couldbebetter
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So I've been using Minoxodil since August 2015 and Nizoral since February 2015. I got modest results out of it - enough that I could feel confident with the right haircut. I looked okay. However, I seem to have regressed slightly. A lot.
My hair is still healthy - one of the primary benefits I got out of using Minoxodil was that it made my hairs much thicker and darker - no more pale and wispy hairs. However, there seems to be far less of it now than there was a few months ago - maybe even less than from before I started. Now I appear to shed whenever I use Nizoral (which I stopped using for a few months, and recently started using again), and my scalp is often in a state of mild discomfort, like it's burning. I thought the Nizoral would fix it, but it doesn't seem to have much of an effect now. It's like everything has stopped working.
My hair still looks reasonable, since it's still dark and healthy, but there's so much less of it now. A few months ago I noticed it was getting worse, but I assumed it was just another shed and would stop within a couple of weeks or months, but it's still falling out. My hairline isn't suffering too much - still somewhere between NW1 and 2 - closer to 2 - but overall density has taken a massive hit. Today I was blowdrying my hair, and could see virtually my entire scalp when my hair was lifted up.
What's more is that I have this patch of hair near my crown (off to the side) that's much shorter and possibly (I'm not sure) slightly thinner than the rest of my hair. I have no idea what that's about, but it isn't helping. It's led me to apply more Minoxodil to the crown area, just in case.
It also doesn't help that Minoxodil is so oily, and actually makes my hair look even thinner - an effect that is magnified now.
Before I noticed the (extra) thinning I got a haircut, and was actually pretty chuffed by what I saw. That is to say, I saw very little scalp. Got a haircut a couple of months ago and it was a horror house.
I've got dense clumps of short, weak hairs particularly around my hairline and (now I look closely) a ton of very, very small, dark-ish hairs there too which I don't entirely remember being there before. Then again, maybe that's wishful thinking. Either way, there's no way of telling if they're on their way up, or on their way out. Such, I suppose, is the nature of small hairs.
At the end of 2014 I was considering shaving my head. I'm at that point again. The only major regimen changes have been that I stopped using Nizoral for a couple of months, and I stopped using Alpecin at around the same time. I wasn't convinced that Alpecin was particularly helpful, but it did counteract the dryness that Nizoral caused. Maybe it was good, who knows?
I know about finasteride. I'm not keen on using it, not least because whenever I mention it to any doctor they don't seem terribly supportive of it. It's also expensive (I'm in the UK) and I'm not too happy about the potential side effects.
So I'm not really sure what to do. I've had a policy of "ride it out" for a couple of months now, expecting all the shedding to end, but it hasn't. There have been ups and downs for sure, where some days I lose very little and other days where I lose a lot - and it's not even the worst shed I've had. It's just so persistent.
Sorry for the essay.
My hair is still healthy - one of the primary benefits I got out of using Minoxodil was that it made my hairs much thicker and darker - no more pale and wispy hairs. However, there seems to be far less of it now than there was a few months ago - maybe even less than from before I started. Now I appear to shed whenever I use Nizoral (which I stopped using for a few months, and recently started using again), and my scalp is often in a state of mild discomfort, like it's burning. I thought the Nizoral would fix it, but it doesn't seem to have much of an effect now. It's like everything has stopped working.
My hair still looks reasonable, since it's still dark and healthy, but there's so much less of it now. A few months ago I noticed it was getting worse, but I assumed it was just another shed and would stop within a couple of weeks or months, but it's still falling out. My hairline isn't suffering too much - still somewhere between NW1 and 2 - closer to 2 - but overall density has taken a massive hit. Today I was blowdrying my hair, and could see virtually my entire scalp when my hair was lifted up.
What's more is that I have this patch of hair near my crown (off to the side) that's much shorter and possibly (I'm not sure) slightly thinner than the rest of my hair. I have no idea what that's about, but it isn't helping. It's led me to apply more Minoxodil to the crown area, just in case.
It also doesn't help that Minoxodil is so oily, and actually makes my hair look even thinner - an effect that is magnified now.
Before I noticed the (extra) thinning I got a haircut, and was actually pretty chuffed by what I saw. That is to say, I saw very little scalp. Got a haircut a couple of months ago and it was a horror house.
I've got dense clumps of short, weak hairs particularly around my hairline and (now I look closely) a ton of very, very small, dark-ish hairs there too which I don't entirely remember being there before. Then again, maybe that's wishful thinking. Either way, there's no way of telling if they're on their way up, or on their way out. Such, I suppose, is the nature of small hairs.
At the end of 2014 I was considering shaving my head. I'm at that point again. The only major regimen changes have been that I stopped using Nizoral for a couple of months, and I stopped using Alpecin at around the same time. I wasn't convinced that Alpecin was particularly helpful, but it did counteract the dryness that Nizoral caused. Maybe it was good, who knows?
I know about finasteride. I'm not keen on using it, not least because whenever I mention it to any doctor they don't seem terribly supportive of it. It's also expensive (I'm in the UK) and I'm not too happy about the potential side effects.
So I'm not really sure what to do. I've had a policy of "ride it out" for a couple of months now, expecting all the shedding to end, but it hasn't. There have been ups and downs for sure, where some days I lose very little and other days where I lose a lot - and it's not even the worst shed I've had. It's just so persistent.
Sorry for the essay.
