New to the forum-Need some opinions

[bhamilton88]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick background of what brought me here. I discovered a scar just below my left temple that is appearing without pushing my hair back. I had a mole removed from this area 8 years ago and never noticed it until now. My girlfriend suggested that maybe my hairline was receding.

So I've been doing my research ever since (a week or so ago). I never thought I'd be talking about balding at 25yrs of age but looking at the forums, it unfortunately looks very common.

Since I'm new to the subject, I would like your guys' opinions. I want to be proactive about this matter. I imagine most guys don't catch it until it's too late.

To note, I've always had an M shape hairline. Maybe before puberty I had a straight cookie cutter hairline but I don't recall. Here are some photos I took last week.

[redy]

I'll keep it simple man, you're definitely receding but you caught it early enough. Your thickness shows that.

Do your research on these drugs before doing anything, also.

If you want to test your luck with propecia (finasteride), that's your best bet. By trying you luck, I mean that statistically you're safe, but there's always a chance that you're the unlucky 1-3% who gets a bad side effect. Most of them will go away, again statistically speaking. Other than that, there is also dutasteride, a stronger version of the former. More risk for sides, or at least assumed. Less studies have been done on this drug for hairloss, but it is most certainly stronger in a statistically significant portion of cases.

Next you should consider the icing on the cake drugs: rogaine (minoxidil) and some variant of nizoral shampoo (keto) (try a 1% first probably, like regenpure DR) and how often you will apply them. The minox probably 1 or 2 a day (2x recommended) and the shampoo twice a week is more than enough, because it really dries out your hair. Your hair looks super thick though, so none of this should be a problem.

Anything else is experimental at this point, and you definitely have the hair to ignore them..

Also, for what it's worth, you seem to have a decent enough hairline to still pull off any look you want, even a buzz look. You probably could style your hair a little differently to minimize any receding appearance completely too. Mine is thinner than yours but a similar texture and it's pretty easy for me to hide my thinning.

[35YrsAfter]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick background of what brought me here. I discovered a scar just below my left temple that is appearing without pushing my hair back. I had a mole removed from this area 8 years ago and never noticed it until now. My girlfriend suggested that maybe my hairline was receding.

So I've been doing my research ever since (a week or so ago). I never thought I'd be talking about balding at 25yrs of age but looking at the forums, it unfortunately looks very common.

Since I'm new to the subject, I would like your guys' opinions. I want to be proactive about this matter. I imagine most guys don't catch it until it's too late.

To note, I've always had an M shape hairline. Maybe before puberty I had a straight cookie cutter hairline but I don't recall. Here are some photos I took last week.

Is there much hair loss in your family? In some cases a man's hairline will recede a bit and just stay that way for decades. During today's patient consult Dr. Cole put it this way... Rogaine helps a little and Propecia helps a little more than Rogaine. If you have any serious hair loss in you family, I think you should take a more aggressive approach. Consider Avodart, Rogaine and possibly ACell/PRP treatments. When hair loss is not aggressive, some recession can be filled in with grafts to a degree as long as it's done so it looks natural.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office
forhair.com
Cole Hair Transplant
1070 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[konfusion]

Looks like receding but also hair quality seems to be nice. Do you notice miniaturized hairs? If so it might recede further. I would take my shot with Finasteride at this point. And keep in mind 99% percent of they guys who come here and ask "am I receding?" are receding. Just 1% are the ones who have OCD. So it's your chance to do something about it.

[bhamilton88]

Is there much hair loss in your family? In some cases a man's hairline will recede a bit and just stay that way for decades. During today's patient consult Dr. Cole put it this way... Rogaine helps a little and Propecia helps a little more than Rogaine. If you have any serious hair loss in you family, I think you should take a more aggressive approach. Consider Avodart, Rogaine and possibly ACell/PRP treatments. When hair loss is not aggressive, some recession can be filled in with grafts to a degree as long as it's done so it looks natural.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office
forhair.com
Cole Hair Transplant
1070 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

No one that I know of on my dad's side is bald or losing their hair. On my mom's side, my grandfather had a full head of hair until he passed at 85. My uncle and great uncle on my mom's side have hair loss issues, however. So there is some baldness in my genetics.

[bhamilton88]

Looks like receding but also hair quality seems to be nice. Do you notice miniaturized hairs? If so it might recede further. I would take my shot with Finasteride at this point. And keep in mind 99% percent of they guys who come here and ask "am I receding?" are receding. Just 1% are the ones who have OCD. So it's your chance to do something about it.

Maybe a few. Certainly nothing like some of the pics on Google regarding miniaturized hairs.

I guess my first avenue to take according to everyone will be taking finasteride, however, I'm pretty concerned about the sexual dysfunction risk. I got some thinking to do.

[bhamilton88]

Don't want to bump this thread but just a basic question, where on the Norwood scale would I be?

[Notcoolanymore]

I would say a norwood 2.

[bhamilton88]

Back again for an opinion. It's been 2 months since I took those pics and since I've looked at my hairline every day, I'd like to get your guys' take again.

I've had an itchy scalp and flakes for the last year, and obviously now that I think about MPB, it makes it feel worse. I've read that could be a DHT attack, which sounds like this could be aggressive.

I've made an appointment with my family doctor next week to take a look. What should I ask my doctor to take a look at? I've heard a blood test for DHT levels is something to look into, however, from my research it doesn't sound like high levels of DHT matter, only genetic sensitivity to it matters.

I've snapped a few more pics. From the pics I've seen on the internet, am I in NW3 territory?

[Jazz1]

I will give you a good suggestion I have also given my cousin recently, his hairloss is not bad but he is slowly receeding. I suggested before finesteride he try Regenepure Shampoo DR and NT. He did not want to use minoxidol or finesteride and he's currently using Regenepure, it's working for him. Give a good shampoo a try, I rotate mine with Revita and Regenepure, but regenpure is way better, ideally you want to use it daily or every other day I have been doing so for past 2 years. I leave the DR on for ten minutes then I rinse off with NT great shampoo and rotate different days with Revita. Also get an organic conditioner as some complain dry scalp but I have no issues as I use a good conditioner.

[bhamilton88]

Is your cousin's hair roughly around where mine is or better?

[Notcoolanymore]

Get on something proven to work for MPB.

[stringerbell]

Hi.

Just to back up what others said : if you mind, get on something as soon as possible !

I'm quite like you : M shape hairline (and I also think that it dates back a long time ago, although it may have receded slowly during my teenage years) and the exact same hairstyle. I basically had your hairline not so long ago, but I've waited months since I noticed it to get on usual stuffs (minoxidil, finasteride, ketocozanole shampoo) and my hairline has been eaten aggressively from both left and right, and I've started to thin on top in the meantime.

As you say, I strongly believe that the "oh-boy-i'm-balding"-stress is accelarating the whole process, as my scalp began to show inflammatation since I noticed I was receding (see my thread : http://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=15538) which is why I really urge you to save what you have getting on the "big three" (see above).

I can't report any improvement yet as I started recently the treatments, but I'm pretty hopeful as I didn't catch it too late.