My story, complete with graphs!

[OnAndOn]

Hey guys, been lurking on here for awhile now, thought I would get some advice.

I just turned 20. About 6 months ago, I had 2 different people in the same week comment on the fact that maybe my hairline was receding, I had never given this any thought before and it came as a bit of a shock to me. Nobody has said anything since, but as I researched my family tree, I realised that balding is very active in my family, and that I would need to take measures if I wanted hair by 30.

I went to my doctor, and he said he would normally put me on Fin, but due to the very high rate of testicular cancer in my family, that would not be wise, so fin is off the table for me.

My goal is to do everything I can to preserve what I have until the next generation of treatments are available, hopefully by the time I am 24-26.

So about 13 weeks ago, I started using mino twice daily and nizoral 2-3 times a week. I am also got tests done by my doctor to find my vitamin d and Iron was low, so I am supplementing them. I plan on introducing other (I realise fairly ineffective treatments) such as toco-8, caffeine and anti-dht shampoo in the near future. I also used a hair product loaded with caffeine for styling.

Here are a few picks of my hair over the last few years:
This is my hairline from July 2009 (17 years old):


This is my hairline from December 2010 (18 years old):


This is my hairline from Febuary 2011 (18 years old)


And Now March 2011 (19 years old)


13 weeks ago, the day I started Mino and Niz:


The next four are all from today, 13 weeks into starting Mino and Niz:





I had a way of measuring my shedding after starting mino, I work 8 hours with a hat on every saturday, at the start of every hour I would count the hairs in my hat, find the average over the entire day, and use that as the number for that week. Here is my shedding since starting mino, because graphs are great:




I have a few questions for you guys:

1. Is my hair loss noticeable, or could that week that two people mentioned it just be a bad week?

2. People always say that if you have a receding hairline, you should cut it really short. Am I at that stage were a long hair style looks like I am covering it up? Or do I still have enough hair to work with.

3. Is there anything else I can add to my regime that will help me survive until we see results from replicel, histogen, adreans, follicle ect.

4. Has my hairline gotten a lot worse from the time I was 17 to now? Self-perspective is a very difficult thing for me .

Thanks for your help!, This website has been a great support to me.


OnAndOn.

[john2399]

your hair looks good!

[oOKawaiiOo]

Nice graph man!

I would recommend counting of ur hairloss by looking at how much hair you lose when you shower. So you know how much you lose per day or per shower.

[Tracy C]

I have a few questions for you guys:

You are developing a natural and normal adult male hair line. If you are not thinning in the vertex and mid-anterior, you are not going bald... Yet...

Counting hairs will drive you nutty and it is a completely unproductive waste of time and effort. Don't do that. It is much better to take good quality pictures of your scalp every six months (focusing on the vertex and mid-anterior - hair parted down the middle). This way if you ever actually are going bald, you will be able to tell.

[OnAndOn]

John 2399 - Thanks bud
oOkawaiiOo - Haha, thanks mate. I never intended to use counting my hair in my hat as a valid representation of how much hair I was actually losing, but more as a way of seeing what the treatment was doing to my hair, relative to baseline and week to week. There is a huge difference between the 14 hairs or so an hour I was counting in the midst of my minoxidil shed to the 1 or 2 I was getting last week.

TracyC - Thanks for the feedback , My vertex is fine I think, when I have longer hair you can see a bit of skin, but I think that is the just the way hair is falling, I got it trimmed pretty short today, presently surprised by the result. A new spike of optimism that by being proactive, I can be fine until a new treatment emerges, because I know that unless I am adopted, or unless I do something, aggressive loss is coming sooner rather than later.

[glenark]

I agree, your hair looks fine to me and great style

P.S. Love the graphs haha