(Ok, this is NOT a short read. Don't skim this. I spent a lot of time typing it all up to try and help new people coming in that have questions. I tried to include case studies and product links to help you out with questions and concerns. I am not making one red cent off of anything on here, so don't accuse me of being some sort of shill.)
First off, the question of "do I have hair loss?" That you're wondering. First off, you HAVE to post a few pictures so that we can give you an OPINION. Remember, no one here (that I know of) is a doctor, so what we have is opinions, and we can't give them without a point of reference. Or, this might be something you can tell yourself. Find a picture of yourself from some years ago and compare it to a picture of you now. You're a smart person, you can tell if your hairline is different than it was
(Also,
DON'T POST YOUR HAIR PICTURES IN THIS THREAD! This is not a "what do you think of my hairloss" thread. This is an information thread for everyone looking to stop or slow their hairloss. Post your own threads and link TO YOUR THREAD in here if you have to, please....no hair pictures for every user that reads this thread
)
Now for the big question....."What do I do? Do I have options??" Yes, but you really only have 1 option....."Do 'The Big 3'".
1: Propecia
2: Rogaine
3: Nizoral (Keto) shampoo.
Get generic Proscar (have your doctor write you an RX). Proscar is 5mg of Finasteride (propecia is 1mg of Finasteride) used to treat BHP. Get a $3 pill cutter from walmart and cut them into quarters. This means $9 for 120 days of propecia, whereas getting actual name brand propecia is around $70 or so a month. Tell your doctor that you can't afford name brand, and that Proscar is LITERALLY the exact same thing as Propecia, just a 5x stronger dose. Most people can be sympathetic towards wanting to save money. Just be upfront and honest with him. If you don't have a doctor, PLEASE DO NOT GET GENERICS ONLINE!! Pay for one doctor visit (or a dermatologist visit) and then get the RX for Proscar. You will STILL pay less overall for that than you will getting generics online. Source? I did generics for 4 years before I wised up. I think I paid around $30-$40 a month for generics. You'll save money in the long run, so long as it's not $400+ for one doctor visit. You might also mention to the doctor that you were going to buy generics from India, but you wanted to try and get generic Proscar first. If he's a good doctor, then he'll probably NOT want you to do that, which would make him more likely to write you and RX for Proscar.
Get generic rogaine from walmart, target, or wherever (I am not familiar with rogaine in other countries). The only thing you really need to worry about is that it has 5% minoxidil. Start with 1 month of the liquid and see how it works. Only get 1 month to start because it MIGHT irritate your scalp (
Propylene glycol is the delivery vehicle, and some people get really itchy where it's applied [I had a horrible itch]). If it doesn't bother you, then after a month get the 3 month supply (I say liquid because it has a slightly better rate of growth than the foam). If it bothers you (either because it's itchy or because it feels like it makes your hair too greasy), then get the 3 months supply of Rogaine foam (Foam uses alcohol as the delivery vehicle, and is less of an irritant).
Nizoral is hard to find these days, but what you want is a shampoo that has at least 1% KETOCONAZOLE as the active ingredient. Keto has been shown to have anti androgen properties. By itself it's not going to do much, but it helps in conjunction with the other things. I'm about done with my last bottle of Nizoral, so I'm about to have to try a new Keto shampoo. Here are the 2 that I have it narrowed down to. Regnepure:
http://amzn.to/13CyBUm or this stuff:
http://amzn.to/17PI5wH I'll probably try the cheaper stuff first, since it's 2x the quantity for the same price, but I've heard people say that Regnepure is really good stuff. DO NOT GO WITH "Perfect Hair" OR "DS Labs" SHAMPOOS! They've recently changed the forumlas. DS labs doesn't even have Keto in it anymore, and the Perfect Hair shampoo is actually a knockoff of the OLD Perfect Hair shampoo that was actually good.
This isn't a required step, but it's one that I've been doing for 8 or 9 years too. I also use Nioxin System 2 for my normal shampoos. It SAYS it's suppose to help with thinning hair. I have my doubts, but I like the way it makes my hair feel. It's much more manageable and better looking when I use it. It's not super cheap, but buy the liter bottles and they'll last you for at least a couple months, if not closer to 3 or 4 months. You need to get 2 kinds, cleanser and scalp therap:
http://amzn.to/17s6v0j. Buy them both, then just buy them individually as needed.
Propecia: Some people say that taking propecia makes them kinda tired for the first few hours after they take the pill. I think that's kinda bogus, but I always take mine right before bed...just in case. That, and it's easier to remember when you just pop in a pill right after brushing your teeth.
Rogaine: Take a shower in the morning, towel dry your hair, then put the rogaine in and let it sit while you get dressed. After that, style your hair as usual. Put it in again before you go to bed (needs to be in 2x a day), but do it as the FIRST thing before your nightly ritual so that it sits on your head and can be absorbed and not run down the side of your head when you're sleeping.
Nizoral/Nioxin: You want your hair to be somewhat clean from normal oils so that Nizoral will suds up and hit your scalp. I use generic T-Gel from walmart for the first round of hair washing. Rinse, then apply Nizoral (or whatever Keto shampoo you have). After you do that, then start washing your body off. Get all sudsy and clean, then rise your hair out (you do this to let the Nizoral sit and soak your scalp for a while. DON'T RINSE OFF YOUR BODY YET!). Next you use the Nioxin cleanser. It doesn't have to sit, so just lather up and rinse out. Now for the Nioxin cleanser. It's basically a conditioner, so put it on and let it sit while you rinse your body off. You want it to sit on your head for about 2 minutes. After that, rinse off, get out of the shower, towel dry your hair, then put on your Rogaine.
Now for the part that people always worry about and freak out about....side effects.
The big ones that people freak out about are the sexual side effects. You have about a 1 in 100 chance of having any sexual side effect. If you get it, then you have a 99 in 100 chance of it resolving itself within 3 months. If it doesn't, then you have another 99 in 100 chance of it resolving within 3 months of stopping the drug. So, you're at about a 1-in-100,000 chance of getting a side effect lasting more than 3 months.
In comparison, you have a 1-in-77 chance of dying in a car wreck at some point in your lifetime.
Now, of course these are rough numbers, and obviously there hasn't been a clinical trial on a million users to get specific numbers. However, there was a 10 year study on 118 men, and only 7 of them reported sexual side effects. That includes anything from ED to watery ejaculate. Out of those 7, most continued to stay on the finasteride because it didn't outweigh the benefits.
http://gabelcenter.com/blog/2011/10...-your-provider-of-hair-transplants-in-oregon/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21910805
And, here's the thing...this forum(and other scaremonger tactics) does NOT constitute a clinical trial. You will always hear more about the negative than you will the positive. If I give you something and everything goes as expected...then you just go about your day and don't worry about it. If I give you something and you get a side effect...then you get online to ask about it and research it and talk about it. I was on Propecia for about 3 or 4 YEARS before I made one post about it. But you can bet your *** I'd have been talking about it from day 1 if I'd gotten bad side effects.
Now let's touch on the placebo group in the trials. For example, .9% of the men in the Phase III clinical trial that were in the PLACEBO group stopped taking "finasteride" (actually a placebo pill) because of "adverse sexual side effects". Whereas 1.2% of men in the actual Finasteride group stopped because of adverse sexual side effects.
Here's the chart:
http://www.ushairrestoration.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Chart-1.png
What that tells us is that it's quite possible the the placebo effect also stretches into the actual finasteride group. They're told before hand (since it's Phase III) what side effects they might get. So, they're given a pill and then TOLD that "you might have boner problems, so pay attention to that and let us know". If someone tells you that there's a chance it's going to happen, then it's more likely that your mind is going to convince yourself that it's going to happen.
There was also a 4 year study done on 5mg of finasteride (Proscar, for BHP issues). As you can see by this chart, the placebo group and the actual finasteride group are damn near identical by the 2-4th years
http://www.ushairrestoration.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Chart-21.png. That tells us that, A: The problems quite usually resolve themselves over time. And, B: it's quite possible that the placebo effect is present in the actual finasteride group (again).
Look at it this way. Let's say I'm trying to sell your some "sports enhancement" drug. I show you the clinical trials and you see that 1.2% of the people on the drug ran faster and jumped higher....but .9% of people in the PLACEBO group for the drug ALSO said they jumped higher and ran faster.....how convinced would you be that it would ACTUALLY make you run/jump better? Same thing goes, but in reverse, for propecia.
Like I said, I was about to pull the trigger on Propecia....but then I ran across a website that had nothing but horror stories about it. It freaked my ****, and I put it off for 2 years. But, then that day came, and it will come to you too, sooner or later. Right now you're "ok" with where you're at, which is fine. But the fact that you're contemplating it says that you're not fine with being bald, at least not yet. Sooner or later you'll hit your fork in the road. For me, it came 2 years later....
I was sitting at my desk and my boss was over my shoulder showing me how to make new rules in our new firewall. He makes this comment to me, "It looks like you must have got some sun this weekend. Your thin spot looks pretty red up here." Holy.****. I didn't know I had a thin spot yet. That was my fork in the road. I either had to do something NOW, or just deal with it and deal with the baldness. I knew I wasn't ready for that, and I ordered finasteride the very next day.
The same thing will happen to you, my friend. It might not be today, or tomorrow, or even this year...but one day you'll get there. My regret was that I didn't take the plunge earlier. I lost more hair from 20-22 than I have from 23-(nearly)30.
Basicaly, it boils down to a risk/reward factor, and I'll leave you with a quick quote from Michael Jordan....Jordan had broken his foot and missed 64 games. 2 weeks after he got his cast of, he and Bulls management battled publicly about the Bulls limiting Jordan's minutes. Later, Reisndorf told a story of a conversation that went down between him and Jordan:
"In their discussion about risk-reward, Reinsdorf offered Jordan an example of having 10 pills in front of him to help a headache, "but one pill would kill you."
"I said, 'I don't think it's worth the risk,' " Reinsdorf recalled. "And Michael said, 'It depends how bad the headache is.'
So, the question is...how bad is your headache?
Source: I've been doing this for about 6 or 7 years.
Proofs:
7 years ago
4 years after starting:
2 year frontal difference:
Still from a short film I was in. Outside in the bright sun this Feburary:
Modeling gig I picked up, with a bright flash from my right (about 2 months ago):
