Yet another story from a young guy

[itsmyhairs]

Hey guys,

Been reading this forum for a good few months now and after registering (and taking a week for my account to be approved) I'm finally posting.

I'm 28, been losing my hair since I was around 20-21?
I always had just super thick hair, literally thick enough that it would probably have protected me from head trauma in an accident, it was ridiculous.

My dad went completely bald (NW6) by the time he was 22, he started at about 17 or 18.
Thinking I'd dodged that bullet I did panic when I started losing it a few years later, really thinking it'd be a year or two before I was totally bald.
You all know the drill, made me incredibly self conscious, depressed etc.

Anyway, almost 9 years later now and I never got the aggressive hair loss my dad suffered (he claimed it never bothered him, which I know is probably bs ).
I never took any medication until recently when I started on minox~.
My hair has maintained it's overall thickness pretty well, with some minor thinning on the crown, recon I'm somewhere at a NW 2.5?

I've been on minox for about 3 months now and I've got to say, although I was skeptical I'm pretty darn pleased with the result so far.

Here's a pic of my hairline at the right side.
The blue line represents the juvenile hairline and the red one represents the pre-minox hairline.
Growth has been fairly significant for 3 months and they're thick terminal hairs too.
Below them there's more fine vellus hair, which should hopefully fill in like the others higher up.
If it does then it's like a 50% recovery of my hairline, which would be quite nice.

It's also my understanding that you won't see the true results of what minox can do for you for at least 6-9 months, is that right?

I was thinking of having a HT, I've been researching it for about 2 years now.
Though I think I'm going to give the minox another 6 months to see just how well it grows/maintains my hair.
If I did have a HT I'd likely get about 2000 FUE grafts to the temples, but only if I didn't see anymore loss over the next year.
I'm sort of thinking the longer I leave it, the more I can get a better idea of what exactly I should have done(FUE, FUT) and how much.

What do you guys think, am I right to leave it longer?

[z06guy]

I'm in a similar situation as you. My hair used to be SUPER thick as well just a few years ago. Over the past couple years I've been getting miniaturized half sized hairs replacing my full hairs around my temples and crown. Some of the hairs around the temples seem to have turned into velus hairs...

It's gradually been getting thinner and less dense all over. More so around the temples and vertex/crown. It doesn't look like I'm balding unless you're shining a light directly on the scalp so it's still somewhat in the beginning stages. It's still a big deal to me since I know what direction it's heading.

I tried minox I had to drop it after a month because of the bad side effects I was having.

I've been on hairomega 3 in 1 and fish oil since earlier this year and if anything it's just made my hair more healthy looking but realistically it hasn't grown back any hairs that I know of.

I recently started finasteride. I'm hoping I'll be able to strengthen my hairline back to the way it was around the temples and vertex. If it can bring back the velus hairs that'll be a major bonus.

I think you ought to do some research on finasteride here and weigh your options on what you want to do. Personally I'd avoid the hair transplant unless I had absolutely no other options...

[itsmyhairs]

What sides did you have with minox?

I'd made a conscious decision to avoid fin after reading/hearing the horror stories.
My friend took it, got sides, it just isn't worth it.

[z06guy]

Well there are horror stories all over the internet for all types of drugs.

For example, if you read this and you may stop taking minox.

http://www.publichealthforums.com/h-33-minoxidil.html

Or if you google "minoxidil collage" it'll probably scare you as well.

At this point I say damn the horror stories. There are all sorts of stories out there on the internet from delusional people who genuinely believe in what they say. Some people actually believe they've been abducted by aliens. lol

I originally did not want to go with finasteride. All these horrible stories I've read scared me to death. I figured minox would be better with less sides.. Not in my case! Although I'm sure minoxidil would have done wonders for my hair but the side effects were just horrid.

My ears were swelling, eyes were burning sometimes, face got a bit bloated and swollen, I woke up with these horrible wrinkles on my face in the mornings... And many other things that just caused me to say enough is enough. I was using the kirkland signature minoxidil liquid drops twice daily.

It all went away when I stopped usage. I was likely allergic to it, but either way it was not the answer for me. If it's working for you then stay the course, but don't completely discount finasteride.