How bad am I balding?

[lostyneedshelp]

My hair has been thinning, but I haven't noticed any hair falling out on my pillow or in shower. How bad is my hair loss and should I start treatment?

Picture with hair straight down


Picture with me trying to split some of the bad areas


Crown Area


Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Tracy C]

This is not really bad at all and you are catching it reasonably early. I think you would do fine on the "Big 3" along with low level laser therapy.

The "Big 3" is Propecia (or generic Finasteride), Rogaine (or generic Minoxidil) and Nizoral.

You need a prescription for Propecia, generic Finasteride and 2% Nizoral. Talk to your doctor about Finasteride and make sure you understand all the factual information about it. I am adding a link to a recording of "The Bald Truth" talk show in which they have a good discussion going about Finasteride. The show is also fun to listen to in general, so I do recommend listening in if you get a chance. Listening to "guy talk" cracks me up - and they usually have good information to share as well.

http://www.thebaldtruth.com/hair-loss/spencer-kobrens-the-bald-truth-112711/

Propecia is pretty expensive. Many men get a script for generic 5mg Finasteride because it is much less expensive, and then split the pills into four pieces to make their daily dose.



Rogaine, generic Minoxidil and 1% Nizoral are all available without a prescription. I would recommend using Rogaine foam in the morning because it is stealthy and then use generic liquid Minoxidil in the evening to save money. Rogaine foam is a bit pricey, but it is worth it for the steathyness. Generic Minoxidil is reasonably priced. I buy the Walmart "Equate" version of women's Minoxidil. The men's version is only a few dollars more than the women's version.

Nizoral is a medicated shampoo that you would use in place of your regular shampoo once or twice per week. It is a mild anti-androgen that may block DHT at the scalp. If you get the non-prescription "Nizoral A-D" version, you can use that one up to twice per week - but not more often than that. If you get the prescription version, you should only use that once per week unless a doctor has specifically told you to use it more often than that. Nizoral A-D is pretty reasonably price, though expensive as shampoo's go. I get mine at either Walmart or CVS.

The laser comb is expensive - and low level laser therapy does not work for everyone. Looking at your head, I think it would improve your hair since it seems those with diffuse thinning see better results from LLLT than those with a well defined pattern. I purchased my laser comb directly from Hairmax so I could take advantage of their 20 week money back guarantee if it didn't improve my hair. That was over four years ago. Since it did improve my hair I have continued using it to this day.

You could also benefit from cosmetic camouflage products such as Toppik, X-Fusion, Nanogen, Surethick or other similar products. I just started using Toppik myslef to hide my part and I am pretty happy with it. As I looked for other similar products, I found that Hairmax sells Surethick with their name silk screened on the bottle. They have a better price, so I will be buying a bottle of that when my bottle of Toppik is just about empty.