Is this Retrograde Alopecia? Losing hair on sides from ear to temples and some towards the back.

[The_Arbiter]

Hi All,

I started balding when I was young. I shaved my head around 5 years ago and was bald for that time. I recently grew my hair out to try a hair system and I've noticed that even some of the hair on my sides is thinning. There's are weird pattern that's hard to pick up but I'm wondering why I'm losing hair on my sides, is it retrograde alopecia?

https://imgur.com/skXaEPY

https://imgur.com/Tjuq1f7

Ignore the top, it's a hair system. You can see the sides by my ear and near my temples are thin, it then heads down towards the back of my head.

https://imgur.com/xDEGH3T

Back of my head around a months growth

https://imgur.com/vZJpIWR

Back of my head approx 2 months growth. You can see the back isnt as bad as the sides. The sides are that bad that when the hair grows out it's like "pubey/wirey", maybe from the hair follicles miniaturising? (I dont know much about this stuff).

So is this retrograde alopecia? If it is - What can I do about it? Does finasteride/min/micro needling work for that.

If it isnt- Then what is it and what can I do about it? Currently I get a fade so my hair system looks ok but I have to get it cut every 2 weeks which is a bit of a pain.

Any advice/help would be great, guys. I'm kinda stressing as I accepted my baldness for years and now feel like I'm going through losing my hair all over again.

Thanks

 

[Hairful]

Yep. finasteride doesn’t do much but I have seen minoxidil thicken it and increase the density.

The back is also gone. Without retrograde there should’ve been hairs on your nape/neck but they’re gone.

At this stage, minoxidil can bring them back perhaps, finasteride won’t do anything as it doesn’t grow hair

You’re a nw6 so the safe zone is bigger in back. if you were nw7 the safe zone would be much smaller.

 

[losingbattle88]

This is what god does to rapists. I rest my case.

 

[The_Arbiter]

Yep. finasteride doesn’t do much but I have seen minoxidil thicken it and increase the density.

The back is also gone. Without retrograde there should’ve been hairs on your nape/neck but they’re gone.

At this stage, minoxidil can bring them back perhaps, finasteride won’t do anything as it doesn’t grow hair

You’re a nw6 so the safe zone is bigger in back. if you were nw7 the safe zone would be much smaller.

So will finasteride stop anymore hairloss? I don't really care about regrowth but I'd be happy to maintain it like this.

Will micro needling do anything?

 

[The_Arbiter]

This is what god does to rapists. I rest my case.

Bro what the f***?

 

[Incursio]

From what I've heard DHT blockers will have little or no effect on stopping RA.
It's a pain especially when wearing as blending becomes extremely difficult unless you go for an undercut which will than lead you to needing to keep biohair more strictly maintained.

What I can say from personal experience as someone who's taking dutasteride + 10Mg oral Min, nizoral and Microneedling 1.2m weekly for 6 months with more aggressive RA than yourself it's not got any better with this regime.
The best I can hope is temple regains and maintaining them so a fade or buzzcut won't look as bad. Not even a hair transplant is viable because of RA.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

You have DUPA and retrogade yeah. I had similar case to yours and when I threw the whole kitchen sink I regrew everywhere except on the sides/retrogade but I dont really care much because its like a natural fade, you won't get slick bald there just minituarization probably, just keep ur sides short and ur good. Retrogade on the back side is extremely rare, I doubt you will worsen there, its normal on sides only.

also believe it or not but you are still at the verge of being possible to recover your hair with strong treatment + transplants if you give up on hair system

 

[The_Arbiter]

From what I've heard DHT blockers will have little or no effect on stopping RA.
It's a pain especially when wearing as blending becomes extremely difficult unless you go for an undercut which will than lead you to needing to keep biohair more strictly maintained.

What I can say from personal experience as someone who's taking dutasteride + 10Mg oral Min, nizoral and Microneedling 1.2m weekly for 6 months with more aggressive RA than yourself it's not got any better with this regime.
The best I can hope is temple regains and maintaining them so a fade or buzzcut won't look as bad. Not even a hair transplant is viable because of RA.

Damn bro so even finasteride won't slow it down? That sucks so bad, I only want some hair there for a fade + the hair system.

You have DUPA and retrogade yeah. I had similar case to yours and when I threw the whole kitchen sink I regrew everywhere except on the sides/retrogade but I dont really care much because its like a natural fade, you won't get slick bald there just minituarization probably, just keep ur sides short and ur good. Retrogade on the back side is extremely rare, I doubt you will worsen there, its normal on sides only.

also believe it or not but you are still at the verge of being possible to recover your hair with strong treatment + transplants if you give up on hair system

Bro how can I recover anything when my donor area will be tiny? Honestly I don't care about the top, I'm happy wearing a hair system, I literally just want my hair on the sides to maintain so I can keep a fade + the system.

I don't know if I should start finasteride+ min and start dermarolling the sides or if I'm just wasting my time?

 

[Incursio]

It's unfortunate but this is pretty much what I've learned DHT sensitive male pattern baldness which is the most common cause of hairloss has an underlying different mechanism to RA which is why conventional treatment including finasteride doesn't work, I'm not aware of anything that helps combat RA.

I have similar pattern to yourself and as I mentioned before with a pretty hardcore regime barring HRT tranny pills, the RA on my sides and back is still as prevalent as when I started treatment.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

Damn bro so even finasteride won't slow it down? That sucks so bad, I only want some hair there for a fade + the hair system.


Bro how can I recover anything when my donor area will be tiny? Honestly I don't care about the top, I'm happy wearing a hair system, I literally just want my hair on the sides to maintain so I can keep a fade + the system.

I don't know if I should start finasteride+ min and start dermarolling the sides or if I'm just wasting my time?

its usually literally the opposite bro, and my personal experience the same. Its much easier to regrow your top with DUPA/diffuse alopecia than the sides. I think the only thing that might work is oral minoxidil or minoxidil+needling on your sides. Most people dont bother using minoxidil on sides because no1 cares about retrogade in sides for the most part so there isnt many cases to report, but I think finasteride/duta won't regrow sh*t for retrograde, only hair growth promoters.

last option would be hair transplant from back to sides but that seems pretty stupid or just some SMP to fill the sides. Honestly I think retrogade alopecia doesnt look bad when short, it literally looks like a fade, you are probably obsessing over this

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

It's unfortunate but this is pretty much what I've learned DHT sensitive male pattern baldness which is the most common cause of hairloss has an underlying different mechanism to RA which is why conventional treatment including finasteride doesn't work, I'm not aware of anything that helps combat RA.

I have similar pattern to yourself and as I mentioned before with a pretty hardcore regime barring HRT tranny pills, the RA on my sides and back is still as prevalent as when I started treatment.

yeh, I literally regrew 3 norwoods everywhere while my RA minituarized hair didnt even change. But it doesn't go slick bald either. It seems to be different mechanism to Androgenetic Alopecia. But no one bothers to needle+minoxidil these areas so maybe it could work doing that. He should try

 

[The_Arbiter]

It's unfortunate but this is pretty much what I've learned DHT sensitive male pattern baldness which is the most common cause of hairloss has an underlying different mechanism to RA which is why conventional treatment including finasteride doesn't work, I'm not aware of anything that helps combat RA.

I have similar pattern to yourself and as I mentioned before with a pretty hardcore regime barring HRT tranny pills, the RA on my sides and back is still as prevalent as when I started treatment.

Well this sucks then because it seems like theres nothing I can do apart from attempt some needling + min and hope for the best. As I've said I don't care about the top, I just don't want this RA to slowly eat away at the hair on my sides making it impossible to use a hair system.

its usually literally the opposite bro, and my personal experience the same. Its much easier to regrow your top with DUPA/diffuse alopecia than the sides. I think the only thing that might work is oral minoxidil or minoxidil+needling on your sides. Most people dont bother using minoxidil on sides because no1 cares about retrogade in sides for the most part so there isnt many cases to report, but I think finasteride/duta won't regrow sh*t for retrograde, only hair growth promoters.

last option would be hair transplant from back to sides but that seems pretty stupid or just some SMP to fill the sides. Honestly I think retrogade alopecia doesnt look bad when short, it literally looks like a fade, you are probably obsessing over this

I think I'll try needling and putting minoxidil on the sides, even though I have no idea what I'm doing with needling.

Do you think the RA slows down like normal male pattern baldness? Honestly I'm stressing a lot because I've got used to having hair again and now I'm freaking out thinking that this RA is slowly going to spread around the whole side/back of my head and eat away at my hair making a system unusable.

You say it doesnt look bad but it does, I have to get my hair cut every two weeks, otherwise it's so patchy on the sides and doesnt look right.





Also what about the temple area, is that RA or normal male pattern baldness? Because that area is thinning too and im wondering if finasteride will help there.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

Well this sucks then because it seems like theres nothing I can do apart from attempt some needling + min and hope for the best. As I've said I don't care about the top, I just don't want this RA to slowly eat away at the hair on my sides making it impossible to use a hair system.




I think I'll try needling and putting minoxidil on the sides, even though I have no idea what I'm doing with needling.

Do you think the RA slows down like normal male pattern baldness? Honestly I'm stressing a lot because I've got used to having hair again and now I'm freaking out thinking that this RA is slowly going to spread around the whole side/back of my head and eat away at my hair making a system unusable.

You say it doesnt look bad but it does, I have to get my hair cut every two weeks, otherwise it's so patchy on the sides and doesnt look right.





Also what about the temple area, is that RA or normal male pattern baldness? Because that area is thinning too and im wondering if finasteride will help there.

Yes, I haven't ever in my life seen someone go slick bald in the RA areas, it simply becomes minituarized and stays like that forever most of the time.
And yes, I mean it never looks bad if you keep it short, if you let your hair very long it starts to be noticeable so thats not an option anymore.

I would still give minoxidil+needling a try on that area though. People grow eyebrows, beard, scalp with this so it might actually work. Just doing a 10-15min session every 14 days is enough, so it's not that complicated.

 

[Incursio]

As mentioned above already, I to have not seen RA progress to such an extent that the effected areas become slick bald like AA hairloss.
However as male pattern baldness progresses the sides and back do eventually become thinner in density and less wide in area.
Temple loss can be attributed to RA however in your case I'd say it's just the progression of male pattern baldness which can be rectified with the conventional treatment.

I have personally weekly microneedled my entire head along with 10 mg daily oral minoxidil and even though there's been no change in RA, I've kept up the regime hoping they may eventually be a change after a year as I'm no hyper minoxidil responder. Even if it doesn't work out I've made significant gains on my temples which were completely gone before.

If I was in your situation may still be worthwhile to take some medication to keep what you have or at least the temple region and you can always change the hair style of your system, peaky blinders has made the undercut real popular.

 

[The_Arbiter]

Yes, I haven't ever in my life seen someone go slick bald in the RA areas, it simply becomes minituarized and stays like that forever most of the time.
And yes, I mean it never looks bad if you keep it short, if you let your hair very long it starts to be noticeable so thats not an option anymore.

I would still give minoxidil+needling a try on that area though. People grow eyebrows, beard, scalp with this so it might actually work. Just doing a 10-15min session every 14 days is enough, so it's not that complicated.

As mentioned above already, I to have not seen RA progress to such an extent that the effected areas become slick bald like AA hairloss.
However as male pattern baldness progresses the sides and back do eventually become thinner in density and less wide in area.
Temple loss can be attributed to RA however in your case I'd say it's just the progression of male pattern baldness which can be rectified with the conventional treatment.

I have personally weekly microneedled my entire head along with 10 mg daily oral minoxidil and even though there's been no change in RA, I've kept up the regime hoping they may eventually be a change after a year as I'm no hyper minoxidil responder. Even if it doesn't work out I've made significant gains on my temples which were completely gone before.

If I was in your situation may still be worthwhile to take some medication to keep what you have or at least the temple region and you can always change the hair style of your system, peaky blinders has made the undercut real popular.

Ok so basically I should just start microneedling the RA areas + apply min and then take finasteride to help the temple region?