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Greetings everyone:
I have been a long-time reader of the posts to the forum. I have also been following the news on potential treatments and cures of male pattern baldness/hair loss for about 25 years. Like most of you, year after year I read the hopeful press releases that strongly suggest a cure is likely within about 5 years. Then, I watch the 5 years pass, after which time new statements are released claiming once again that a cure or treatment is about 5 years away. Over and over and over that cycle repeats. It's not just hairloss either. The "5-year hope" statements apply to many industries, if not most.
Regarding my hairloss, it started to become increasingly noticeable when I was around 21 years old. By the time I was 25, I realized that it was starting to look ridiculous. I decided that it was a complete waste of time to wash and style my receding hair anymore, so I made the painful decision to begin shaving my head down to stubble. I sort of died that day and never recovered. It was as though I became completely different and a far less confident man, and I didn't like the new me.
I am now somewhere between a Norwood 4A and Norwood 5A. I can easily envision becoming a Norwood 6 in 5 years or so. To make matters even worse, I am grey too.
I had a beautiful full head of hair in my teens, which I wore long and styled well. The girls loved it! My grandmother even remarked that if I were a girl, I wouldn't have been blessed with such a beautiful full head of attractive hair.
As a teen athlete, I was a very popular in school, and I had lots of girlfriends. My hair was always a source of pride for me.
When I began losing my hair in my early 20s, it really blew my confidence. Although I was (and still am) an attractive guy. When I am wearing a cap and no one knows me, I am treated well and interacted with in great way. In pictures, when I wear sunglasses pushed up on my head, which generally masks my lack of hair, women tell me that I look great and very handsome. When the cap or sunglasses are off, it is a far different story. It's like I suddenly become a pariah.
I have been married, divorced, and have dated extensively, even with this condition, but it is extremely challenging to be myself and find the right woman for me. Hell, I even made the difficult choice to never have children because of the fear that a son would inherit this trait! I couldn't condemn him to this.
The problem that I find is that about 90% of the women out there who are worth having won't give you the time of day if you have lost your hair (or are losing your hair), and I certainly cannot and do not blame them at all.
Believe it or not, I have even considered dating blind women. That's how much this illness can mess with one's mind over time after repeated rejections that were obviously based on hairloss.
It is easy to sit back and say, "Well, those women who insist on a full head of hair are superficial, and you don't need that kind of woman anyway," but that's a cop out! I absolutely do not blame women for wanting a man with nice hair, or for rejecting men who don't have a nice, full head of hair.
Let's face it... Physical attraction is very important, and everyone has a minimum standard. It is quite natural. No one can deny that. I'm certainly not looking for a beauty queen (I had plenty of those when I was young), but just to find a normal woman now seems to be beyond my reach, despite the fact that I am otherwise attractive, very sweet, very intelligent, creative, have a great job, financial independence, own my own business, two homes, etc.
Regarding the remaining 10% of the women who look beyond hairloss, I still feel badly about possibly (or probably) embarrassing them by my hairloss. Let's face it! Hair loss is a disfigurement and it deeply affects the self-confidence of most people.
Anyway, over the years I have done NOTHING to "partially" treat this illness. I simply could not see myself grasping at straws with Rogaine, Propecia, Finasteride, etc. that "sort of work sometimes, but have nasty side effects", nor would I ever opt for fake transplants or even real transplants.
I saw the results of a male nurse who had hair transplant surgery in his 20s, and then he kept losing his hair through his 30s and eventually looked like he had a line of hair close to his brow that he combed back to hide his baldness. Um, no thanks! I am not into hiding this condition. I just want a solid and permanent cure.
Indeed, we need a full genetic cure, but I seriously doubt that one will come along for us any time soon.
How badly do I want a cure? I would probably pay ever dime that I have for one, if it were an ideal and infallible solution. Now, if we stop and think about that for a moment, how sad is it that one would play almost anything to erase this problem forever? I've thought about that question over the years, and it makes me truly realize how pathetic the human condition is; such that we would grasp and straws and pay virtually anything to look nicer. Amazing, but that's what we are; it is our nature!
Cheers,
John
P.S. My apologies for any typos. I wrote this rather quickly. Peace all!
I have been a long-time reader of the posts to the forum. I have also been following the news on potential treatments and cures of male pattern baldness/hair loss for about 25 years. Like most of you, year after year I read the hopeful press releases that strongly suggest a cure is likely within about 5 years. Then, I watch the 5 years pass, after which time new statements are released claiming once again that a cure or treatment is about 5 years away. Over and over and over that cycle repeats. It's not just hairloss either. The "5-year hope" statements apply to many industries, if not most.
Regarding my hairloss, it started to become increasingly noticeable when I was around 21 years old. By the time I was 25, I realized that it was starting to look ridiculous. I decided that it was a complete waste of time to wash and style my receding hair anymore, so I made the painful decision to begin shaving my head down to stubble. I sort of died that day and never recovered. It was as though I became completely different and a far less confident man, and I didn't like the new me.
I am now somewhere between a Norwood 4A and Norwood 5A. I can easily envision becoming a Norwood 6 in 5 years or so. To make matters even worse, I am grey too.
I had a beautiful full head of hair in my teens, which I wore long and styled well. The girls loved it! My grandmother even remarked that if I were a girl, I wouldn't have been blessed with such a beautiful full head of attractive hair.
As a teen athlete, I was a very popular in school, and I had lots of girlfriends. My hair was always a source of pride for me.
When I began losing my hair in my early 20s, it really blew my confidence. Although I was (and still am) an attractive guy. When I am wearing a cap and no one knows me, I am treated well and interacted with in great way. In pictures, when I wear sunglasses pushed up on my head, which generally masks my lack of hair, women tell me that I look great and very handsome. When the cap or sunglasses are off, it is a far different story. It's like I suddenly become a pariah.
I have been married, divorced, and have dated extensively, even with this condition, but it is extremely challenging to be myself and find the right woman for me. Hell, I even made the difficult choice to never have children because of the fear that a son would inherit this trait! I couldn't condemn him to this.
The problem that I find is that about 90% of the women out there who are worth having won't give you the time of day if you have lost your hair (or are losing your hair), and I certainly cannot and do not blame them at all.
Believe it or not, I have even considered dating blind women. That's how much this illness can mess with one's mind over time after repeated rejections that were obviously based on hairloss.
It is easy to sit back and say, "Well, those women who insist on a full head of hair are superficial, and you don't need that kind of woman anyway," but that's a cop out! I absolutely do not blame women for wanting a man with nice hair, or for rejecting men who don't have a nice, full head of hair.
Let's face it... Physical attraction is very important, and everyone has a minimum standard. It is quite natural. No one can deny that. I'm certainly not looking for a beauty queen (I had plenty of those when I was young), but just to find a normal woman now seems to be beyond my reach, despite the fact that I am otherwise attractive, very sweet, very intelligent, creative, have a great job, financial independence, own my own business, two homes, etc.
Regarding the remaining 10% of the women who look beyond hairloss, I still feel badly about possibly (or probably) embarrassing them by my hairloss. Let's face it! Hair loss is a disfigurement and it deeply affects the self-confidence of most people.
Anyway, over the years I have done NOTHING to "partially" treat this illness. I simply could not see myself grasping at straws with Rogaine, Propecia, Finasteride, etc. that "sort of work sometimes, but have nasty side effects", nor would I ever opt for fake transplants or even real transplants.
I saw the results of a male nurse who had hair transplant surgery in his 20s, and then he kept losing his hair through his 30s and eventually looked like he had a line of hair close to his brow that he combed back to hide his baldness. Um, no thanks! I am not into hiding this condition. I just want a solid and permanent cure.
Indeed, we need a full genetic cure, but I seriously doubt that one will come along for us any time soon.
How badly do I want a cure? I would probably pay ever dime that I have for one, if it were an ideal and infallible solution. Now, if we stop and think about that for a moment, how sad is it that one would play almost anything to erase this problem forever? I've thought about that question over the years, and it makes me truly realize how pathetic the human condition is; such that we would grasp and straws and pay virtually anything to look nicer. Amazing, but that's what we are; it is our nature!
Cheers,
John
P.S. My apologies for any typos. I wrote this rather quickly. Peace all!
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