Hey man it's totally cool, sorry for the late reply! Was a bit busy last days.
1. CB-03-01, because that isn't on your list. Hitting the androgen/AR angle is by far the best thing we can do. Sucks to say that anno 2016 but it is what it is. Many of us are just limited in how hard we can hit the angle, because it's not practical (unwanted side effects etc.). I would always look into possibilities to hit the androgen/AR angle. So if I would need to use from B-league treatments I would look into something like topical spironoctalone (Weaker AR antagonism) coupled with alfatradiol (5ar inhibitor plus weak affinity to the estrogen receptors). Followed by bimatoprost. It's all about keeping yourself above baseline for a maximum amount of time. That being said in my personal situation that would be just a delay of the inevitable. So then the question arises "Is it worth to do this if all these treatments if they are a mere delay of what is going to happen in the near future"? Probably not in my case. I highly doubt that such a regimen would keep me above baseline for a long amount of time. In reality it would probably help somewhat but I would just continue to bald anyway and dive below baseline pretty quickly.
3. Sure, first let me give you a bit of history. I landed on these forums one day because my hair loss was getting out of control. Particularly my hair line was suffering and it was going fast towards NW3+ territory. I started to learn about everything and my goal was simply to stop my balding process, but the ultimate goal was to restore my hair line. So I tried many things but ultimately settled for a potent regimen of a very high dosage of RU coupled with minoxidil + retin-a + hydrocortisone + neogenic. Honestly it was leaning towards a obsession. Truth being told the regimen was very good for my hair and my hair quality improved for the better and even my hairline and temples improved a bit. Here is a picture. The first picture is not even my baseline picture it was a bit worse and you can see the minor temple improvement;
What's more interesting is when I dropped all treatments temporarily and went for a hair transplant. The day of my hair transplant my hair quality was very sh*tty as you can see in the topic I made about my hair transplant. You can see it in the following top 4 pictures, it's evident the hair quality is way worse (weak brittle hair), even while the lightning conditions are different;
So why did I go for a hair transplant and switched to a minimum maintenance treatment?
Remember my ultimate goal was to regrow my hairline and that didn't happen. I had improvement in my hairline area but it wasn't near the goal I had in mind. Sure I could take things even further by hitting the androgen/AR angle even harder but I started to suffer from side effects already. More importantly things need to be taken continuously and I didn't want to end up living as a slave of my Androgenetic Alopecia. F*ck that. I was biased against hair transplants but after researching it a bit more I knew that it was a real possibility to actually accomplish my goal of getting my hairline back. Also I knew that I reacted pretty well to the androgen/AR angle as evidenced by my hair quality increase on a potent regimen.
So I asked myself the question.. Why wouldn't I opt for a minimum maintenance treatment that keeps me above baseline level coupled with a hair transplant to fill in my frontal hairline? First of all that would be more healthy because I wouldn't be on such a extreme regimen. Also this would obviously achieve my goal (the regrowth at my hairline).. More importantly maybe this would make me dominate Androgenetic Alopecia, not the other way around. I couldn't stand the vision of me anymore applying tons of sh*t in high dosages for the coming years. And the side-effects were getting a problem too.
So that's what I did man. My hair transplant turned out to be a excellent decision that totally beats the obsessive stuff I was doing that simply wasn't healthy for me personally. And guess what? The only concern now isn't more regrowth. The only concern now is to stay above baseline and I can do that by opting for a minimum maintenance treatment.
And that is what I do now basically. I cycle RU 6 months/6 months off/finasteride 6 months. I can do this because I believe I will stay above baseline for many years to come even with a regimen like this (reference 5 year finasteride graph 1 year on, 1 year placebo). Like I said, my hair follicles respond very well to the androgen/AR angle. Luck is on my side I guess with this. I have basically 12 months of androgen/AR intervention with a 6 month off period now. I'm confident that this will keep me above baseline levels for at least some years to come
. Sure I could go on a more potent regimen again but that would have minor beneficial effects in reality and bring a whole bunch of negative aspects in my life.
A dream for me now would be to get a treatment that totally makes me immune to Androgenetic Alopecia permanently. That would be a total win for me and us all, but can't have everything I guess.
Can't answer your second question though. I think generally everyone should try to stay fit by exercising and maintain a somewhat healthy diet. This doesn't relate specifically to side effects with AA's but as overall life advice.
So what about your situation? I assume you suffer from side effects with AA therapy? It's mostly trial & error really. Maybe you will find something that you can cope with? What sort of treatments did you try already? Anyway if you have more questions just shoot them, thanks man.
