Well, I guess I'm doing a log thread!

[redy]

So, hey.

Original thread(s):
http://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=13382
http://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=13674


I'm going on 22, and I started noticing the thinning of my hairline when it started on the left side due to how I cut/do my hair usually. I think I had my a "shed" period before treatment in about March or so, which is when I really started getting concerned about hairloss. In May, I noticed my hairline was severely thinning out. Looking back at pictures through the years, I probably started thinning about 3 years ago at the hairline, but it must have gained some momentum this year...

I'm mainly concerned for thickness, if the hairline gets better that's awesome too. I've always just kind of accepted my higher hairline and owned it. The thinning is what I will not accept.

TREATMENT STARTED 7/31/2013:

FINASTERIDE:

Generic
For about 2-3 weeks, I tapered up from .25mg every 2 days, to every other day, to every day, to .5mg, and then finally to 1mg every day.
I am currently considering doing the proscar cutting method, which would leave me at 1.25mg, for cost purposes.

MINOXIDIL

Rogaine 5% Foam
I have been using Rogaine 5% foam every day twice a day on my hairline and thinning behind hairline, missing maybe 2 doses total, since 7/31/2013. I plan to do this indefinitely. It doesn't really bother me that much, but forces me to plan and also use extra product in my hair afterwards to get rid of some of the aftereffects.

KETOCONAZOLE

Regenpure DR 1%

I use Regenpure DR 1% shampoo twice a week, and have been doing so since 8/21/2013. I'm not sure if this is actually going to do anything, but I'm not going to be that guy that didn't try it.

Notes:

Shedding

I think that I have been shedding for the past 2 weeks or so as of 9/25/2013. Many hairs in the shower and such come all over my hands but note that they are very very blonde and colorless and thin. I think this is good shedding, I can't notice the visual difference anyway and hopefully they come back aftering getting their shit together I really think that the crown area has shedded further into a balding pattern on the left side away from my cowlick but it's hard to show that. I'm really hoping I caught this fast enough to not have to use minox on the crown too.

Vellus Hairs(?)
Upon starting treatment, the follicles along my hairline were not "dead" or bald or whatever you want to call it. The thinning area is FILLED with essentially colorless and very thin hairs, that are mostly full length. Just not significant unless they catch a favorable lighting. The right side of my hairline has a noticeable "chunk" less than the left side, but these hairs are just very thin and lightly colored.

New Growth(?)
All along my hairline especially on the left side, I have new growth that I current cut to essentially shaved length. They are not cosmetically visable from normal distance, but up close you can see them especially when I don't cut them. Some have started to appear in the NW0ish area on the left side! On the right side, they do not come down as far, but the right side seems to be more damaged or far along in MPB. They are racing!

PICTURES

The baseline pictures have extremely harsh lighting which I can no longer exactly replicate, so I am very sorry about that. Also, it seems to be a little bit shorter than the new pictures, but I tried my best to style it the same way.

This isn't a SAVE MY HAIRLINE PLEASE thread, it's a thicken up my thinning hairline thread. If (let's say 'when') I beat this thinning, or if I see any real change in hairline, I'll note and start that.


7/31/2013:






9/25/2013:







Any comments and advice would be extremely appreciated, which is obviously why I am doing this.

Thanks everyone!

[Notcoolanymore]

This isn't a SAVE MY HAIRLINE PLEASE thread, it's a thicken up my thinning hairline thread. If (let's say 'when') I beat this thinning, or if I see any real change in hairline, I'll note and start that.

Your regimen is solid, pretty much using what I as well as many others around here are using. I only had a comment about the above. All I would say is don't assume the treatments you are using will not help on the hairline. Many people have reported growth along the hairline using fin and minox. That was one of the reasons why I didn't treat my hair loss. I started out with typical MPB and from what I understood the treatments only worked for the crown. I was wrong and didn't treat. Now I'm F#@ked!

[redy]

Your regimen is solid, pretty much using what I as well as many others around here are using. I only had a comment about the above. All I would say is don't assume the treatments you are using will not help on the hairline. Many people have reported growth along the hairline using fin and minox. That was one of the reasons why I didn't treat my hair loss. I started out with typical MPB and from what I understood the treatments only worked for the crown. I was wrong and didn't treat. Now I'm F#@ked!

I mean, I'm using it at the hairline to thicken up the hairline/behind the hairline.

What do you mean by saying this? That I should try to also move my hairline forward?
I'm rubbing it in all over the hairline, in front of and behind, so eitherway i'll find out.

[Notcoolanymore]

I mean, I'm using it at the hairline to thicken up the hairline/behind the hairline.

What do you mean by saying this? That I should try to also move my hairline forward?
I'm rubbing it in all over the hairline, in front of and behind, so eitherway i'll find out.

I am just saying don't give up hope on getting your hairline back. I don't think you can lower you hairline to where it hasn't been in the past, but it is possible to get back what you have lost.

[redy]

Sure, yeah. I have hope!

Anyone notice any differences or anything?

[redy]

Hey all, since I made that update about 20 days ago, I feel like I'm literally watching my hairline come back to life.

Take a step back, it's mostly fuzz and thin hair, and what was already peach fuzz is now really long basically colorless hair. But holy crap.....

Disclaimer: I'm really optimistic

My right side hairline has fuzz all the way to what appears to be a nw1ish or whatever, but a straight hairline. The fuzz that was colorless at the start is now long and seemingly half color and thickness as the surrounding hairline. The right side temporal region is growing back too, it's seemingly incredible.

For the left side, it was hit with the shed phase as I previously posted, and it seems to be thickening back up slightly. There are more new growths under my hairline on the left side, and the left temporal region is slowly growing compared to the right side, but seems to be growing nonetheless.

I'm not really able to take pictures of this, as my camera on my phone can't really capture it and I haven't documented it in the first place at baseline because I wasn't expecting it at all!

We'll see if the future has something great in store, or if this is all just some initial hope and optimism, because it's still incredibly early, but I might be responding great. I'd say right now I'm definitely at least responding!

The down side is that the massive cowlick on my crown is not thickening up, and if anything might be slowing down shedding. It's kind of alarming to me how thin it has gotten, but it's still nothing noticeable unless someone is staring at it with a light over my head. I'm going to continue the course of no minox on the crown though, as I'd like to not have to go there yet as I did on my hairline.

[redy]

So this is my 3 month mark...

At the start of this I want to say my key realization this month is how much nutrition, exercise, and hair-care seems to be playing a part to overall hair appearance..

I've really stepped up my vegetable intake and kept a relatively consistent balanced diet over the last month, as well as stepped up my fitness activity now that I'm feeling a little better from my injury. Also, I still condition my hair every day but I only shampoo every other day now, and two of those days being keto days. My hair feels a lot thicker just from this over the last week.. Also I added a blow dryer into my routine in the morning, and use less styling paste now. This adds almost no difference in time, it still takes me about 5 minutes to style my hair after it dries from minox foam, but I really think it looks fuller and healthier. Anyway, anyone in my current level of hairloss should really take this all into consideration for experimentation...

My hair is also a bit longer now. People have been commenting that my hair is darker and have been claiming that I've dyed my hair.. It makes me feel pretty good, and my hair feels thicker all over. I'm equating thicker hair to darker hair as that's what happens for my hair color and texture.


As for treatment:

New growth has continued, it seems that my right side is really starting to come back, ironically faster than the left side seems to be which was always my "better side"..

I have started to push my hair from right to left instead of left to right, as I noticed a few weeks ago that my hairline is much thicker in the right than it is in the left side.
As for thickness, I'm not entirely sure how much has changed - the left side is still thin. I was not aware of the difference in thickness between sides until a few weeks ago, so I'm not sure if this has been caused by treatment but I'm freaking thrilled about it. I have so much less anxiety about my hair since I figured this out. Granted, it's still got a ways to go before I will be truly comfortable with it.


I'm still on the minox x2 daily (I use a lot.. I go through about 3 bottles a month or a bit less, I cover my hairline and a few inches back every application)

I now have been doing generic proscar tablets (5mg) and cutting them into 4ths with a pill cutter for about 2 or 3 weeks now to save costs. I have had some anxiety since switching from 1mg about dosage distribution in each pill and how it could effect my treatment, but I'm pretty sure through what I found and what people say, it isn't a real problem.

Still doing the keto regenpure DR 1% twice a week. Making sure to really get a lather and leave it in the appropriate duration.

Growth:
New sprouts... everywhere... The right side is starting to get some darker growth in a pretty thick distribution- and the rest are lighter. But they are there.. and I'm happy about that... The left side still hasn't gotten much thicker, but the growths are all over along the hairline. I'd say the growths go down to a non-receded looking pattern, and the right side it is down at a mature hairline. My actual hairline hasn't necessarily moved at all, but the right side is beginning to show some hope!

Temporal points are coming back! When I let them grow a little longer to maybe where it's at right now being a 2 or 3 guard, I can make out the area of where they once were with some thin colored hair. Very excited about this. I actually think I can make out where my hairline used to be before any real recession with the small/thin colorless hairs that are now about a cm in length each, along the hairline and temporal region.

My crown might have actually started to thicken back up a bit from the shed, but it might just be due to me letting it grow out a bit longer than my usual buzz, which seems to have really lost some momentum. Less hairs falling out, and only one or two "thick" hairs a day or so. Still plenty of thin hairs falling out, but not nearly as much.

[capitan]

So this is my 3 month mark...

At the start of this I want to say my key realization this month is how much nutrition, exercise, and hair-care seems to be playing a part to overall hair appearance..

I've really stepped up my vegetable intake and kept a relatively consistent balanced diet over the last month, as well as stepped up my fitness activity now that I'm feeling a little better from my injury. Also, I still condition my hair every day but I only shampoo every other day now, and two of those days being keto days. My hair feels a lot thicker just from this over the last week.. Also I added a blow dryer into my routine in the morning, and use less styling paste now. This adds almost no difference in time, it still takes me about 5 minutes to style my hair after it dries from minox foam, but I really think it looks fuller and healthier. Anyway, anyone in my current level of hairloss should really take this all into consideration for experimentation...

My hair is also a bit longer now. People have been commenting that my hair is darker and have been claiming that I've dyed my hair.. It makes me feel pretty good, and my hair feels thicker all over. I'm equating thicker hair to darker hair as that's what happens for my hair color and texture.

This ^^^

I can relate to all of that 100%. The blow dryer, less styling paste, hair length = hair thickness, fitness, everything.

And it's good to hear treatments working for you. Keep it up bro!

We seem to be in similar situations, keep updating your thread and I'll keep updating mine.

Good luck!

[redy]

This ^^^

I can relate to all of that 100%. The blow dryer, less styling paste, hair length = hair thickness, fitness, everything.

And it's good to hear treatments working for you. Keep it up bro!

We seem to be in similar situations, keep updating your thread and I'll keep updating mine.

Good luck!

You too! I've enjoyed your posts that I've seen so far haha.. We seem to have similar outlooks.

It's funny, looking back at pictures over the last few years I wish I was doing all of this since then. It's like once I realized it was going, I really have been trying to maximize the appearance of my hair. If only I was doing this for years now.. but then again maybe I wouldn't have noticed it at all!

I do really have a great feeling about what's happening. While it's awful to watch the hair fall out, I'm watching it grow in too. I just hope at least some of it turns into terminal hairs in the next months.

I really do hope this fin cutting works out, I'm really nervous about it still.

[redy]

So, it's been 4 months now, and a few days!

What I can say is, this stuff seems to be working for me, which is great.

I don't have any pictures as I style my hair completely different and it's a lot longer, and the side that is highlighted in the above pictures has only just started showing signs of growth/change. Also, I cannot properly capture any changes to my hairline with my phone camera...

Anyway, my hair in the crown feels infinitely thicker, actually all around on the back and sides too. The cowlick is still thinnish- but it's definitely a cowlick at this point, and not a noticeably thinning spot. I can very easily cover it up to the point it's completely invisible by sweeping my hand through it in the direction my whirl goes.

For the front and hairline, it's still thin, obviously. It's not a miracle on my scalp (yet?) but it is for sure regrowing hair.

What was vellus is now long and thinnish
what wasn't there but recently was there is now vellus or tiny black sprouts.

My temple points have been the most noticeable growth so far. I've never had really strong temple points, however they now have shape to something I am actually very comfortable with, and it's terminal hairs!

My hairline has an outline in hair that is a mixture between lightly colored and vellus hairs which is growing in my "density" as more follicles show up on my head in the pattern of my mature hairline. I am really excited to see if this turns out to grow this back. In fact, I would feel like the luckiest dude on earth.

Weird stuff:

I am not sure if the minox/fin are having any effect with this, but I am growing a lot more terminal body and facial hair ever since starting, and I now have an outline in sparce terminal facial hair all along my jaw, which I never was able to grow. I am wondering if maybe this is just natural, though. Either way I am thankful for this too.