how discouraging..

[jeffsss]

I'm too ashamed to show pics... from just one month ago until now, i've transformed into a freak.
i've even grown out my hair longer to try to compensate. big mistake. makes it more noticable.
it seems as if since i began my regimine, my hair loss has become worse.

June- thick hair, not a care in the world.
July- noticed thin hair while wet under light in certain conditions
August- noticed thin hair under light while had gel in it. (begin treatment)
september- begain losing more hair in the shower 30+
October- thin hair (mostly frontal) cant spike it up even with glue, would look ridiculous anyway. began a new look that concealed hair loss.
November- worst month yet. hair is faling out like crazy. even with new hair style hair loss is very noticable still losing 30-40+ hairs per day (just in the shower)

today?!? I litterally cried in the shower.. i lather up my hair, run my fingers though it, slap the tile in the shower and see about 20 hairs sticking.. damn....

I think i've lost hope. I'll finish up all the meds/treatments i've purchased, but i'm probabaly thowing in the towel and buzzing the dome.

I find it just amazing that the transformation happened so quickly.. i figured that going bald meant that you'd lose hair gradually.. nope.. hair loss is nasty. worst part is, i had to deal with it on my 26th birthday.. still fairly young!
good luck boys!

 

[Britannia]

Jeffsss your hair would have been thinning for a long time before, but all of a sudden it would become noticable. That happens to most people here - they know they have thinning hair and then one day they look in the mirror and their hairloss has reached such a point that you think "f*** Im bald" :freaked2: . Then the panic starts, you search for an cure. At this point you are most vulnerable to the snake oil salesman. Hopefully you find a site like this and get yourself on a decent regeime.
You havent been on your regeime that long and its perfectly normal to have an intial shed, which can last months. The good news is hair lost in this period is regrown. You should stick with your regeime. Give it a year and then make a decision.

 

[SE-freak]

No reason being ashamed of showing pics. Pics are a wonderful tool and we all share the shame feelings around here. We are not like the occasional neaderthal making the odd baldspot comment.

Relax.

 

[jeffsss]

Jeffsss your hair would have been thinning for a long time before, but all of a sudden it would become noticable. That happens to most people here - they know they have thinning hair and then one day they look in the mirror and their hairloss has reached such a point that you think "f*** Im bald" :freaked2: . Then the panic starts, you search for an cure. At this point you are most vulnerable to the snake oil salesman. Hopefully you find a site like this and get yourself on a decent regeime.
You havent been on your regeime that long and its perfectly normal to have an intial shed, which can last months. The good news is hair lost in this period is regrown. You should stick with your regeime. Give it a year and then make a decision.

Britannia, i really appreciate your advise...

just based on the polls that i've seen etc.. you will not grow back hair you've lost. I'm pretty convinced that once they're gone.. they're gone!!!

even if I don't lose another hair. i wont be happy with it. it's thin as hell.

 

[jeffsss]

No reason being ashamed of showing pics. Pics are a wonderful tool and we all share the shame feelings around here. We are not like the occasional neaderthal making the odd baldspot comment.

Relax.

thanks SE, i realize that. but it just sickens myself to even look at them...

 

[SE-freak]

I have found that playing the "little scientist" with your hair (taking pics, posting commenting on) gives you some kind of distance that really helps put the problem under the right proportions and start discussing it, while at the same time giving others the opportunity to help you more.

 

[Freestyle]

I think as a public service, I'm going to start putting this post everywhere...

NEWBIE ALERT:

The above are one person's opinions. They are not facts.

You CAN regrow hair that you've lost within the last 2-3 years. Not ALL of it, but a good amount if your hair loss is recent and not advanced.

This can be done by using proven treatments like Finasteride (Propecia, Finpecia, Proscar etc.) and Minoxidil (Rogaine, Kirklands etc.)

And always use a treatment consistently for at least 6-12 months before dropping it or adding something else.

Negative opinions on forums like these outweigh the success stories, simply because the success stories aren't hanging around here any more -- they're off enjoying life and their regrown hair.

 

[HairlossTalk]

Free - good luck with that. Its what I try and do all day long. Its a wild goose chase.

Jeff .... I know that what you're going through is genuine. You're not just some irritating troll making things up. That being said, I've been way more patient with you than some of these other goobs....

But at this point I am thinking of tying you down to a chair, muzzling you, tying your hands behind your back, and not letting you type another word until you post some photos of your head.

We need to see your hair.

If you want me to, I can send you a disposable camera tomorrow, free of charge, and you can take 40 pics of your head and mail the camera back to me.

Let me know how you'd like to proceed.

HairLossTalk.com

 

[jeffsss]

Free - good luck with that. Its what I try and do all day long. Its a wild goose chase.

Jeff .... I know that what you're going through is genuine. You're not just some irritating troll making things up. That being said, I've been way more patient with you than some of these other goobs....

But at this point I am thinking of tying you down to a chair, muzzling you, tying your hands behind your back, and not letting you type another word until you post some photos of your head.

We need to see your hair.

If you want me to, I can send you a disposable camera tomorrow, free of charge, and you can take 40 pics of your head and mail the camera back to me.

Let me know how you'd like to proceed.

HairLossTalk.com

HairLossTalk.com
I'm at the breaking point.. I don't know what to do. my social life is diminishing.

I hope you don't want pics as in "proof" that i'm losing my hair. It's not even funny. I am. I'm not one to come on here and try to badmouth anyone or anything. I'm simply out of options.

4 months ago i could cut my hair down to 2 inches, spike it up, leave and have a great day..

today, i comb my hair forward, push hair to the sides to cover temples. I've litterally lost an inch and a half off of my hair line.. it's sickening.. even worse is that the rest of my head is ultra thin. no moose, no gel nothing... i wake up in the AM, run my hands though my hair and cannot belive it's my own head. it's like reality hasnt even set in yet.

like i've said. i'm not here to alarm anyone. all the meds i take are good for some people. but i dont think i'm one of them.

the only drug that i've taken thus far to help me is zoloft. It's like my life is crumbling before me.... I was about to propose to my girlfriend of 5 years and now i'm scared to because or relationship has changed. I honestly feel suicidial. no joke HairLossTalk.com. I am not playing around at all.

and i know i hear.. " think positive " it could be worse etc..!!.. but damn man.. i can't take it.

 

[Solo]

Come on, Jefsss. Stay on meds, get into minoxidil. It´s not such a problem to apply it once you get used. You´r gonna get progress.

Also, the regimen thing helps to take the whole thing from a certain distance.

Hairloss is not the end of the world for anyone. As you might realize it´s a thing that´s only in your mind. Help you with a good regimen and, one day, things are going to go through the right way without you noticing.

Social acceptance is over-valorated. The key is your own acceptance. You are going to have friends, you are going to find a girl, you are going to make a professional career even with a NW7.

No word I can say to you that is gonna take you out from the hole, I know, but just try to stay head up, even if you´r down, do the right thing and force the attitude, even if you feel you can´t. One day you´ll be in the game again, and maybe you´ll be one or two steps ahead than the average guy that doesn´t know how to cope with a consuming situation like this.

 

[noorur]

I think as a public service, I'm going to start putting this post everywhere...

NEWBIE ALERT:

The above are one person's opinions. They are not facts.

You CAN regrow hair that you've lost within the last 2-3 years. Not ALL of it, but a good amount if your hair loss is recent and not advanced.

This can be done by using proven treatments like Finasteride (Propecia, Finpecia, Proscar etc.) and Minoxidil (Rogaine, Kirklands etc.)

And always use a treatment consistently for at least 6-12 months before dropping it or adding something else.

Negative opinions on forums like these outweigh the success stories, simply because the success stories aren't hanging around here any more -- they're off enjoying life and their regrown hair.

2-3 years huh ? does that also include the hairline aswell as the recessions ??

 

[mogadon]

jeffsss, of course its up to you wether to post pictures, but im sure it would help, maybe your fear is not that its embarrising, but that people may say its not that bad, and dismiss it, after all people do that all the time even my own mother doesnt seem to comprehend my hairloss, and that makes you feel worse its like they just dont get it!

BUT this is a hairloss forum where everyone to a degree is the same boat, and people understand, sure some people cope with it better, but it still gets everyone down,

we all have to deal with the hand were given, and in my hairloss it was a pretty sh*t one, and its f*cking hard, but you have to keep telling yourself it aint my fault, and keep repeating it, unfortunately we cant change our genes.

if you give up now that would be a crime imo, and years down the road you might think to yourself "if only id stuck with my hairloss regime i wonder if it would of worked" but it may be to late to try again because you might be bald.

so keep with the meds, and remember no one ever said life was fair !

good luck

 

[Freestyle]

From September 2004 to February 2005, my hair loss zoomed along at a frightening pace. I receded back a whole lot and thinned out in a strip running right up my head.

That's when I started doing something about it.

By May, having been on minoxidil and finasteride for a few months, I was still depressed by the loss. That's when I found this place. I lurked here forever before I finally joined up to sell some Avodart I had gotten on a jump-the-gun moment in a really bad shed (September).

But the information I read here about shedding and sticking with treatments was enough to keep me buckled in for the long ride.

So you know what I did in June?

I shaved my head. Right down to the bare skin. And I kept is shaved for two months while I continued the treatments. And it didn't look so bad. I now know that being completely bald is not going to be the end of the world for me.

But a funny thing happened -- I started to stress less and just got on with life. When I started to let my hair grow back in at the end of August, I noticed a lot of fine hairs scattered in amonst the remaining thick hairs.

In September, they fell out, and I panicked again. I was going to swicth to dutasteride. I ordered some, got a prescription and everything.

But reading everyone's thoughts here once again turned me off of switching treatments just because of a shed.

And now the shed has stopped, my hair is still growing and those tiny vellus hairs are starting to turn terminal. There are terminal hairs sprouting out randomly and awkwardly amidst the other vellus hairs in my receded spots. I just trim them close with scissors so they don't look ridiculous, but they are slowly being joined by others as the weeks progress.

Jeffsss -- you are going through a shed.

You may not want to believe it, and will look for any other possibility (like failure of treatments), but you're just going through what every other person here has been through.

Stick to the treatments for a year and see how you go. This is a test. Don't give up. Shave your head right down or wear a cap for a few months. But don't give up on treatments.

If you can keep what you have and get back some of what you lost, then that's great. You can get a hair transplant later to fill it in.

But don't abandon treatments this early on, or I can guarantee you that things will be much worse for you in a year's time.

 

[Britannia]

Jeffsss at the end of the day if you continue taking your Propecia you have an 83% chance of maintaining, and even regrowing your hear. Yes you may have sides at the moment and may see little effect on your hair, but like everyone keeps telling you - YOU NEED PATIENCE.

 

[jeffsss]

Jeffsss at the end of the day if you continue taking your Propecia you have an 83% chance of maintaining, and even regrowing your hear. Yes you may have sides at the moment and may see little effect on your hair, but like everyone keeps telling you - YOU NEED PATIENCE.

i'm approaching the 3 month mark and see zero improvement.. seems like accelerated loss at this point.

I'll try to be patient

 

[Solo]

The worst moment of my regimen was month 3. Since then everything went upwards.


I was quite desperate at that moment. I shaved my head to the bone.

 

[jeffsss]

The worst moment of my regimen was month 3. Since then everything went upwards.


I was quite desperate at that moment. I shaved my head to the bone.

and how are things now?

 

[Solo]

Better than baseline, for sure. I wear my hair long and nice.

I´ve had a general thickening of the top, in the entire Norwood 7 area that was previously thinning. I even have some hairs growing in the temples I cannot remember to posses in my adult life.

I´m looking for a bit more of thickening in the crown and I´ll have a f*****g full head of hair. I´ve never thought it ever could be possible in the first place.

Also, as I told you before, now I´m approaching the matter in a more saludable way. I´m not feeling the previous anxiety. Don´t know if it´s due to results or what. I found the regimen discipline helpful when handling the situation.

Also I´ve restart a relationship I broke due to my temporary feelings of despair and low self-steem. I feel like I was not deserving to have a girlfriend, like a fraud. Somehow I recovered my confidence. Now I´m very very happy I did it. It´s, like I told you before, coming back into the game. I feel like I can breathe freely now.

I´ve never been so possitive about myself since I was 20 and started concerning about my hair loss.

Well, I´m not saying my life is now with a continous rainbow shining in the background, but I feel again like I can face everything, lose or win, but face the problems I find every day, and have fun in the interludes...

I bet you can overcome it as I did. I´m a middle-class weak guy overprotected by his parents, with little psycological resources to face adversities and I was able to manage it all. I bet you can.

 

[jeffsss]

Better than baseline, for sure. I wear my hair long and nice.

must be nice.. how is your hair line?? I'd give a testical to restore my hair line to a year ago..
do you think i should try rogaine even though it's the front of my head that needs the help?

I bet you can overcome it as I did. I´m a middle-class weak guy overprotected by his parents, with little psycological resources to face adversities and I was able to manage it all. I bet you can.

i hope your right..

 

[Solo]

Well, my hairline is ok, but I never had any recession. Just general thinning, more pronounced in the line that goes from the front to the vertex.

But the thing is I´m getting unexpected regrowth in hairline!!

two cm in front of it there´s a colony of black terminal hairs that weren´t before. And I haven´t applyed minoxidil there, I rub it just in the thinning areas.

Those hairs are not enough to make the effect of an "advancing hairline" (I´ve never have a hairline that low, just some vellous hairs when I was a teen) but are a prove for me that minoxidil has got certain power.

I think minoxidil is basic if you want temple regrowth, combined with finasteride. minoxidil is the best regrowth agent in the market, as in terms of proof of its effectiveness and widespread use w/ good results.


Also, it´s said by many people that they regrow many hairs in the temples using minoxidil, but they are vellous-like and don´t have cosmetic significance.

If you get that, you can try another treatments to make those hairs kick-in to terminal or to get more regrowth or to improve the quality of your hair, even though no one of them has lots of background like finasteride and minoxidil: Copper peptides, Caffeine shampoo, MSM supplement (I´m trying this one myself for the definite boost), topical spironolactone.... just experiment and research.

BUT, do not try anything serious or alter your regimen til you reach the one year mark.

Dermatologist refuses to make assesments if the treatment duration has been shorter than a year.

Get on the big 3, stay for a year, do it religiously, cope with the hard
times. It´s worth it.

You can hear tons, and I mean tons, of discouragement, anger and frustration in this boards. A lot of people complaining and claiming bad results. Bullshit. Majority of them are panicking. Sorry if I´m harsh, but that is plain true.

I´ve been checking this boards and others for about 1 year or so, and I´ve noticed the following facts:

Fact 1:

I´ve never seen a single photographic evidence of one guy that has been on the big 3 and has gotten worse after a year.

Fact 2:

I´ve seen many of mantenaince+regrowth pics. Some just a bit, in other cases nice regrowth. All of them kept solid routines based in the big 3. Sorry, but I´ve never seen a success story of a guy using alternative treatments. I´ve heard of them, though. :lol:


Fact 3:

I´ve seen many many people making statements about hair disasters on finasteride, min and whatever. NEVER a single before/after pic to support those statements.


Judge for yourself...