Vampa's Story

[Vampa]

Hey all, thanks for reading this (and hopefully supporting me)!

Anyway, I'm not too sure when my hair loss actually started. Usually I wear my hair down, so it's really hard to tell in photographs and whatnot. However, I can say with that I'm pretty sure that 2 years ago (almost to the day), I didn't have any hair loss/very little. However, in a video of me a year ago, I can honestly say it's there. So for the sake of being conservative, my hair loss began 2 years ago. Just FYI, I"m 20 now.

For the longest time, I didn't even notice really. I had pretty bad acne at the time, which to me, was a far bigger problem then my hair line. I don't know whether accutane is a cause of hair loss, but it sometime around then that I began losing it.

I know my dad has lost quite a bit of his hair (frontal recession) and I probably really didn't take notice until my brother began losing his hair and a mutal friend joked about him getting on rogaine. So I can say with almost 100% certainty that it's all genetic. My brother's hair, when it's actually shaven short, looks pretty good. But I could never copy his hair style, since I have a bigger head and I'd probably get a certain degree of harassment from him about it. So, I had to find another solution.

So after a few months of being wishy-washy on what to do, I finally admitted there was a problem and did something about it. After looking at what most on these boards are doing, I finally bucked up and got on proscar (cut into fifths). I'm also using Nizoral shampoo. It's been a week, so it's not like I have anything to report.

I took some pics, but they're of pretty lousy quality. Future update pictures will be much better. You can look at them here http://briefcase.yahoo.com/officespace2801/ (Right now they're not working...I'm trying to fix it.)

I have three goals I'd like to achieve;

-halting more hair loss
-regrowth of thinning hair on hairline (a little hard to see, but it's there)
-as far as regrowth in areas that used to have hair and don't anymore, I don't expect a full regrowth, but I'd like to see my hairline moved up half an inch at least.

Now, a couple questions for those of you reading this:

Should I add minoxidil? Some people say do it, others don't.

How often should I do updates (read: actually check in on my hair progress)? I plan to do pictures every 3 months.

Thanks for reading.[/list]

 

[Cassin]

Pictures don't show up. Maybe you need to make the folder public?

So as far as adding minoxidil, who knows right now with no pics.

Anyway, it sounds very clear you are doing the right thing as far as a regimen. If you just have a little recession, I would skip the minoxidil for a little while. Give Finasteride a little time to see if it does it's thing. Try to keep your regimen simple and cheap.

Also, you seem to have a great attitude, you are being positive and you have educated yourself. You just put yourself way ahead of ther game by doing that. Good job, your no doubt going to do well.

So get those pics up! Let's have a look.

As far as updates with pics, it seems the majority do them every 3 months. So you have it right.

 

[Wezz]

minoxidil wont hurt actually the sooner you start the better results you get in about 6 months .... I started minoxidil a week ago along with nizoral and i think and hope will do well in 4-6 months.

Cheers and good luck !

 

[Vampa]

Pics work now. Like I said, they're not great shots; hopefully I'll get a chance to take some better ones before I start shedding.

 

[Vampa]

Well, it's been just over 3 months, so here I am with a report.

I didn't notice any major shedding. I thought that was a bit odd, but I'm not really an observant kind of guy. However, I would think that if it was major, I'd notice. I mean, when you start doing a regimen, you begin to notice things and I certainly did notice hairs coming out from the start, but it didn't seem to be any more than it was before I started. I can say for sure now that at the moment I'm not shedding since each time I wash my hair, my hands usually come up clean.

I'm still up in the air about minoxidil, so I'd really appreciate some input. And by the way, I updated my pictures. However, if you're on 56K, you're either going to invest some time or you'll have to wait and see if I ever get around to shrinking them. On the plus side, though, the pictures are large and give a really good look at the areas of recession an any regrowth. You can find the link in my first post.

Now that it's been 3 months, I've really taken a good hard look and tried to figure out where my problems really lie. You see, while it doesn't show in the pictures, I wear my hair down. Now, if you compare the left recession to the right one (my right and left, so the opposite on the top-down pictures), there are some differences. When my hair normally is down, the left side always looks fine. Really, I just dry my hair and kind of put it into place (I wear it shaggy, but I still at least part it) and the left always looks good to go.

However, the right side isn't so friendly. Usually, I have to battle with it because the hair always seems to divide, leaving a big gap showing my recession. This is further hampered if I drive with the windows down, as it shows the recession and makes it worse.

So I really began looking at why and I've come up with these 3 differences that I think are causing this problem:

• -The right side is recessed a bit further than the left. I'd say only about a quarter of an inch, but it's still there.
  
  -Normally, if you follow the sideburns up, the hair comes out a little before caving back in to form your hairline. On my left side, there's a good amount of hair there. On the left, until recently, there was none at all. Now there's definately some growth, but it's in its early phases.
  
  -Finally, if you were to measure from the peak of my hairline an inch back, then measure outwards, you'd get drastically different results. My measuring might not have been perfect, but if you go to the left side, it's an inch and a half thick. If you go to the right, it's only 3/4 of an inch. Basically, the right recession is a lot steeper than the left, thus making it harder to have my hair down since there's less hair on that side in general.

So, as I mentioned before, I'm considering adding minoxidil to my regimen. However, I still don't know whether I have a single dorm at college this fall and would be rather embarassed to be applying it with a roommate. Maybe I should give the propecia a few more months? Or do you think I should add it to help combat those recessions right now?

I'll try to update this a bit more often, but the first three months have the least progress I'd say, so I didn't find it very worthy of posting.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.