Bald spot on fin.. Do I quit?

[Artista]

Great to hear back from you again Ziggy'!
Although you have spoken of your issues, it seems that you are going into a more positive mode!
Staying positive with commonsense can only help you my friend!
Remember what I had said about STRESS...I wish you luck and Im glad that you are here!!
All WILL be WELL -in time so be patient .

[Dench57]

Hi Jamesst11 !
I was glad to have read your response from yesterday! Thank you so much!
I am sincerely trying to help others, especially with commonsense.
Ive not been as active as I was before because LIFE gets in the way.
I will be creating a new thread here at some point in time.
Hey Dench57, your response
"You've got to LOVE the enthusiasm with all that bold/underline/italics." was humorous indeed!
I hope your doing OK too Dench' !!
How about you James' ? Are you OK?
Back to Ziggy', what is your update Ziggy'??

Haha you really are a breath of fresh air on these incredibly depressing forums.

[jamesst11]

Ziggy, I have to ask - What made you come to the conclusion that you even had MPB in the first place? Looking at your photos, aside from the area that thinned out a bit, I personally see no signs of MPB, but I could be wrong. Did you get a miniaturization test or biopsy done?

[Dench57]

Yeah your hair still looks really good and in my opinion you should not even be thinking about a hair transplant. You just need to get that inflammation under control, same as me.

I'll post some pics of my situation at some point as it's similar to yours, in that I barely had MPB and taking Fin just opened up a whole can of worms with the inflammation/itch/scalp pain.

[Ziggyz123]

Ziggy, I have to ask - What made you come to the conclusion that you even had MPB in the first place? Looking at your photos, aside from the area that thinned out a bit, I personally see no signs of MPB, but I could be wrong. Did you get a miniaturization test or biopsy done?

Well, long story short, when I was like 20 I realized my hairline was a v and it freaked me out even though I never looked at it lol. It was probably like that all along, but I went to true and Dorin in the city and they told me just to use minoxidil. I used that and I was getting itching on my right hairline with some recession where the itch was. Then went to my derm and she put my on fin. Used it for a year and kept on minox and then got crazy shedding, short tight pains in my scalp, etc.. Now I'm losing my hair really badly. I mean my hair was GREAT this time last year. Sucks..

[jamesst11]

Dr. Rahal is a very respectable surgeon. I did not have an IAHRS surgeon and made a huge mistake. It just depends on your extent of hair loss and how you've sustained the hair that you have. If you have lost a lot of hair RECENTLY, due to fin, minox, TE or whatever and have become diffuse, then in my personal opinion, you are not a good candidate for an HT at all. That is the only reason why I was so insistent against Ziggy's. I would need to see pics of your hair, how long you've sustained the NW that you're at, know your detailed regiment, age, so and and so forth to give my personal opinion. The only advice I can give, advice that I wish I had gotten, and advice that would have saved me from a horrible depression is THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE. If you have a relatively thick head of hair and are prone to MPB and get one "touch up" HT to thicken one area, you will have to get another and another in the future when the other areas start to thin. Are you considering FUT? If so, be ready for the emotional trauma of having a scar on the back of your head for the rest of your days. FUE also leaves scarring. Are you ready to dedicate yourself to a life of hair transplants? If you're not on fin and minox and do have TE from the procedure (which is WAY more common than you think), and if you have MPB on top of that, please don't expect a lot of that lost hair to regrow.

I AM NOT TRYING TO SCARE YOU, I AM TRYING TO INFORM YOU. While Rahal is a very reputable doctor, no doctor knows precisely the outcome of these procedures. The BEST candidate is one with ISOLATED loss and a sustained NW pattern and is on fin and minox and is realistic with their expectations. NOT DIFFUSE THINNERS. LOOK at as many HT pics as you can. CONSULT AS MANY HT DOCS AND DERMS AS YOU CAN. You can always get an HT in the future. IF you let your EMOTIONS AND VULNERABILITY get the best of you, you CANNOT undo what has been done. good luck. post some pics!

[Illusion]

Ziggy your density looks fine (as in not affected by mpb), I'd be more worried by all those miniaturising hairs in your hair line. Also, get hair counts done of various places of your scalp by a derm through a microscope camera. I had those done and I got a number of hairs per square cm. With those numbers I was able to determine wether I actually fell into the normal region density wise. It doesn't mean you haven't lost hair in those places but it might ease your mind to see you're still well within normal hair counts.

Also, hop on the dutatasteride train if you think finasteride is ineffective for you. Or RU if you like.

[Ziggyz123]

Ziggy your density looks fine (as in not affected by mpb), I'd be more worried by all those miniaturising hairs in your hair line. Also, get hair counts done of various places of your scalp by a derm through a microscope camera. I had those done and I got a number of hairs per square cm. With those numbers I was able to determine wether I actually fell into the normal region density wise. It doesn't mean you haven't lost hair in those places but it might ease your mind to see you're still well within normal hair counts.

Also, hop on the dutatasteride train if you think finasteride is ineffective for you. Or RU if you like.

What's up illusion. Yeah my density in my scalp is decent, but my hairline where the soreness is got totally destroyed and miniaturized on fin.. I need to visit a trichologist in order to get a miniaturization mapping done because the derms I have seen don't do it. Also, are you on ditasteride? I was thinking about using it, but this inflammation and loss happened on fin so I'm worried about the kind of reaction I could potentially have on dut.

[Illusion]

What's up illusion. Yeah my density in my scalp is decent, but my hairline where the soreness is got totally destroyed and miniaturized on fin.. I need to visit a trichologist in order to get a miniaturization mapping done because the derms I have seen don't do it. Also, are you on ditasteride? I was thinking about using it, but this inflammation and loss happened on fin so I'm worried about the kind of reaction I could potentially have on dut.

It's always a bit tricky to give advice when people think their hair line got worse on fin. I'm not really educated on this subject so it's all bro science coming out of my mouth . Anyway, some people think it's the extra T that you get while on fin (and dut as well) that makes your hair line a lot worse. Others say that when your hair line gets worse in fin, it's just mpb progressing and fin not being strong enough. So your hair line going backwards wouldn't be the fault of fin, your mpb would be too "aggressive" for fin.

I think it's prob the last case, but some people swear by the extra T that ruined their hair. It might be good to contact a reputable HT doctor (IAHRS) and ask him this question. You should realise though that dutasteride increases scalp T with a whopping 102% (!!) if I recall correctly. However, it does decrease scalp DHT with 58% compared to somewhere around 30% with fin. Again, look these numbers up to be sure but I am certain they are approx these numbers.

I am on dutasteride indeed, 0.5mg ED. However, my hair loss is kinda like yours only my hair line is worse than yours. I have good density but a pretty high hair line (NW2.5) for my age. Therefore, to be absolutely sure that I won't recede any further, I also use a low dose of RU exclusively on my hair line (35mg). I don't know if this will be enough to fully halt my hair loss but I sure hope so. I also use minox once a day btw. I wish I could tell you whether this regime works or not for me, but I'm only 2 weeks in so I can't

Before this I have used a relatively low dose of RU (varying from 40 to 70mg) ED over my whole scalp (I don't do that anymore because I hope dut will take care for my overal density) for 8 months, used 1mg and later 1.25mg fin ED for 6 months and used minox once a day for 6 months, but I had the feeling I was still receding so I changed regime. Dunno if it was truly necessary but seeing my hair line like it's now makes me pretty sad, so I want to do everything I can to at least not make this worse. I'd up my current RU dose if I could but money is kinda tight atm and I'm also not sure whether it's necessary (maybe his will be enough already?)

Sorry for my messy post, just jotted some things down I thought might be relevant for your situation. Anyway let me tell you this, you still have really good hair and switching to dut might save your hair for a very long time. It's worth at least considering it. You could talk it through at a hair clinic or with a derm, but you have to be sure that person or clinic is familiar with dut for hair loss. After all, it's not fda approved for hair loss and that's a no-no for many derms out there I'd figure.

[jamesst11]

I don't understand this though... doesn't testosterone in itself have nothing to do with hair loss? Isn't it only the amount of scalp DHT that causes hair loss? A lot of people on fin have reported increase levels of total testosterone, which in the sense of physiological feedback makes sense. On fin, 5a reductase is reduced, therefor DHT is reduced and your body may respond by producing more of the hormone ultimately responsible for DHT production, which is testosterone... BUT, as long as your sufficiently blocking 5AR, you are preventing the metabolism of testosterone to DHT.

[Ziggyz123]

Well let me quickly tell you guys this.. When I experienced the burning sensations and this rapid hairloss, I did have a jolt of horny-ness and I literally HAD to masturbate because I felt weird. I'm sure that either I had an increase of T or somehow DHT. I'll never know.

[Ziggyz123]

Also, the amount of shedding I do is really insane.. I shower and lose like 40 hairs, I lose another 20 or so blow drying on cool, and then I'll comb it maybe three passes and lose another 10-15. That's just in the morning.. Anytime I put my hands through my hair I'll have 2 hairs on my hand. It's like my hair will not stay planted in my head and it's extremely weak. I also shed hair of different lengths so I'm assuming that my hair is cycling very fast to the point where it is miniaturized.. This is what is happening to my hairline/behind. I have thinning pretty bad when it's 3/4 dry that is very apparent, but after its fully dry and not greasy it is hard to tell. I guess dutasteride at this point wouldn't matter because I've lost like 50% of my hair in the past 9 months.. I haven't gotten it cut in so long and I literally dread getting on because of this terrible thinning..

Does anyone know what is going on with the drug setipiprant? That's the only thing I really have any faith in, but I can't seem to find any new releases about it anywhere..

[mic28]

Hey guys so I finally made the decision to go on oral minoxidil starting off on just the 1mg daily then il up it. Decision was finalised as I am only back from holiday and lost a ton of hair in a few days. Hair became greasy, horniness levels rose etc showing increase in T. My scalp is currently visible and my crown is bald. This is now my last resort. Still on small amounts of fin but think I will finish up

[Ziggyz123]

What up mic.

I'm taking micro doses as well now. Trying to mess with it because I think it's causing my scalp pain.. Let me know how you do with oral minoxidil man. Document sides if any and what not and best of luck to you!!!!! If you don't experience sides, work your way to 5mg because I read that dosage is good for regrowth.

[mic28]

Will do Ziggy, il keep small dosing fin as well for now. I reckon shedding occurred over the holiday also due to poor diet.