Will Minoxidil work after a 3 year break?

[HairlineDisaster]

hi guys, this is my first post though I've been reading the boards for a while. My question, which may need answering by some of the more experienced hairloss fighters is, if I take a break from minoxidil due to it losing effectiveness after 7 years of successful use can it be effective again after a 3 year break? I ask because that's exactly where I'm at. I started using minoxidil when I was 26 and stopped when I was 32 due to the fact that it has started losing it effectiveness. However my hairloss hasn't deteriorated too badlly for this 3 year break and so I'm wondering if going back on it may jolt a new spurt of hair recovery like it did the first time. I hope so for obvious reasons. Can anyone help me out with this one? Thanks so much.

Oh and I should add that I'm a NW2 and have been since I was 26. Thanks

 

[TravisB]

7 years? That's great that it has worked for you for this long. Were you using minoxidil only? Also, what was your hairloss state when you started minoxidil? Have you had much thinning?

 

[twenty.five]

But in answer to your question ... yeah it might work. Nobody can predict the future and say for sure. There's no reason why it wouldn't work a second time around. After 3 years you've had any shedding that would come as a result of stopping it, so it's worth trying again, IMO.

 

[Bryan]

hi guys, this is my first post though I've been reading the boards for a while. My question, which may need answering by some of the more experienced hairloss fighters is, if I take a break from minoxidil due to it losing effectiveness after 7 years of successful use can it be effective again after a 3 year break? I ask because that's exactly where I'm at. I started using minoxidil when I was 26 and stopped when I was 32 due to the fact that it has started losing it effectiveness. However my hairloss hasn't deteriorated too badlly for this 3 year break and so I'm wondering if going back on it may jolt a new spurt of hair recovery like it did the first time.

The error I think you're making here is that you seem to be assuming that using topical minoxidil helps stop further balding. It doesn't! The best available scientific evidence seems to suggest that hair continues to thin-out from male pattern baldness, regardless of whether or not you use minoxidil. It can cause some extra growth when you first start to use it, but thinning inevitably seems to continue afterwards (the severity of which is determined by genetic factors).

So the bottom-line for you is this: don't use topical minoxidil alone! Combine it with other treatments which _do_ interfere with the fundamental balding process in some way. Propecia would be an obvious example of such a treatment.

 

[DoctorHouse]

Bryan, you always mention minoxidil offsets balding but why does the Rogaine website show a cartoon that it reverses miniaturized hairs and makes them thicker. If your hairs are miniaturizing when you are balding and minoxidil reverses this, does that imply its helps reverse balding? Minoxidil has to be doing something more than just offsetting balding? If its preventing the hair from miniaturizing, in a sense its preventing baldness. If you keep feeding the hairs minoxidil, then how can they miniaturize if it reverses miniaturization. I honestly think minoxidil does more than just offset balding.

 

[TheGrayMan2001]

Bryan, you always mention minoxidil offsets balding but why does the Rogaine website show a cartoon that it reverses miniaturized hairs and makes them thicker. If your hairs are miniaturizing when you are balding and minoxidil reverses this, does that imply its helps reverse balding? Minoxidil has to be doing something more than just offsetting balding? If its preventing the hair from miniaturizing, in a sense its preventing baldness. If you keep feeding the hairs minoxidil, then how can they miniaturize if it reverses miniaturization. I honestly think minoxidil does more than just offset balding.

I sort of agree with your line of thought, but you aren't really in opposition to what Bryan is saying. Some follicles will continue to grow when you apply minoxidil, despite them being attacked by DHT. Others will not, and minoxidil is not enough to make them grow.

I think it is a question that depends on every person's individual follicle genetics--some hairs will regrow on minoxidil alone and stay thick, others will only grow partway, and some will eventually "die off" no matter what.

 

[Bryan]

Bryan, you always mention minoxidil offsets balding but why does the Rogaine website show a cartoon that it reverses miniaturized hairs and makes them thicker.

It _does_ do that, but only for a certain length of time, until the process of balding catches-up with the user again. I think that Rogaine cartoon is just something dating back to the 1980's, when topical minoxidil was first approved for that purpose by the FDA; at that time, there were plenty of short-term studies (a year or so) demonstrating that it _does_ work to stimulate hair growth, but there weren't any more sophisticated studies (yet) that examined more closely what happens in the really long-term. When Olsen (over a period of 5 years) and Price (over nearly 2 years) and others examined that issue more closely, they found slow but steady declines in hair counts and/or weights. The only conclusion we can draw from that seems obvious: the beneficial effect of topical minoxidil on hair doesn't last forever (you know what I mean when I say that; I'm speaking a little loosely here).

If your hairs are miniaturizing when you are balding and minoxidil reverses this, does that imply its helps reverse balding?

Only for a certain length of time, until balding "catches-up" again. The natural rate of balding from any single individual obviously depends on complicated genetic factors that he has.

Minoxidil has to be doing something more than just offsetting balding? If its preventing the hair from miniaturizing, in a sense its preventing baldness. If you keep feeding the hairs minoxidil, then how can they miniaturize if it reverses miniaturization. I honestly think minoxidil does more than just offset balding.

I doubt that it's doing any more than that, but I'll believe otherwise if there are ever any studies which demonstrate it believably. Dr. Price herself was the one who coined the term (in her 1999 study) that minoxidil provides an "offset of growth" to hair, and I think it was a brilliant observation!

 

[Shma]

Propecia would be an obvious example of such a treatment.

Bryan wants us to take Propecia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111oneoneone

GOTTCHA! :woot: