What Is Going To Happen?? Please Help.

[Scuffernoose]

i am 29 and i started taking propecia about 6 months after i started noticing hair thinning. now, 1.5 years later, im still thinning and slightly receiding, and its not getting any better. 6 months ago, i decided to add minoxidil to try and thicken things up, because the the thinning was more of a problem than the volume. i underwent a shed for about a month or so, that left my hair pretty thin, but i was in high hopes that it was a good sign of things to come, and that this is the worse it would get. i used it on the top 4th of my hairline and temples, down the middle, and across the back 2x a day. as time went on, the hair went from where it was after the shed to not improving or staying the same. it wasnt fast, but it was still as steady as ever.

a couple of weeks ago, i decided that washing my hair 2x a day to place a greasy product on wet or dry hair was too much for me to look at, and was just making my hairloss more evident and depressing me more. so i figured that if it wasnt going to help, there was no sense in continuing the minoxidil. so instead of using it 2x a day 7 days a week, i have been slowly trying to limit the doses to eventually none. right now i use it 1x a day 4x a week, and my hair has become more evidently diffuse. the density of my hairline, and the back have gotten worse, and even though my hair is about 2+ inches long, when i comb it back you can see my scalp dimly throughout the top of my head. the areas that are the worse are the places where i applied minoxidil, but i placed it there because they looked like they were slightly thinner places back when my hair was much more dense.

what is going to happen to me?? i expect i might see a slight shed of hair because i have changed a regimine, but what will happen to that hair?? i dont know if the hair from the initial shed ever grew back to be seen cosmetically, and now im afraid that whatever i lose now wont either. family is trying to convince me that it is just a natural thinning that guys do as they get older, but they also think that its possible i might be losing my hair. compared to many pictures i have seen on this board, i have good coverage and not much recession, but upon close inspection, my hairs look finer than most people who lose a little denisty with age. can minoxidil make you shed hairs that werent going to shed, and do i have any hopes of at least growing some shed hair back at least fot the time being??

 

[The Gardener]

Yes, quitting minoxidil will often times give you a shed BELOW your baseline haircount if you never started using it, but this is temporary and is just the follicles responding to the absence of minoxidil' properties. If this happens to you, these hairs will regrow, but you have to keep in mind that your hair will not revert to where it was when you STARTED minoxidil, but it will shed down to the haircount you would have had NOW if you never used minoxidil.

 

[Scuffernoose]

great information. that was exactly the type of information i was looking for.

im kinda sorry i ever started it in the first place, because after the shed that sped up the process, i never saw even a return to baseline from there. i lost the hair quicker than i would have, and it was like i never saw it again.

it disappoints me that i may have to go through the same thing again to quit, but my piece of mind was horrible seeing my hair so thin with a greasy product on it. whatever happens will enevitably happen anyway, but i could have had a little longer with better hair. i wish i had never started it.