so, last year for about 6 months I used a topical solution of Minoxidil5%/Latanoprost/ketoconazole for about 7 8 months and I didn't notice any regrowth. if anything I think I got more diffused thinning.
I realize now that I should have been taking Finasteride as well but I have been off it for years because it gives me terrible ED. I started it again weeks ago and even with the severe ED I am planning on using it.
I wonder,how much of me not getting any results by using stimulants is caused by smoking?
I am a chain smoker and have been since my teenage years. Yes, I realize it's very bad and there are arguments for it causing inflammation or blocking the proper nutrition and oxygen path to cells but I have never found a study that specifically analyzing the effect of smoking on hairloss or lack of progress in stimulating hair growth.
I realize it is very easy to say to smokers to just quit it, however if it was that easy I would have quit this thing a long *** time ago.
what do you guys think? do you think smoking can directly cause hairloss or diffused thinning or lack of progress with growth stimulants?
I believe that because everyone is built differently, it's most definitely possible that different things will affect some more than others.
For example, I know people who smoke or drink all the time, for over 40 years and have far better hair, with little to no hairloss, than people who have an extremely healthy lifestyle (don't drink, don't smoke, eat healthy, exercise). It's really all to do with genetics.
Some people have far superior genetics and some have far weaker or more sensitive genetics.
For example, as you mentioned, some people who take Finasteride experience sexual side effects, some suffer from long-term sexual side effects, yet some people think sexual side effects are absurdly rare or easily reversible (obviously biased opinion because it hasn't happened to them). It all depends how sensitive the individual is.
Another simple example is how some people can literally only brush their teeth once a day in the morning, and still have good breath the whole day even after they drink and smoke and eat. Yet some have to brush atleast twice a day (with brushing at night being a necessity), because they can't get away so easily. Simple genetics. Some people just have greater genes than others.
Likewise, some people can masturbate and not experience any acceleration in hairloss, whilst others don't have such strong genes and cannot and loads of people are reporting that masturbation is accelerating their thinning or hairloss.
But you won't find studies on many things like how alcohol or smoking definitively causes or accerates hairloss/thinning (as you yourself mentioned). You won't find studies of how Masturbation accelerates thinning/hairloss in some, yet these outliers exist.
You must remember it's usually a minority that are sensitive to such things but just because it's a minority, doesn't mean it's a small number that gets affected, it just means it's a smaller percentage of people who get affected. When people bring up such topics on hairloss forums people often negatively comment and say "it's always the minority fear mongering".
But even 5% of 100 million people = 5 million people. Which is a damn lot of people.
Let's take America alone which has a population size of around 330 million people. So even if it's a minority 1% of the population, that's still 33 million people affected. Which is why I always say, even the minority are allowed a voice to speak about what affects them.
You must remember, even when studies are done, it's not including thousands of people. It's a relatively very very very small number of people. I always say, this small amount can never truly represent every single male in the world. Theres so many types of people who won't be in the study. Basically, I'm not going to see something as the gospel truth as long as it hasn't been tested on every single person. Or at least a few million people.
For such a reason, I take studies with a grain of salt, and what is often deemed as "outliers" aren't really outliers to begin with, they simply were either the minority % in the study or weren't even included in the small study at all to begin with.
Even the best most renowned hair transplant surgeons, dermatologists, trichololigists, scientists, all claim outright the same things:
"They don't know everything about hair and hair loss. They don't know everything about what causes hair loss. They still haven't discovered all the pathways that activate hair loss. If they knew all the true causes of hair loss, then only will they be able to find a true cure and we're many years away from that. "
So for certain doctors, dermatologists, hair transplant surgeons (this rarely happens with scientists because they question everything and take nothing as unquestionable fact), to claim with such certainty what does and doesn't cause hairloss and what really works and what doesn't, with such certainty, is actually quite ironic if you think about it.
I believe everyone knows their bodies better than anyone else, so if your gut feeling tells you something isn't right, or that something is bad for you, or something might be triggering or accelerating something/ your hairloss or thinning, then listen to yourself. You often won't find studies for everything, but you often will find several other people ask questions whether certain things are triggering factors. You don't always need studies to solidify what your gut is telling you, learn to listen to your body. Our bodies are often far smarter and are always telling us things. Most of us have been conditioned into thinking a certain way and so we don't listen.
I always say, lack of studies, lack of research or lack of proper studies does not necessarily mean lack of truth.
These points are all highly underrated.
