I Am Actually Regrowing My Hair + Hairline Without Min Or finasteride (mechanical Stimulation)

MyThinningConfidence

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I just want to put this out there, my hair just keeps growing and growing. I'm getting actual compliments from family members that had no idea about my treatments and my friend even accused me of taking Rogaine even though I'm not. I've been pessimistic the majority of my hairloss journey but the amount I've regrown thus far is simply short of amazing. I literally looked in the mirror and cried with joy from how much I've regrown. I was initially told balding was inevitable and to just shave it and that not having a choice completely crushed me for many years. It means so damn much to me that I was able to accomplish this despite people telling me it was impossible. I'd say currently about a 20% density increase and I'd be completely happy with my hair if I was able to maintain that but it looks like I'm going to grow far more than just that. Also based on my vellus hairs I asked a few people what Norwood level it looks like I'll end up and they said NW2 which is absolutely crazy coming from a NW4.5 with poor density. I am beyond happy with my results and regime so far and I plan to continue it for life. That said hair is preoccupying less and less of my mind and I'm slowly losing interest in HairlossTalk and Tressless, I'm starting to instead focus on improving other aspects of myself which is a better investment of time than anything hair loss related. I've become increasingly lazy with my regrowth updates over time and I barely have the motivation anymore. I'll still post some updates but don't expect it to be anything like my first hairline album where you can literally see the new hairs slowly grow, that took me an entire night of comparing images and getting the right angle to put together.

Edit, I ended up adding Finasteride anyways to help promote regrowth and ensure maintenance, I've split the post into two parts so you can see my levels of regrowth from my all natural approach.


Picture Albums:
Pre finasteride
September Update
Post finasteride
November
https://imgur.com/a/JnpXHEI

December
New Years
https://imgur.com/a/1YdPQWV

January
https://imgur.com/a/1Rrk27A

Regime -
  • Derma Roller 1.5mm - weekly, Also worth noting that stamps are more effective and clearly better, the only reason I'm using a roller is because I couldn't find any quality stamps in Australia. I'm using a Dr. Roller
  • Finasteride 1.25mg - Daily
  • Nizoral - weekly
  • Zinc Pyrithione - daily (It's an anti-dandruff shampoo ingredient, stop asking)
  • Scalp Massage - daily (I try to aim for 5 minutes daily, I expanded on scalp massages in this thread) The massages are based on Rob at Perfect Hair Health
  • Fish Oil - Taken casually, used to be daily
  • Added Dermapen 5th of December
Order of perceived effectiveness
1. Microneedling
2. Finasteride
3. Scalp Massages
4. Zinc Pyrithione/Ketoconazole
5. Everything else

Effects
Derma Rolling
0.5mm
was initially ineffective, no results aside from making my skin flake off with dandruff, after stepping up to a 1.5mm I've been seeing results within the week
Nizoral I started using this on July 10th alongside 1.5mm rolling after a moderate shed, I stopped scalp massages and Zinc Pyrithione for 6 days and my dermatitis and scalp itch came back fast, I was sitting in the shower putting all my shedded hair aside, there was about 1/5 of a fringe there. I decided to try this to help bounce back. No perceived effects although it's hard to isolate it from the derma rolling, it definitely dries out my scalp and makes my hair frizzy, a Japanese study found daily ketoconazole use to be equivalent to 2% minoxidil. (I can't find it right now though)
Zinc Pyrithione The first thing I added to my regime, It got rid of about 80% of my dermatitis. This appeared to have extremely minor effects on hair density, maybe a 5%-10% increase. It just appeared to mainly slow down the shedding.There is a study that has shown Zinc Pyrithione to improve hair growth.
Scalp Massages stopped my scalp itch and made my hair dramatically less greasy. It also gave my hair more life and I think improved overall follicle health improving all my existing hair but it did literally nothing for my hairline. I started consistent daily scalp massages around the end of May. (I recently expanded on the scalp massages in this thread here, since it was too big for this post.)
Scalp Exercise no perceived benefit although it's incredibly easy to do and I can imagine it'd promote blood flow. It's also possible it could release tension caused by muscles near the scalp which attributes to scalp tension.

Dropped treatments:
  • Lipogaine The Big 5 - Weekly (Added September 4th)
  • Scalp Exercise - Based on Tom Hagerty (WARNING! Improper technique of scalp exercises will cause rather bad forehead wrinkles)
    no perceived benefit but I sometimes do it still although rarely in the case there is actual benefit.
  • DRS 2mm Derma stamp 140 needle Added 1st of November (it was garbage)
Random treatments I've tried throughout:
Sunflower Oil, lemon juice, miconazole, white vinegar, sunlight exposure, eggs, vegetable oil, inversion method

Exact Products I bought -
Wasted money -
  • DRS Dermastamp 2mm 140 needle -$20
  • Lipogaine The Big 5 -$50


Genetic Factors with me
  • There is a link between balding and acne which I had a lot of in my teens along with incredibly greasy hair and skin.
  • I likely have higher estrogen levels, I have a rather feminine complexion and minor man boobs and other feminine qualities. I also have little qualities indicative of high testosterone and supposedly the ratio of T to E being imbalanced can play a part in balding.
  • I have a lot of body hair which indicates high levels of DHT, you'd expect this to be opposite if I had high estrogen levels but it's the other way around and supposedly you want to reduce estrogen levels. I forget the explanation but I'll try link an article if I get time.
  • I started balding at puberty which is when I was around 12 years old.
  • There is a strong genetic factor for balding in my family, my younger brother is already a NW2 and my sister has a fairly bad receding hairline although her one is filled in with small light hairs as opposed to completely bald.
Commonly asked questions -
Adding soon

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Jumping on finasteride starting September 20th, I've seen good results from an all natural approach so far and I'll definitely be sticking to the rest of my regime in conjunction with finasteride. I've seen good regrowth within my time frame with the most part of it being in only 3 months but this is still a long time and I'm coming back from being a NW4, at my current rate it will take years to regrow my hair and I understand as I get older my balding rate will only accelerate. I need all the help I can get as I'm wasting my youth and the sooner a full recovery the better.

I've also been growing even more body hair despite basically being a gorilla on the parts of my body with hair. I have a thick patch of long blonde hairs on my shoulder with some having pigmentation that looked exactly like my regrowth area, there are already a few big dark terminal hairs that look like pubes on my shoulder that I consistently pluck but I'd never have the time to pluck this many. Funnily it was actually this that made me instantly pull the trigger on finasteride as opposed to hairloss. Hair on the front is okay but as soon as it goes onto the shoulders and down the back it's a no from me.

I'm extremely close to having a satisfactory head of hair, it's thick enough to cover all my scalp and the fringe is thick enough to not show my shitty hairline in most conditions. If my hair got slightly thicker even retaining what I've regrown would be enough for me but I'm expecting to regrow much more. All of those little blonde hairs I've grown out on my hairline using my current regime will quite likely go terminal jumping over to finasteride I feel.

I won't be using minoxidil since it's overly priced and not that effective, it also comes with numerous other issues.

Based on my research finasteride isn't all that harmful and the side effects are fairly minimal compared to other drugs for various conditions unrelated to hairloss, basically every single drug I looked at had some form of side effect that was usually more of a problem than any potential ones from finasteride. A majority of the side effects experienced on finasteride have also been found to be placebo. There is no alternative to using finasteride and the reason is that the side effects from finasteride don't come directly from finasteride itself, it comes from inhibiting the production of DHT so any natural oral alternative will have the same side effects experienced as finasteride if any. The only reason people experience less or no sides with oral alternatives is that it's just simply less effective at inhibiting DHT so the side effects are less likely.


There are 3 main ways you can get around using finasteride if it's not for you though.
  1. Increase blood flow to the follicles to promote hair growth that outpaces your balding rate
  2. Decrease chronic scalp tension to reduce DHT's inflammatory response which leads to balding
  3. Use various topicals that have been shown to decrease scalp DHT (essential oils, formulated shampoos and Morr-F)
There are various ways you can tackle these things but it's a bigger topic and I don't feel like expanding on it right now, these options are obviously less effective than finasteride but shows there are at least other ways to combat DHT aside from oral finasteride.

Studies
Just a new section I made to keep track of studies for personal recollection.

Molecular Characterization of Microneedling Therapy.
Microneedling causes -
  • A downregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines
  • Upregulation of the known chemokine eotaxin (CCL11). CCL11 regulates cell activation and contributes to angiogenesis
Angiogenesis which is the formation of blood vessels is likely what's actually regrowing hair when microneedling.

Scalp Blood Flow In Balding Men
"The difference was statistically significant (p much less than 0.001). A reduced nutritive blood flow to the hair follicles might be a significant event in the pathogenesis of early male pattern baldness."

Fibrosis In Balding Scalps
Fibrosis was found in the scalps of balding men, this directly inhibits blood flow.

Involvement of Mechanical Stress in Androgenetic Alopecia
Mechanical stress caused by the chronic scalp tension due to factors like head shape play a part in the balding process with DHT being used as an inflammatory response which leads to the build up of fibrotic tissue in the balding areas.
"Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these treatments would be limited to hair loss prevention and regrowth of follicles without advanced perifollicular fibrosis. The Androgenetic Alopecia pathological process ends by the complete destruction of some affected follicles,[4] but most of them remain as vellus-like hair, so a large recovery is possible in theory. However, these therapies would face one of the biggest challenges of medicine today: Reversing a fibrotic process."
It's quite unlikely you're able to regrow hair in a completely bald area although if you're able to get longer vellus like hair in that area chances are you will have a great recovery. It could be also possible that anginogenesis is able to achieve these vellus like hairs.

Microneedling alone was found to be more effective Minoxidil alone
Regrowth 24weeks:
Minoxidil only 18.8/cm2
Microneedling 23.4/cm2
Microneedling + Min 38.3/cm2

Hair regrowth noted at only 1 week This reflects my experience as I typically noted new hairs forming by around 8 days, I had always thought I just grew hair faster than most people here but supposedly it's normal.
  • Initiation of new hair growth was noticeable by around 6 weeks in Microneedling group and by 10 weeks in Minoxidil group.
  • Rapid growth in the existing hair was seen at week 1 in the Microneedling group than Minoxidil group
Immediate Massage Stimulates Muscle Regeneration Angiogenesis and Decreases Fibrosis After Muscle Injury

Hair count results show a modest and sustained improvement in hair growth with daily use of a 1% pyrithione zinc shampoo over a 26-week treatment period.
 
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Heinrich Harrer

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Finally a man with actual alopecia, legit regimen and legit results while giving us a properly structured and detailed thread.

Questions: have you tried massaging the scalp with a vibration machine? Like the ones for cellulitis. What’s your aftercare for dermarolling 1,5mm? Can you tell me more about zinc pirithione and how do you apply?

Cheers!
 

MyThinningConfidence

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Finally a man with actual alopecia, legit regimen and legit results while giving us a properly structured and detailed thread.

Questions: have you tried massaging the scalp with a vibration machine? Like the ones for cellulitis. What’s your aftercare for dermarolling 1,5mm? Can you tell me more about zinc pirithione and how do you apply?

Cheers!
I haven't tried any vibration machine as of yet, only my finger tips, you need to get quite deep and forceful into the scalp to break up the fibrosis so any sort of vibration machine would likely need to be quite powerful and well designed to have a good effect, anything that promotes bloodflow to the hair follicles should have a theoretical effect though so it could be a good lazy addition.

Currently there isn't too much aftercare for the 1.5mm, I'm not even directly sanitizing the roller with anything, ideally I want to use 97% isopropyl alchohol although I just haven't had the opportunity to pick some up. Cases of infection are rare and I struggled to find anyone who got an infection by not sanitizing online, it can happen though and I should definitely be sanitizing correctly myself. I'm also using fresh lemon juice topically after each session which works as a mild disinfectant, not for that reason though and it's no replacement for alcohol to sanitize your roller.

Zinc pyrithione is a common ingredient in anti-dandruff shampoos, usually head and shoulders although I don't think we even have that in Australia.The one I use is just some odd organic one which is also vegan friendly apparently. It's super cheap which means it's good to balance it out with the high costs of Nizoral. https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/96387/organic-care-anti-dandruff-2-in-1-gingkosil
 

Panda89

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nice to see some results, especially after such a traumatic experience with hair loss that you mentioned in your post. as long as you are seeing results that you like you should keep doing it. but i do want to talk about minoxidil and finasteride, 2 of the more popular treatment that you are not doing now due to fear of side effects.

i have been using both + keto shampoo for the past 4 months and i have not gotten any side effects that you hear about on the internet. personally if i were you i would get on these 2 asap as finasteride, for most people, can only help you to maintain what you have left. getting on it too late is one of the biggest regrets i have. minoxidil, aka rogaine, is one of the most popular, off the shelf drugs that every day people have in their bathroom. you can always stop using if you find yourself to be one of the few people that get side effects.

my doctor advised me to apply minoxidil on damp hair (looked it up and there are a couple of studies from 2016 claiming it's 8-10 times more effective on damp hair instead of dry) and blow dry my hair after applying. although it is not recommended by most people, i've seen decent regrowth with this method. my hair isn't greasy going to bed or in the morning. the only thing i had to pay attention to was the dosage, as it bloated my face when i was using about 5-6ml per day. i'm using 3ml per day now and i have no side effects.

finasteride is usually seen as the most effective one of the big 3. i usually wouldn't recommend internet strangers to hop on some pill, but seeing you having suicidal thoughts during the worst period of your hair loss, i still would recommend you to consider. whatever side effects (if you end up getting any) would eventually go away for vast majority of the people.

call me rash, but to me personally, 2%-5% of anything is incredibly small, especially when it has a chance to ease the mentally debilitating effects of hair loss we've all come to experience.

good luck with your future treatments!
 

MyThinningConfidence

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nice to see some results, especially after such a traumatic experience with hair loss that you mentioned in your post. as long as you are seeing results that you like you should keep doing it. but i do want to talk about minoxidil and finasteride, 2 of the more popular treatment that you are not doing now due to fear of side effects.

i have been using both + keto shampoo for the past 4 months and i have not gotten any side effects that you hear about on the internet. personally if i were you i would get on these 2 asap as finasteride, for most people, can only help you to maintain what you have left. getting on it too late is one of the biggest regrets i have. minoxidil, aka rogaine, is one of the most popular, off the shelf drugs that every day people have in their bathroom. you can always stop using if you find yourself to be one of the few people that get side effects.

my doctor advised me to apply minoxidil on damp hair (looked it up and there are a couple of studies from 2016 claiming it's 8-10 times more effective on damp hair instead of dry) and blow dry my hair after applying. although it is not recommended by most people, i've seen decent regrowth with this method. my hair isn't greasy going to bed or in the morning. the only thing i had to pay attention to was the dosage, as it bloated my face when i was using about 5-6ml per day. i'm using 3ml per day now and i have no side effects.

finasteride is usually seen as the most effective one of the big 3. i usually wouldn't recommend internet strangers to hop on some pill, but seeing you having suicidal thoughts during the worst period of your hair loss, i still would recommend you to consider. whatever side effects (if you end up getting any) would eventually go away for vast majority of the people.

call me rash, but to me personally, 2%-5% of anything is incredibly small, especially when it has a chance to ease the mentally debilitating effects of hair loss we've all come to experience.

good luck with your future treatments!
Thank you, it's especially hard balding so severely when still in my teens when that time in your life is so centric on aesthetics and identity. I remember when I was 17 I had some suspicions I was balding, I had a pretty bad receding hairline but hair was still thick enough to cover. I did some minimal research and found that there was no cure, only drugs that usually only maintain or delay hair loss at most. They said once hair is gone, it's gone forever and I figured that to be true since more people would know about it otherwise. Since my hairline was already pretty poor I figured I couldn't do anything and I should be happy with what I've got. I went into denial I was balding for the next 3 years thinking I just had a big forehead since birth and it got so much worse in that time. After researching into finasteride it really made me wish I started taking it back then.

As for minoxidil there was two major factors I forgot to add in the post, my main reason before jumping on it before finding out about the sides was I didn't want to go through the initial shedding period when starting application. It also turns into a lifelong subscription and ties you down with the necessity to apply it, if you go off minoxidil for awhile and come back you have to go through that shedding period again which is rough. I know what I'm like and as my hair starts to look better I'd become much more slack and lazy with my application which wouldn't end well. It's much easier to just take a pill than apply minoxidil.

There is definitely a lot of fear mongering about treatments and side effects riddled with misinformation online, you can only really rely on yourself to fact check and debate if the potential sides outweigh the risks. At the point of having suicidal thoughts the side effects shouldn't matter but it's also worth considering how I'll feel once my hair is better and what problems I'll face then.

I'm definitely not against finasteride or min and I'll probably jump on just finasteride if I start to experience major shedding, so far I've been seeing dramatic results in my time frame considering some people on the Big Three can barely even regain their hair. I'll probably stick to my current regime for now and see how I go, I was pretty much a Norwood 4 before treatment and my hairline and crown have been filling in, if I can get back to Norwood 3 with just overall restored hair density I'd be happy. If I want to get anything past that I'd likely need to jump on female hormones etc.
 

nohairnolife

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Whatever happens please don't go back to that combover it's almost as bad as watching Rick and Morty

I'm just giving you sh*t I totally get

I actually had severely inhibiting depression and anxiety before this regrowth, I hadn't left my house in 4 months and I was borderline ready to kill myself, it's superficial but my hair meant so much to me and my identity especially as an artist around the alternative crowd

this my life has been a wreck for years, I was homeless for a short time because I already had severe anxiety from an abusive upbringing and going NW4 at 20 destroyed the little confidence my hair gave me. I have knocked on that door a couple of times

I am really interested to see what would happen if you tried @Jacob25's regimen you seem to be a strong responder
 

MyThinningConfidence

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Whatever happens please don't go back to that combover it's almost as bad as watching Rick and Morty

I'm just giving you sh*t I totally get



this my life has been a wreck for years, I was homeless for a short time because I already had severe anxiety from an abusive upbringing and going NW4 at 20 destroyed the little confidence my hair gave me. I have knocked on that door a couple of times

I am really interested to see what would happen if you tried @Jacob25's regimen you seem to be a strong responder
Honestly I think I could grow a lot of it back by just jumping on Min, the vellus hairs on my temples have been growing quite long and plentiful and quite a few of them are turning terminal it seems. I know I'm playing with fire here but I honestly want to see my current regime through, I want to keep at my current one till at least the end of the year.

Vellus Hairs - https://imgur.com/m93KTWZ
m93KTWZ
 

MyThinningConfidence

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Nice results brother, which dermaroller did you buy?
Thanks, I bought a 1.5mm Dr. Roller and it's been pretty much flawless. I previously got a 0.5mm ZGTS and it was pretty bad, the head also pops off if I apply too much pressure.
 

nohairnolife

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Honestly I think I could grow a lot of it back by just jumping on Min, the vellus hairs on my temples have been growing quite long and plentiful and quite a few of them are turning terminal it seems. I know I'm playing with fire here but I honestly want to see my current regime through, I want to keep at my current one till at least the end of the year.

Vellus Hairs - https://imgur.com/m93KTWZ
m93KTWZ
There has been some buzz around (hear me out) hydrocortisone (I know) lately. One of the main components of that guy's treatment. I'm about to try it out myself. I honestly think with a few things you could see crazy regrowth. Clearly you are doing the microneedling right (pictured: left)
 

MyThinningConfidence

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There has been some buzz around (hear me out) hydrocortisone (I know) lately. One of the main components of that guy's treatment. I'm about to try it out myself. I honestly think with a few things you could see crazy regrowth. Clearly you are doing the microneedling right (pictured: left)
I'm not so sure about hydrocortisone and there are zero studies on it that I can find. It seems the main mechanism it would work by in hair loss is reducing inflammation in the scalp although I believe there are much better and safer options than that available. There is a lot of misinformation spread around so just do your background research before hand, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me personally. Plus yeah derma rolling has been amazing, I've been seeing results within the week since adding 1.5mm
 

nohairnolife

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I'm not so sure about hydrocortisone and there are zero studies on it that I can find. It seems the main mechanism it would work by in hair loss is reducing inflammation in the scalp although I believe there are much better and safer options than that available. There is a lot of misinformation spread around so just do your background research before hand, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me personally. Plus yeah derma rolling has been amazing, I've been seeing results within the week since adding 1.5mm
I don't think there are any studies on it but I am starting it today so we'll see if anything happens
 

William Campbell

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Whatever happens please don't go back to that combover it's almost as bad as watching Rick and Morty

I'm just giving you sh*t I totally get



this my life has been a wreck for years, I was homeless for a short time because I already had severe anxiety from an abusive upbringing and going NW4 at 20 destroyed the little confidence my hair gave me. I have knocked on that door a couple of times

I am really interested to see what would happen if you tried @Jacob25's regimen you seem to be a strong responder
I actually like Rick and Morty. Go play Fortnite, kiddo.
 

nohairnolife

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jake_b

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Not sure how you’re doing 1.5mm per week. Takes me nearly 5 days to not need hat or makeup on my hairline to hide the insane redness
 

MyThinningConfidence

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Not sure how you’re doing 1.5mm per week. Takes me nearly 5 days to not need hat or makeup on my hairline to hide the insane redness
Really? The redness almost entirely goes away by the end of the shower, it will get red faster if you touch and squeeze it but otherwise pretty much normal. It's only really sore for 2-3 days after and it's completely healed by the end of week easily, I'm still 20 so that could be a factor. The younger you are the better ability you have to repair and regenerate damage to the skin.
 

Farrah711

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Could you tell me what is a derma roller and how u use it and where do u puchase one.
I am in Canada.

Thanks in advance!
 

Dehydrotestostewronged

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Ive been using a 1.5mm derma roller for about 2 months now, twice a week on finasteride and minoxidil. Ive grown very small vellus hairs on my temple and the crown seems to be slowly improving, but the vellus hairs arent really changing much anymore. At what point did yours go terminal? I also didnt see how long youve been at this.
 

MyThinningConfidence

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Ive been using a 1.5mm derma roller for about 2 months now, twice a week on finasteride and minoxidil. Ive grown very small vellus hairs on my temple and the crown seems to be slowly improving, but the vellus hairs arent really changing much anymore. At what point did yours go terminal? I also didnt see how long youve been at this.
I started the 1.5mm on the 11th of June and treatments in general at the end of March. I already had some vellus hairs there before I started and they've got a lot more abundant and longer, it took a few weeks to notice some of them going terminal. They are still quite small so they aren't full strength terminal hairs so I'm hoping they will grow to full sized ones over the next months. You can tell they are terminal since they clearly have a colour as opposed to the clear almost invisible vellus hairs.
 

Dehydrotestostewronged

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I started the 1.5mm on the 11th of June and treatments in general at the end of March. I already had some vellus hairs there before I started and they've got a lot more abundant and longer, it took a few weeks to notice some of them going terminal. They are still quite small so they aren't full strength terminal hairs so I'm hoping they will grow to full sized ones over the next months. You can tell they are terminal since they clearly have a colour as opposed to the clear almost invisible vellus hairs.

I mean not so much your temples but the baldness and super thinnest on top. How did you recovery all that and how long did it take? As far as determining whats vellus and waters terminal... Not sure color alone is a good indicator. with flash most of mine are dark brown or black, but in natural light theyre mostly pretty light colored.

Edit: Mine actually do look dark now that I look at them. But theyre super short and super thin.
 
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