porajj - (A Story of Love, Loss, More Loss, Some Love)

[porajj]

maybe some maintence?

Lil about me: (k fine, a lot)

I am currently 20, hate hairloss, currently going to school majoring in linguistics, and got nothing better to do over the summer except toy with my hair problem.

Genetically, this isnt a surprise. Almost all the guys on my mother's side of the family are bald. The guys on my father's side receed and then stop at a certain point. I was born bald and have had mega thin hair all of my life. I take heavily after my mother, however, according to my parents, I have my "fathers" hair (same texture, color, and same time of receeding).

I first started noticing my hairloss when I was rather young. Over the years from 8th grade to my senior year HS-freshman year of college, I had noticed slight changes in my hairline. Before I had a widow's peak, i would slick my hair all the way back. Towards sophomore year, noticed that there were some missing hairs, and the slick back look wasnt really working anymore. I began to grow my hair out long, and this looked rather good until my junior year when I began to notice that my back hairs grew very fast, but my front hairs wouldnt grow that much.


It really became noticable towards the end of my senior year of HS when the front hairs started thinning a little. Finally, a hair dresser back in August of 05 said that I definately had male pattern baldness.


Some interesting things if you guys are not bored to death already of reading this novel:

1)My hair has always been SUPER thin. My mom's hair is thinner than mine, and my dad has a similar thickness. Its always something ive noticed when chicks/hair stylists have put their hands in my hair "Woah, you have baby fine hair!". These comments have occured ever since I was 8-9 years old. I am not sure if the whole "diffuse thinning" thing applies to me. Chances are it does, but I can at least hope its all natural

2)The bald spot/callick you will see in the pics below has always been there too. I am not sure if it is a male pattern baldness thing, or just a natural gene thing. I have had that little spot since I was 3-4.

3) No one thinks I am balding. I never bothered to cover up the male pattern baldness fact, and when I speak to friends and even acquaintences about it, they all have said that they would of never guessed unless I told them. The only people that have pointed it out or those who have had friends who went from hair to balding in a matter of 2-3 years.

My regimine: I have been on Propecia since Jan of 06 and have not missed a day. The time this post was created is Aug 16th 2006. (8months of propecia)

The main purpose of this thread is to be a reference to me of how bad my male pattern baldness is getting as well as to take suggestions/criticisms/abuse/humor from anyone else that has the slightest desire to comment.


And what you all have been waiting for

DA PICS: (hi rez versions available upon request)

When I get time too, I will add some hair pics that I had in middle school/high school to gauge where my hair used to be and how bad it has gotten. Surprisingly, the messed up hair line is even present in some of my 7th grade photos!

Back of my head with hair dry. This is how I normally wear it.

Hair pulled back showing widow's peak. Im guessing thats a Norwood 2-3

Hair combed forward (flash really screwed it up, doesnt look that bad IRL)

Back of head pic with hair wet (looks super thin)

Widows peak with hair kinda slicked back and wet hair

Back of head wet hair pic kinda showing bald spot/callick

Complete back of head pic with wet hair.

 

[templemonk]

8months on finasteride... did you have any sides?
doyou think you maintained/regrew with 8months of finasteride?

 

[Guest]

porajj, first of all to me you are Norwood 2, not a Norwood 2-3. Apart from that you should post bigger pics, since the thinning is hardly possible (well, that´s actually a good sign :lol: ) due to your hair colour.


What are your experiences with finasteride so far? I am asking out of personal interest since I am on finasteride since about one month. Do you have less shedding or maybe even some thickening?

A good addition to your regime might be Nizoral shampoo twice a week.

Good Luck with your hair!

 

[CCS]

Norwood 3 is characterized by a skinny, 1 inch wide frontal tuff, that center piece of hair. you still have the wide parabola, and are about 1/2 inch or more too high. So NW2. If the center and temples are gone as well, then it is called NW4a.

 

[porajj]

I forgot to mention that I use Nizoral 1% every other day.

As far as finasteride goes, I am not really sure what its affects have been. A lot of people including my mother say that my hair has gotten a lot thicker since I have been taking it, and I do believe I have maintained somewhat.

Thing is, I do remember my hairline being a little more thick a year ago, so there probably was a little bit of loss.


And yea, NO SIDE AFFECTS AT ALL from taking propecia. I swim 1000m every day and this has not affected my performance in the water at all nor has it affected muscle growth or any of the other stuff people are worried about.

 

[Bismarck]

Your hair looks OK to me. Try to keep that with your regimen and you're fine.

 

[templemonk]

good to hear no sideeffects!!!!
yes!!

 

[porajj]

Some more photos


right temple. the worst side



left temple



Front


This is probably wishful thinking, but im really hoping that my hairloss will stop here. I was talking to my mum again today, and it turns out we have the exact same texture and receeding pattern. My mum has always had receeding temples, and her right one has always been worse than the left. As far as hair thinness, texture, color, etc-- its the exact same.

Problem is.... even if all of this is true and I somehow managed to inherit my mother's hair and male pattern baldness errr fpm (female pattern baldness? ), I wonder how long this will last before the testosterone in me just starts making dht that eats away everything :/

 

[Guest]

More important are the male ancestors of your mum. How does the hair of your maternal grandfather look like?

 

[porajj]

Maternal grandfather went bald at 26 or something of the sort. He had a full head of hair before then.

Totally different hair than mine though..... He had black, oiley thick hair and he diffused thinned to a Norwood 4-5. He never had a receading hairline--it just thinned to hell during WWII, and he came home with no hair.

He would be the most probable person to get the male pattern baldness gene from, but our hairloss times, pattern, and general hair texture are rather different.


Maybe i got lucky and got my father's male pattern baldness or my mother's weird male pattern baldness.
Or maybe I am just damned and its all downhill from here

time will tell

 

[Guest]

no if you have that type of loss at 20 it looks like you are destined to nw4 like your grandpa, assuming that you were never to take any drugs or topicals. maybe that can be cut back to a nw3 at age 55-60 or so with a bunch of drugs and topicals.

i find it incredibly incredibly hard to believe that your hair loss will stop there if it is like that at 20.

 

[porajj]

Yea, it will probably keep falling out. Theres no denying that.

I wonder how much time I got left :/ What hurts the most is not the fact that it is falling out, but not being able to know if I will have a similar head of hair this time next year, or something rediculously worse.