RI is my abbreviation for reductase inhibitors like finasteride/Duta.
I agree with you on the rest. I have followed a guy
@bridgeburn, who hasn't been around in over two years, who came from a group that touted extreme measures for hair regrowth and so he started a thread with quite often periodic updates and pics showing that he was restoring huge amounts of hair with extreme measures meaning mostly HRT but also 5mg daily of oral min. I emulate him on my own similar thread--he is gone now and it's best to separate my experience anyway. Among white males, our bodies want hair on our faces much more than hair on our scalps and it is a constant battle. I maintained more or less for 30 years on finasteride/Min/Duta but then I max'ed out and started losing hair again. I am done with having children so I made a choice not to go bald. HRT doesn't work for everyone for hair regrowth and we don't know why but my thesis is that it takes very high sustained levels for at least 12-18 months.
The other thing that you guys can't/won't do and I stress this, you have to ride out any sheds. This is indicative of getting regrowth results of some type but guys always stop treatment and lose the chance for benefits. Slow titration is key. Anyway, I was bald for 36 years after being a pretty cute teen with excellent hair, which makes it even worse to lose but I feel your pain as they say. Baldness is/can be just as bad as gender dysphoria and I call it hair dysphoria and many MtF non-binary folks suffer from hair dysphoria that is essentially linked to gender dysphoria because the two are so intertwined psychologically for many of us.
Here are my latest progress pics. Just as happened with Bridge, I expect to see more and more interest in HRT by XY's again particularly as my hair continues to lengthen without any mullet any longer and substantial restoration from either a visibly bald state or from a cueball actually because I shed all my hair--all-when trying spironolactone as an HRT component. I found a cute wig and rode the shed out and just kept titrating upwards, microneedling and all of the rest:
Goddess bless,
Janey