Advice needed & greetings. I am new here

[holidayrandy]

Hey everyone. I am new here. I feel your pain. This is a major drag.

BACKGROUND:
I'm 31, and started losing my hair. It's weird because it was totally thick just a few months ago. I had cut it very short for the first time in years, and it just grew in thin. I have't seen any shedding anywhere. That month when I cut it I had some personal tragedies so I was under severe emotional stress, which I catered to with booze, speed, a lot of travel, and very poor sleeping habits/diet. Despite my delusional hope that this is merely stress related and it will go back to normal, one of my best friends is a doctor, and he said "yeah, that could be a part of it, but it's really 90% hormones and genes."

I guess I could have been losing it for a while and never noticed. I am Caucasian, but have super tight, kinky curls. Big funky jew fro.

Any way, I can see the hairline is only receding on the right side of my head. Really weird. The crown is thin.

MANAGEMENT
I am 1.5 months into a 1.25mg Finasteride/5% mixoxidil. THe front of the crown looks thinner than the back right now... not sure if the rogaine is already helping the back and not the front.


ADVICE NEEDED: ROGAINE LIQUID vs. FOAM???
The only side effect I have experienced (aside from being very insecure and blind sided by this slap in the face), was some flaking from Rogaine. It looked gross. So I have done two things.

1 - I am waiting until my hair is relatively dry to apply rogaine.
2 - I used some t-gel shampoo for dandruff a few times a week. 2% Not extra strength or anything.

This seems to help the flaking.

I am getting to my inquiry... sorry for the rambling, but I was wonder if anyone had any advice on using the foam over the liquid for rogaine.

TRANSPLANTS
Has anyone here w/ super kinky hair had a transplant? I am on the fence about it, but what I do not understand is WHEN is the best time to get one, and with whom. I live in LA, so there seem to be a lot of smiling douche bags selling snake oil here.

I wish everyone the best. Hang in there.