Treat your own symptoms not your father's symptoms

[AussieExperiment]

I know this post is probably just a meaningless rant but here goes.

I have read so many posts where people are not getting on Finasteride or Dutasteride because their father’s hairloss was slow and subtle so they figure minoxidil or supplements with suffice.

I believe these people are either
1. Still in denial
2. Stupid
3. Ignorant
4. correct out of pure luck

While family history can be used as a rough guide as to your chance of being hit with male pattern baldness, don’t expect anything more.

Take me for example, I have gone back about 6 generations in my family tree and found no one with any sign of male pattern baldness. In fact all of my relatives have died with thick heads of hair. And yet, I get hit with moderately aggressive male pattern baldness.

It comes down to pure genetic luck. It is critical that you treat your own symptoms, not your fathers or brother’s symptoms. If you are losing heaps of hair and you are young, guess what, you are probably going to go bald quite young. Unless of course you get on finasteride or dutasteride.

While male pattern baldness is genetic, everyone’s genes are unique. You are not a clone of your father.

Denial will only make things worse. So do yourself a favour and forget about your family tree.

 

[I_Hate_DHT]

I just updated my signature.

The theory about having a mom, dad, granpa, grandmom with hairloss, and thus becoming bald, is OLD...

Nowadays, there are a lot of guys with no sign of hairloss in any of their family members, and they become bald at 30.

 

[techprof]

none in my family (father or mother's side) for the last 2 generations went beyond Norwood 3 or 4 even at 80+ years.
I went to Norwood 6 by 26. (after responding well to minoxidil). So avoiding finasteride or dutasteride is dangerous.

 

[jedimindtricks]

none in my family (father or mother's side) for the last 2 generations went beyond Norwood 3 or 4 even at 80+ years.
I went to Norwood 6 by 26. (after responding well to minoxidil). So avoiding finasteride or dutasteride is dangerous.

Yea that sucks, but your post is the truth. People have to start treating their baldness at an early age in order to calm it or stop it. Way to many people are waiting until they have massive signs of balding to treat it. Prevention is the way to go.

 

[Sharpshooter]

I'm quite convinced though that my male pattern baldness is exactly the same as my dad's. He developed early recession (like me at 19/20) went into a Norwood 2/3 at 23 and stayed like that ever since (he's 48 now). No grey hairs either.

So I'm quite confident that if I never used the meds I would not go past a Norwood 3 until I'm in my 50's, the only thing is though I would be expected to develop that recession before 25, which sucks.

I'm not definite about it, that's why I'm on both finasteride and minoxidil, even when I've barely hit Norwood 2, but it's fairly reassuring if things were to completely wrong I reckon.

 

[kalbo]

At 26, I'm a nw1.5 with frontal and crown thinning (w/ the help of treatments too I may add) while my 60 yr old dad still has a full head of hair (although, it does look like he's thinning a tiny bit in the crown).

I too made the mistake of thinking I won't go bald b/c my dad isn't bald, his dad wasn't bald, and all my uncles are nw0s (I'm not kidding too, ALL of them have no recession whatsoever). However, my maternal grandfather is completely bald, but I figured that that won't make too much of a difference considering everyone else wasn't struck by the baldness gene.... man, was I ever wrong.

 

[Guest]

yeah kalbo, never neglect the situation of the maternal grandfather even if all the others are good. he can pass the androgen receptor bald gene to your mom who can easily pass it to you. that is maternally inherited.