20/21 starting fin/minox/niz

[huawei]

Hey all,

I started noticing my hair loss months after I had turned 18. I'm now nearly 21 and I'm around a NW2.5 with diffuse thinning up top.

So I finally bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago and purchased some fin, minox and keto/nizoral. I have used minox and niz before but spazzed out and quit because my hair loss was continuing...I wonder why (sarcasm).

I'm currently applying the minox twice a day to my crown and hair line while taking 0.5mg of fin every other day. So far the only sides I've sort of noticed is that it takes a while longer to get hard wood but thats okay as I don't need my dick to stand up straight 6 times a day.

Today I noticed an increased amount of hair in the shower, I think this might mark the beginning of my shed which I'm okay with. Other than that applying minox has seen tiny vellus hairs one side of my temple sprout all the way up to where my NW1 would be and the current ones are thickening which is nice.

I've taken pictures to document my experience but won't be posting them until I have some to compare them to and I shall be keeping this thread updated periodically so this first post is to just touch base basically.

Wish me luck!

[Notcoolanymore]

Good to see you taking action early and not being a dumb ass like myself. I waited way too long to take action and now I am just trying to recover whatever I can. Good luck and don't quit. I even suffered a shed which surprised me. Didn't think I had enough hair to shed. haha

[Artista]

Hi Huawei, I just started taking Finasteride 11 days ago. 1 mg per day.
Ive got a thread started on it too, "Artista and Finasteride"
Feel free to join in there too bro,,
and GOOD LUCK with your hair improvement.

[northeastguy]

Just keep in mind it can take up to a year for a fin and mon to take full effect. If you do it, your in for the long hall. its not a one month and see how it looks thing. unfortunately your sometimes going to have to deal with the sheds and what not..... often not the case. Usually the hair returns plus some. If you lose the hair, you were going to be losing it anyway. be patient and good luck.

[Artista]

North' Thanks bro for the advice given,,the young guys here NEED to hear that.

[BigThinker]

Good luck, man. We're all in it for the long hall. Just keep treatment in your routine and so your best to move on. I've wasted a lot of time and energy worrying about my hair when I should just be patiently waiting.

[huawei]

Noticing even more velus hair around my hairline which is good.

I've noticed probably a 50% increase in the number of hairs in the shower. With these extra hairs they're all pretty much less pigmented and thinner than the rest which is a good sign as it shows the weaker ones are getting pushed out.

The only minor side I have right now is that probably once a day for 10min I have a dull ache in my testes.

[huawei]

I think I passed the five week mark this Friday gone.

The dull ache has dissipated and my libido has been higher than normal. I will be getting some t tests in the next week for an unrelated reason so it will be interesting to see how they compare with previous ones.

The shedding has dropped off over the last few days with my hair feeling more anchored. I can place my hand in my hair and tug upwards with on average 2 hairs coming out compared to the 5+ repeatable that it used to be.

I don't know about my crown but my temples are seeing continual regrowth of pigmented velus hairs on both sides whereas before it was just one side predominantly.

All in all things are good...I can't believe I left getting on treatment for almost two and a half years out of fear of side effects...oh well live and learn!

I'll probably post up some pics at the end of sept.

[huawei]

So its been almost three months on treatment. I've noticed a lot of hair growth on the temples but can't really speak for my crown. The hairs are semi pigmented and do seem to be growing weekly but the density is moderately weak. Recession continues but in the last few days the number of hairs in the shower has dropped by two thirds.

All in all I think I've been responding great to the big three, more so than I did last year when I used minox and nizoral for half year by them selves. Its starting to become noticeable from a short distance (5 - 6 feet away) but its nothing to be posting pictures on the internet about yet. Do you think if I'm showing strong results now that they will continue into the future?

However, I can't not contain my regret for not starting fin sooner. If I had of started fin this time last year my position would be three times greater than it is now. I can't believe I was scared away from treatment after reading a few horror stories, neglecting to look into dosing (I currently take 0.5mg EOD) et al. I guess the only thing that's worked in my favour genetics wise is having a dense donor of black hair of thick calibre for when the eventual HT occurs.

If there are any young males out there who are losing their hair please give fin a shot after doing some researching into the dosing or you'll be left like me grasping at straws on the edge of having to your buzz hair at the age of 21.

[Artista]

Hi Huawei,
Im entering the middle of my third month on Fin' and as I have said on my related thread, I do seem to notice improvement.
It seems to be that I have better health of the good hair, better pigmentation of the DHT affected hair which havent been minimized 100% and an overall 'FLUFFINESS' of the scalp too.
I know how you feel about starting late on Fin', I personally avoid thinking about that because it doesn't do any good to focus on
'could have-should haves'.
The October Conference of the ISHRS will start on the 23rd to the 26th.
I feel we will hear about some good things coming..Hang in there bro.
(By the way-My Birthday is on the 25th!)

[huawei]

My hair loss seems to be cycling still....some days there will be barely any hair in the shower and other times there will be a fair bit. I'll give 0.5mg EOD of fin another month and if it doesn't continue to slow I'll try and get proscar and eye each one into 8ths and see how that goes.

I think I may have deleted my photos from prior to beginning treatment...which is a shame as I believe that my crown has gained a hell of a lot of density when I compare it to what I remember but with that said my hair is shorter these days. If I can find the photos and if there is a real difference I'll post them up.

My hairline is continuing to grow hair as well but I also feel that its still losing ground slowly, I guess we'll see in a few months.

[cichlidfort]

So its been almost three months on treatment. I've noticed a lot of hair growth on the temples but can't really speak for my crown. The hairs are semi pigmented and do seem to be growing weekly but the density is moderately weak. Recession continues but in the last few days the number of hairs in the shower has dropped by two thirds.

All in all I think I've been responding great to the big three, more so than I did last year when I used minox and nizoral for half year by them selves. Its starting to become noticeable from a short distance (5 - 6 feet away) but its nothing to be posting pictures on the internet about yet. Do you think if I'm showing strong results now that they will continue into the future?

However, I can't not contain my regret for not starting fin sooner. If I had of started fin this time last year my position would be three times greater than it is now. I can't believe I was scared away from treatment after reading a few horror stories, neglecting to look into dosing (I currently take 0.5mg EOD) et al. I guess the only thing that's worked in my favour genetics wise is having a dense donor of black hair of thick calibre for when the eventual HT occurs.

If there are any young males out there who are losing their hair please give fin a shot after doing some researching into the dosing or you'll be left like me grasping at straws on the edge of having to your buzz hair at the age of 21.

There a lot of unknowns with using fin long term. DHT is the king of androgens and suppressing DHT long term can lead to all sorts of complications. People have used fin for 3-4 years successfully and then all of a sudden started noting intense brain fog, serious libido issues, weight gain etc...fin is a poison. Use with caution.

[huawei]

There a lot of unknowns with using fin long term. DHT is the king of androgens and suppressing DHT long term can lead to all sorts of complications. People have used fin for 3-4 years successfully and then all of a sudden started noting intense brain fog, serious libido issues, weight gain etc...fin is a poison. Use with caution.

You're not wrong hence my statement about researching the dosing before giving it a go.

Anyhow, it has been around a week and a half since my hair loss has more or less crawled to a halt. I think for the most part it's done . At times I can pull my hands through my hair and nothing will come out and at other times maybe only one or two and in the shower I can run my hands through my hairs and end up with under four hairs every time. In comparison before starting my treatment pulling my hands through my hair would result in plus five hairs coming out every time and running my hands through my hair in the shower could see me at times end up pushing 10 - 15 hairs.

However, my hairline does not seem to be responding as well as the rest of my head in that it is noticeably worse than when I started and the hair is no where as nearly well anchored as the rest of my head. This combined with the quoted post below has spurred me into upping my dosing to 0.5mg everyday. This quoted post may be helpful to others.

I'm going to start off by stating that plasma DHT levels are a very inconsistent measure for the battle against hair loss, for several reasons. The quantities of DHT found in the blood are more or less pointless, since they are leftovers that have leaked from autocrine reduction on target tissue. What this means is, plasma DHT levels are a byproduct of either too few androgen receptors near the local site in which they are produced, or a high 5-AR activity that has caused over-saturation of androgen receptors and thus excess quantities are released in the bloodstream. This is why serum DHT levels do not really mean anything, they are a proxy measure for the enzyme inhibition of finasteride at best.

Finasteride is not only an inhibitor of 5-ar II enzymes, it's a suicide inhibitor. Meaning that once finasteride binds to a 5-ar enzyme, BOOM, it's gone. It forms an irreversible bond forever. So even though the half life of finasteride is only 6 hours, it takes up to a week for serum DHT levels to get to baseline after a single dose. The reason for that is, the half life turnover rate of the 5-αr II enzyme is somewhere between 15 to 30 days. Generally, the amount of finasteride you take and the frequency in which you take it is generally irrelevant on a broad scale, seeing as it can be effective from doses as low as 0.12mg, and it takes probably at least 72 hours to have any appreciable change on serum DHT.

But there's a catch, I've already mentioned that serum DHT levels means little for hair loss. Over 75% of serum DHT levels are originated from the prostate, since it's responsible for about 60% of total DHT levels in the body alone. So if anything, the serum DHT levels would a proxy measure for amount of DHT bounded by androgen receptors on prostate tissue. But if you are not medicating finasteride to relieve benign prostatic hyperplasia, then that is highly irrelevant. Most of us are more interested in it's mechanism for slowing down hair loss.

Finasteride is not that effective in inhibiting scalp homogenate 5-alpha-reductase activity using micro doses. The general consensus on the efficacy of finasteride comes from the fact that it fights against MPB by blocking DHT conversion inside the hair follicle. That is the whole essence of 5-AR inhibitors, and the reason why they work. The bigger factor at work here is potency with respect to the scalp. Since the scalp has lower blood circulation and fewer concentrations of 5-AR enzymes than the prostate, it would naturally take a much higher concentration to give the same effects as it would for the prostate. Having said that, the IC50 of finasteride for prostate and scalp homogenates was reported to be 5.9 and 310 nM, respectively on average, consistent with other numerous attempts of measure. With this in mind, it was estimated that a concentration of 94 nM finasteride would inhibit prostate homogenate 5-AR activity by 85%, but would inhibit scalp homogenate 5-AR activity by 25%. An early MERCK study showed that value closer to 32% if I recall correctly. So by extrapolation, in order to achieve a level of inhibition in scalp tissue that was comparable to that in the prostate, the concentration of finasteride in plasma would have to be around 1 uM, which would be obtained following a single oral 50 mg dose of finasteride. So again, if you want maximal DHT inhibition inside follicular tissue, you would need doses in excess of 15 mg everyday. But seeing as reductions as little as 25% was enough to stop androgenic tissue expression for hair miniaturization, that would be unnecessary.

Again, consistent with these findings, hair counts seem to improve by increasing daily doses of finasteride.

The conclusion I have reached at reaching the best possible dose-result ratio schedule would be somewhere around 0.5mg to 1.0mg everyday.

[huawei]

Well it looks like I must have deleted my old photos by accident which is a shame. Here's one of the crown taken today with flash on and not that you would know but compared to half a year ago the difference is huge. It was almost impossible to hide the thinning (as it was hitting the whole back of my head) however now cosmetically at least there is solid coverage for the most part. I will add a photo every couple of months from here out and update if any shedding, sides or solid regrowth starts to occur around my hair line.

[cichlidfort]

Well it looks like I must have deleted my old photos by accident which is a shame. Here's one of the crown taken today with flash on and not that you would know but compared to half a year ago the difference is huge. It was almost impossible to hide the thinning (as it was hitting the whole back of my head) however now cosmetically at least there is solid coverage for the most part. I will add a photo every couple of months from here out and update if any shedding, sides or solid regrowth starts to occur around my hair line.

Nice job, keep it up man. Hang in there until there's a better solution.