minoxidil damage to centre of widows peak... help!

[lee123]

Hi, i've been a long time lurker to many hairloss forums, but now i feel to start posting as other people may be expierencing what i am going through.

Bit of a background story, i'm a 22 year old male who has steadily been losing hair since about the age of 19, (close to a Norwood 2.5/3 with steady thinnng at the front) initial success was gained when i first started using regaine 5% but, due to the sheer ££ that it costs i changed to kirklands which is were it all seems to have gone down hill. tried that for a 6 months and i noticed that i wasn't making any progress what-so-ever, so again i changed to spectral uhp 5% minoxidil which i am still using now, albiet very wearily... (this will be the 3rd month on spectral and my hair still not looking any better! actually seems to be getting worse by the week...)

Anyway, i seem to be expierencing strange loss in the middle of my widows peak where i apply minoxdil. Its about half an inch into my hairline and theres about 1cm squared thats just lost all hair, with no sign of any miniturization, its just fallen out, no redness or sign of iratation. The worrying thing is it seems to be getting larger.

My theory i've have is that my scalp hasn't responded to the change to cheaper brand minoxidils.(I know minoxidil is minoxidil, but some have success with different brands) I don't seem to have responded to them very well, if at all. i'm left to wonder if it will pay to go back to regaine because thats the only minoxidil treatment i've had success with ( and very good success aswell) even though i can't really afford it at all!

I'm actually got to the point were i'm too weary to apply any more minoxidil on my scalp, i'd rather receed more, then lose the middle first, because i will be very odd looking if this continues. i'm praying that if i hold off the minoxidil for a week or two i might see improvement...

This is the best post i've found on it.

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=58985


I've tried keeping the area free of minoxidil but this proves to be very hard due to fact it when i apply it some always runs down and settles there....

As a last resort and through curosity i've ordered some 15% with aa and retinol, but this could prove disastorous.............

Thanks for reading.

Any help advice/comments are greatly apprieciated!

 

[ripple-effect]

I would recommend you switching to the old brand(Regaine), but to tell you the truth you should've started off with a DHT inhibitor or a formula with a DHT inhibitor + minoxidil. Since this AA + minoxidil order you have coming is not the same brand it's hard to say what it will do. I believe it will help, but I've heard another case where a person on these forums switched from Xandrox to another brand and lost alot of hair.

The main difference you will find amongst different brands are the inactive ingredients. Sometimes you get lucky and are unaffected by switching brands, but other times you are not so lucky. I say this based on anecdoctal evidence.

In my personal experience with trying a generic version of a brand name product. The generic version is usually lower quality than the brand name product. This is not always the case though. One of my most recent experiences was trying a generic version of a sleep aid. It was not effective as the brand name version. As soon as I switched back the sleep inducing effect was stronger.

Also, you should know that minoxidil is mainly effective for the vertex area of your scalp and not the frontal area.

 

[skelll]

Im sorry to hear that bra, yeah im in the same problem as I used the Rogaine foam along the hair loss for about 6 months then switched to the Walgreens minoxidil and now the Target minoxidil and my results have gotten worse. Its frustrating because u dont really know what to do! I think I am going to go back on the foam, I bet my left nut that the foam will not regain what I lost due to that generic garbage crap I used!!!!

 

[lee123]

Thanks for the quick replies guys, looks like i'm gonna have to ditch the 3 months uhp spectral that i have left... i had high hopes for the ''ultra high purity solution'' pffffft lol, i heard somewhere it had high alcohol content which can't help anything anyway.. :thumbdown2:

I shall keep you posted on whether the 15% minoxidil helps!

if anyone else has had this or a similar experience please post, as i am eager to know whether the hairloss in the area affected is permanent...

 

[lee123]

15% minoxidil arrived today, very sticky when drying and then turns hair rock solid! haven't used the other minoxidil for over a week, and suprisingly no shedding just abit of an itchy scalp, but as soon as i apply nizoral (2%) it soon goes. i shall update if progress or a decline is seen.

Other then that quite suprised no one else has reported about a thinning hairline on minoxidil..

 

[Legolas]

Hi Lee
I'm having a very similar problem!
You can read my post here:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=67632

I am now using foam and things seem to have calmed down. I don't shed anymore, and I think my hairline had stabilized, I see regrowth again on my tamples (the fuzzy kind but filling up fast), but no real improvement in the middle bit yet.

What brand of %15 did you get?

I stil got 2.5 bottles of MinoxidilMax %15 with AA and a bunch of other stuff, but worried about using it for 3 reasons:
1. Don't wanna drive my scalp cray again, now that I don't shed anymore.
2. Worried that it's not gonna be effective at all, and it's gonna be like stopping the Minoxidil treatment
3. Worried that while it MAY solve things faster (assuming that I experience some regrowth in the middle area with the foam eventually), I will have to start using %15 ALL the time to maintain anything on my head. Considering what happened with Dr Lee, and that none of the big players offer %15, I'm worried about how difficult it may be to get it in the near future.

I know what you mean though. the main problem I have is in the center of the widows peak, which got so bad when I messed with the brands and application times! That middle bit is what actually got me started on Propecia/Nizoral/Minoxidil to begin with! and while it was never really improved, it didn't get any worse through the years AND it was SOOO much better than now.