because it’s thin, trying minoxidil) and didn’t want a totally bald head. I use a trimmer to cut it to 1 mm though it grows slightly longer because I don’t do it everyday.

I THINK I’m seeing more thin black (or white) hairs than before. I definitely feel (and if I look closely can see) vellus hairs. If I run my hand over the top of my head I feel hair! I will see if I can get any pictures but I might have to wait a few more months to see if there’s something that’s easier to see.

Maybe those vellus hairs will never become terminal but I’m sticking with microneedling for at least a year. I’ve been on Rogaine foam for about a year. I bought some and it doesn’t take much work to put it on a shaved head so I’d been trying it. I wasn’t noticing any difference when I let my hair grow. Maybe microneedling is just allowing the minoxidil to work.

I’m concerned about the areas that are still itchy and sometimes tight and irritated. I also see miniaturization well down the sides of my head so I am micro needling there too. It looks like without help my head wants to drop almost all my hair. I hadn’t noticed this until my hair was longer and I was focused on it during microneedling.

I want to get on something to block DHT. I took finasteride before and got sexual side effects. I took dutasteride and started to get an ache near the top of my ribs. I bet that would have lead to gynecomastia had I not immediately stopped it. I am on several psychiatric medications which have possible sexual side effects. And I’ve got them. They’re not know to cause gynecomastia but I have taken multiple medications that do not list that as a side effect and get glandular tissue around my nipples. I was really upset for years when I found out I would have to have surgery if I wanted it removed. Changed medications for another reason and one day realized it was gone. That had happened multiple times. So that, and the fact that I really need to lose weight which could exacerbate this problem, is keeping me off finasteride for now.

I had some old 2% Nizoral shampoo from back when it was easy to buy US prescription items from Canada, etc. on eBay. I have gotten a supply from the UK but think I need something better that I can use daily.

I have the ingredients to make Zix on the way and may try that.

I haven’t read enough about RU45586 (wrong number?) and the other RUO topical chemical option to know if I want to try them. I am a (bio)chemist with access to a full lab so mixing things up is no problem.

Whatever I try will be initially judged based on whether it reduced the irritation/discomfort at my “hairline”. I do actually sort of have a hairline now! It’s just practically invisible.

Finally, I’ve also used the Derminator 2 on my face for the past two weeks at 0.25 mm. It feels like nothing but warmth and causes some redness. Nothing like the bloody mess on my scalp. I’ve got very visible pores and some small acne scars. It may be helping!

 

[whatintheworld]

In my opinion I would slow down man, derma rolling isn't going to do much at this point, it looks like you are a Norwood 7. I would quit it, along with all other treatments.

Your best bet is to look at transplant clinics that deal with high Norwoods and ask for a consultation to see what can be done.

 

[MissingPixels]

I don't think I've seen a case study for derma rolling + topicals for someone starting with a Norwood 7. It would be very interesting to see your one year progression/results. (Although unfortunately I think there is a good chance the answer might be "it didn't do much").

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

Week 2

After reading up on the supposed Folica procedure this week, today I tried using the Derminator 2 at 0.75 mm. I knew it would take a long time to achieve the required wound density with the Derminator 2. I made several passes which took awhile because my control with the tool is not great. I had a few small blood drops and some redness. The redness seemed to be about as intense as at 1.5 mm but I wasn’t feeling any of the sunburn-like feeling I had before.

I decided to go again about 30 minutes later at 1.5 mm and to cover some areas I didn’t get before, specifically from my temples down to my ears and back to the middle of my head. Now that I’m using clippers on my hair every few days rather than shaving my head I can see a lot of miniaturization in that area.

Attached are pics after the 1.5 mm session. I cannot get a good picture of the back of my head! I posted one from before I started so you can at least see the extent of the loss. I didn’t post any other before photos. They’d just be the same without blood - there’s individual hairs but no coverage at all.

I think I am going to use numbing cream next time. The pain is not bad but I need to improve my technique and that should help me focus on it more.

You're going wayyyy to f*****g hard with the dermaroller, you should not be bleeding like that, the only time you should see blood spots even close to that is if you're doing PRP injections.

With that procedure doing it that intensely is not going to increase or hasten your results, you'd be far better off gambling on estrogen, but if you have virtually nothing on top, save for a hair transplant.

 

[i_hate_my_hair]

I’m using a Derminator 2 once a week (missed one week) with a needle depth of 1.5 mm, not a dermaroller.

I see blood spots immediately upon starting use of the Derminator so it’s not a problem of pressing too hard (I definitely don’t) or using it too long. Maybe I need to decrease the needle depth.

I’d only consider a transplant if affordable hair cloning became available. Even then I’d be hesitant to get one due to the scalp itch/irritation/pain that I’ve felt since I first started losing my hair many years ago.

Using the Derminator has largely eliminated that feeling. There’s been no scalp pain since I started using it (not that using it doesn’t hurt).

I actually gained a bit of a hairline that I could definitely feel even if I couldn’t see much. Fine vellus hair started to grow in around the few stiff, dull hairs I still had on the top of my head.

Unfortunately, near the end of the two weeks that I did not microneedle I was feeling less of that new hair. I guess time will tell if that was a permanent shed of what had grown or if a new growth cycle starts.

I have also been feeling itchiness at what I can only think to call my very, very receded “temples”. That was always accompanied by hairloss. I’ve always felt it to some extent since I started losing my hair. For example I’d feel it along the part on the left side of my head and at my right temple as I lost hair in those areas. There is still some of that fine new hair that appeared after I started microneedling, but it is disappearing most rapidly from the areas where I’ve had that feeling. It’s been so long since I’ve been on finesteride that I can’t remember if it did anything to alleviate this itch. Based on the locations I’ve felt it in over the years I believe it’s due to DHT-related damage to the foliciles. I’m not considering retrying finesteride at this time for several reasons. I have not used Nizoral lately though an old bottle of DS Laboratories’ Revita shampoo seems to somewhat reduce the itch during the day.

Im going to continue with the micro needling though perhaps at a lower depth. I want to be optimistic so I’m still hoping for some results. At a minimum it makes my scalp feel better.

Like I said above, I felt (and barely saw) hair on the top of my head for the first time in years. I think this experiment had been worth it just for that. Microneedling did something for me. Perhaps it just increased the absorption of minoxidil (Rogaine foam) which had no effect after a year. I may ultimately get no regrow but I can see how it may help someone who had less extensive hairloss and whose hairloss has not been accompanied by scalp irritation and an overall change in hair texture and color (all hair corse and dull; all body hair grows significantly longer than before - this started with hairloss and is not connected to minoxidil use).

For reference, at 74 my father has lost almost all his hair including his eyebrows. He had some thin hair left on the sides. My brother, 38, has significant recession at his temples, diffuse loss on top, and a bald spot starting at his crown. My other brother, 35, had a change in the texture of his hair (that was obvious to me who noticed that kind of thing) at least 10 years ago. His hairline has receded but he still has a full head of hair. I haven’t noticed significant changes in it for years. None of them lost their hair as quickly as I did or had my type of scalp issues. To my knowledge none of them have tried anything to treat their hairloss.