One year update

Ams99

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I guess last week marked my one year point with finasteride. (1.25mg daily) and my 11 month mark with minoxidil. well, here's a little background. when i started i was 24, i couldn't really rate myself on the norwood scale, but i had slight temple recision, and diffused thinning on the top with a strongly increasing thinning on the crown area where scalp was easily seen. the first four months were bliss. by the 3rd month, my hiar looked a lot thicker on the crown, and although it was still thin all over, it was pretty much covered when my hair was dry and i doubt anyone could tell i was losing my hair unless they looked very closely. however, from the 5th month to now, things went all down hill and i'm pretty much where i began, if not worse. i'm 25 now, and my whole crown is pretty much a light brown color, some hairs even blonde, where the rest of my hair is dark brown. i could try and shift some of the blame on my regimen, but i'm not too sure to what degree. for the minoxidil. i was using, i started off using dr lee's ppg free formula twice a day, then i went to use the ppg free formula during the day and dr lee's retin-a/minoxidil combo at night. after seeing how much better dr lee's regular formulas dried, i started to use his regular formula during the day and the retin-a formula during the night. the problem this caused was the intense minoxidil itch, so i began to use head and shoulders on the days that i didn't use nizoral. perhaps the mixture of chronic use of retin-a, with a strong dandruff shampoo left my scalp in poor condition even though it didn't really itch ever.

anyway, in the last two weeks i switched it up a notch, and dropped the retin-a formula all together and the head and shoulders and am now using finasteride. (same 1.25 dosage as always) xandrox 15% at night with spironolactone, xandrox 5% during the day, emu oil shampoo and conditioner (which is doing a better job of controlling the itch than h&s), green tea extract, and a multi-vitamin everyday. in 6 months i'll make another update and tell everyone the results. if that fails, i might jump to avodart, but am studying up on hair transplant and how body hair reacts when implanted in the scalp. i also am a yetti, with thick long hairs growing on my chest, legs, and shoulders, so i might save up enough money to turn this curse into a blessing.
 

ShedMaster

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Thats good you gave the Propecia/minoxidil a good year before juding the results. You didn't get what you wanted out of them so now you are adding other big guns to your regimen, sprio, 15% xandrox, etc... I would do exactly what you are doing if the Propecia/minoxidil/folligen doesn't work for me.
 

elguapo

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Sorry to hear you didn't continue to see the success that you had in the first months. Hopefully your new reg will help your situation.

Thought I would at least chip in to remind you of what we all hear time and again- that for some, the best results of finasteride are seen at the 2 year mark. Even so, it is a scary thing to get off of finasteride, or minoxidil, once you started, knowing that even though you are still losing hair, you could start to lose it much faster once you drop the regimens. Keep this in mind, too.

Good luck.
 

Ams99

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yeah, i don't think i'd really drop either one at this point due to the frieght of a huge shed. i guess if things get really bad (which i'm sure they will in the next 2 years) and i have to shave my head down to a 0, i'd still at least stick with propecia until a better soulition can be found.
 

bombscience

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well it sounds that it's somewhat of a sucesss that you're maintaining your hair. nice work with that.

do you have any before/after pictures?
 

Ams99

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yeah, i will say it seems like the very back of the crown is doing good, which is great considering the male pattern baldness was moving it's way down in the very back. yet, the rest of the vortex and mid scalp seem to be a little worse. and no, sorry, don't have any before and afters. have some bad quality web cam photos of my crown at 6 months, but it's kind of pointless to post them since i don't have any year later photos. trying to look around for a cheap digi cam just so i can take photos and post them on some hair transplant forum and ask people on help and opinions.
 
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