Alright, feel like it's time for an update, haven't commented anythin for the last 4 months!
Right, so about a month after my last post from early October, I started to shed a lot more. To be honest, I didn't use Derminator for about a month, stopping early October yes, I also discontinued or minimized the use of the topical treatment, also relaxed a lot on the oral treatment (I moved to a different city, and was quite busy those weeks). I don't remember what else from the treatment did I stop doing. But my hair felt shitty, greasy, itchy, etc.
I shedded a lot, lost a lot of hair during the next 4-6 weeks. At that point, as some might remember, have already commented that would anyways look for a hair transplant, which is what I did. I scheduled an appointment with the best hair surgeon in my country and got lucky and didn't have to wait much. So went there, and that's when I got the bad news.
He told me I would need to use finas/minoxidil to apply for the surgery (not mandatory, but really really encouraged) because otherwise the result wouldn't be good (or at least, as good). I guess he meant that the transplanted hair doesn't grow as good when not on finas, plus the fact that you still lose non transplanted hair. I kind of knew that, at least the second part, but the first one was the first news I had, he showed me a couple pictures of his patents that hand't gone through medication and results weren't too good. I guess he showed me the worse ones, as he told me 10% went with no medical treatment so he had to have a lot more cases. Anyway, that scared me a bit. He recommended 0.5mg finas daily.
I had tried Saw palmetto a couple times, tried once more. Saw palmetto blocks DHT conversion in about 15-20%, whereas finas blocks 70%, that's why most people don't notice improvement with saw palmetto, it's simply not strong enough.
I had also always suffered some sort of minor side effects with SP, a little bit on the lower libido side, not a lot, but enough for me to notice, and I had never gone further than 1-2 weeks. This last time I also had some testicle pain, so I thought the sides were real even with a "weak finasteride".
So I pondered my options, taking into account the current state of my hair, and how I was shedding, and decided to take minoxidil topically. I started early december, it's been almost 2 months. After about 10 days or so I started to shed even more, like crazy. I had read about the minoxidil initial shedding, so I didn't freak out and abandoned the treatment, but I'm telling you it looked really bad! lol I was really really shedding a lot, every time I touched my hair, washing my hair, etc. I lost a lot of hair and looked super bald.
About a month after starting, I saw a stabilization, meaning I started shedding much less. And from then, the last month, it's been only improvement. I have regrown new hair, or dormant follicles. I'm seeing hairs where there was nothing for a long time, small hairs for now. I think at this point I have about the same hair as in the first pics I uploaded, which I think are from May or June, maybe slightly better. Definitely have some small hairs below my hairline that never were there for the last year, and definitely some improvement (I guess derminator is also helping), so I'm 100% sure minoxidil is working. I am shedding the least in the last year for sure, I am shedding very little on daily basis.
The way I use is this:
Monday night: Derminator 1.5mm / no minoxidil
Tuesday night: minoxidil (about... 1.5-2ml I take is my guess of what I apply, given how long the first bottle lasted -I don't measure it-)
Wednesday night: Derminator 0.25-0.5mm if I feel healed, if not I skip it + minoxidil
Thursday: 0.25-0.5m + minoxidil
Friday: 0.25-0.5mm + minoxidil
Saturday: 0.25-0.5mm + minoxidil
Sunday: 0.25-0.5mm + minoxidil
Monday: 1.5mm / no minoxidil
...
Side notes:
I take it only 1x/day, 2x a day I think is a waste of time given it lasts about 21-22 hours.
Side effects:
-I'm not experiencing any side effects: no headache, no dizziness, no itchiness, nothing, really. Only once I used derminator a little bit too deep 0.75 used it after and felt something, but probably was the anxiety of thinking I was going to die for putting minoxidil systemic lol but other than that, on normal days 0.5mm, no problem, zero sides. I use the foam, Regaine, which has no propylene glycol which is what itches for most people. It also dries real quick, in about 20 minutes. I will consider buying Regaxidil because of price and for a potential add of topical finasteride (more on this later).
-Oh I did forget to mention that I did experience some side effects on the eyes: some ocular effusion, some red veins other days, etc. That also worried me, but since then and it's been about 2 weeks, I am washing my hands with soap after applying minoxidil and have had zero issues.
-I'm a little bit worried though about the long term side effects in the face: accelerated aging/wrinkles, I normally use some moisturizing cream/oil etc on the face on a daily basis, but I will ponder this as it worries me!
-I have more face hair too lol, some small hairs close to the eye area, more eyelashes too lol no big deal
-It's really not a lot of problem to use it daily, it's just 5 minutes, but you gotta be careful with where you put your hands, and maybe your hair too, so I think it's better to just apply 30 minutes before sleep if you can and then wash with water (and don't forget to wash your hands again).
I think that's all about the minoxidil experience so far.
More stuff:
I have been continuing to use my topical serum. It feels good on my scalp and prevents itchiness. minoxidil didn't prevent that, for the first month on minoxidil I didn't use much of my topical serum and my scalp did itch a little bit.
More about itchiness: I felt for that month that I had trapped grease/sebum on my follicles. I could press and feel some discomfort/pain, and I know that is sebum because is the same feeling as when I had/have a grease pimple in the face for example. I did take care of it, by applying pressure and moving the scalp, sort of like a scalp massage. I felt grease across the whole scalp, whereas I mostly used to feel it in the upper/back part of it. I think this releasing sebum from the scalp is a good thing.
I also think my serum does some good for the scalp. I usually apply it a couple times throughout the day.
Now I have a better understanding on male pattern baldness, understand the difference between DHT blocker which yes I think is the root cause for baldness, and growth stimulators like minoxidil.
I am going to try finasteride topical, starting soon. I will proceed same as with saw palmetto, at the smallest sympton I will stop it. I have used and my topical serum has saw palmetto, and never had any problem. There was one study with topical finas that reflected a 5% reduction in DHT serum, who knows if it will be true. At least I will try and report here.
My end goal would be to stop minoxidil, one way or the other, without losing a bunch of hair. Maybe a good idea would be to stabilize with topical finas, then leave minoxidil, then have the surgery, and then keep my life with topical finas? I'm kind of sad that I "had" to start using minoxidil, but I was shedding like a motherfucker beyond reasonable levels at that point, losing a bunch of hair, so from my point of view, at that moment I don't think I had much of a choice. If I knew what I know now about hair loss, I would have probably started trying finas topic first, a year ago or so, before anything else, and seeing how my body reacted to it (maybe it will give me sides anyways). I always read sh*t about topical finas, but it turns out it wasn't that bad?
So, that's it.
Just to finish, my routine as of now is:
minoxidil + 0.5mm Derminator 1x/day
Topical serum (saw palmetto, reishi mushroom, caffeine, taurine, green tea, peppermint oil, not sure if I forget some, but these are the main ones) 1x/day
Same Shampoo as before, keeps feeling good on the scalp, also adding regenepure with ketoconazol once a week, 4x/week
Derminator 1x/week, about 1.5mm (I bleed a little bit more now btw, probably due to minoxidil?)
"Extracting" the sebum from the hair "manually", by applying pressure, about 1x month, or when needed I guess
Will start soon finas topic, let's see if my libido goes to sh*t and my testicles hurt like motherfuckers lol
Will coninue to report. Thanks for reading
