Quit minoxidil after a year without regrowth

[Alex88]

Rogaine foam was what I was using. Yeah, it was a real joy to apply, made my hair look fuller overall and became a styling product of sorts for me. I started off on the liquid. It made my face bloated and gave me very noticeable wrinkles. When it started very obviously messing with my blood pressure, I swapped it for the foam which I have been using up to this past December. The only suspected side effect from the foam was the rapid weight gain (due to water retention?) I mentioned above. I don't it caused inflammation for me. But I strongly suspect it accelerated my hair loss. Having stayed off minoxidil for about 6-7 weeks, I am still not seeing any more shedding than usual. Like I said, hopefully this means I'm not headed for the "dread shed".

As for your post-transplant experience, are you saying that minoxidil make you lose your transplanted hair (by the way, how is that possible? isn't your donor hair supposed to be immune to MPB?), then you quit it AND lost some more hair? You still haven't regrown the donor hair lost due to minoxidil?

YES
i don't know how this is possible but my few hair i had before the hair transplant have grown really well when i first started propecia/minox

sadly i NEVER to this day recovered from the shed, which means i have FEW hair from my transplant still, pretty much nothing left from my native hair but i see small dots within scalp that have in fact hair....but they just don't grow.
They're blocked but i have them and this is strange and stressful.

I don't know if this is being due to being minox-addicted but is now has been a week since i started the foam and i can see already other hair getting weaker and weaker :/ i'm adding nizoral to prevent this but may be as well being MPB
reacting like you said - accelerating hair loss from areas where i don't have it and regrowing something where i don't have shit left.
it doesn't make any sense

transplanted hair are supposed to stay in forever but it pretty much depends on the subject i guess. The doc that operated me said in this regard "they will stay if you cure them but you can't prevent them for falling out,because if you expose your follicles to the hormones that destroy other hair they might develop the same reaction as those you were trying to replace"

My father has done the minoxidil only treatment and for years he had his hair on top,he was in fact a Norwood 3 until he reached his late 40s and called it quits. He steadily lost his hair to this day not only on top but sides as well.
Now he looks like me (and i'm 26) but i don't have lost hair from my sides....yet
He never took finasteride once and he was doing really fine.
His dad died with his head full of hair at 91, my grandpa for my mother side lost his hair this year at 75.

Maybe we're simply doomed :/ sucks

[RobertF]

Big time, man. But honestly, that sounds like a bad transplant. Or a bad doctor? What your doc said doesn't make sense to me. Transplanted follicles shouldn't miniaturize, I think that's the whole point. It's the rest of the DHT-sensitive hair you have to worry about after you undergo the operation. Say, you restored your hairline to an extent, but your hair is thinning beyond that region - that thinning hair should be the focus or your treatment from then on.

Did you do FUE? Is the clinic well-known or certified or something? I would try to get back at them somehow.

[Alex88]

I would say both. When his own equipe (his sons and daughters.duh!) was operating me i had the feeling that something was wrong.
I have still a small patch of hair,a circle of native hair,that didnt fell out and they have the original density - meanwhile i was being transplanted hair from my sides,one of these "medicians" actually plucked out from that isle a crop of hair and tried to pretty much move them from their natural position to my temples. This was Beyond stupid but i was sedated and one of them said this was a normal thing :/ :/

yes i did FUE.
& noi didnt restore my hairline in full,i have both temples damaged right now,with little to no regrowth and hair keeping on thinning from my top to back

[Alex88]

one more thing - in the first six months i almost regained all the hair in my crown area : but after that they just vanished.
And i was still on finasteride and minoxidil. Did minoxidil triggered some strange reaction? i dont ****ing know

the clinic is well known and the replies i got from them was what i told you
"you were SUPPOSED to lose some of the hair" the guy running the company actually tried to convince me to send my own picture for doing his ads because according to him "You may have lost your hair,but the first months were a complete success"
what the **** does it mean?? i lost them! how can you say this is a success??

[RobertF]

Really sounds like a shitty clinic. They didn't give you any guarantees, did they? (By the way, can you post/PM the name of the clinic?)

How long have you been off minoxidil before you started again, with the foam?

[Alex88]

19 months and 15 days on finasteride - stopped both for 6
2 weeks on minoxidil foam : i have swellings when i put it on but not as much in the past with the liquid form

no the clinic didnt offered me any guarantees but they offered my money back when after two days of day and night surgery the crew and the doctor didnt used all the hair they extracted.

i'll send you a PM

[Alex88]

do i need to send you a "friend request" to send you a PM? good god! :P

ps. i did blood tests. i have a vitamin D insufficency = no muscolar growth,weak bones and HAIR LOSS
check your blood man,most is all there

[RobertF]

I don't know, I'd stay off minox. It's not known to regrow much even if it works, and in your case it probably did more harm than good.

I saw your thread. Why go to Pakistan though? You live nearby?

do i need to send you a "friend request" to send you a PM? good god! :P

ps. i did blood tests. i have a vitamin D insufficency = no muscolar growth,weak bones and HAIR LOSS
check your blood man,most is all there

Also thyroid, but I don't think any defficiency or thyroid issue can lead to good ol' pattern baldness.

Appears so. Added you.

[Alex88]

I don't know, I'd stay off minox. It's not known to regrow much even if it works, and in your case it probably did more harm than good.

I saw your thread. Why go to Pakistan though? You live nearby?



Also thyroid, but I don't think any defficiency or thyroid issue can lead to good ol' pattern baldness.

Appears so. Added you.

i went to pakistan because of money and is not close to where i am working now (germany).but 3000$ are pretty much 6000 rupees, so that alone was a good reason to go to pakistan. More money = quality transplant or so i was thinking
Wish i didnt rushed the thing and waited :/ the Whole mohawk thing came after - a friend of mine did it in Scotland and actually resolved the NW6 curse - without meds

plus,i dont know how to send a ****ing message.

[RobertF]

Well, I don't think anyone would object if you posted the name of the clinic in the thread. They obviously suck, let the people know.

If I were you I'd go to a good clinic and have them look at what you have. Perhaps not all your donor hair is lost.