I have one new hair on my head

[clee984]

I think this is the oddest thing I've ever posted online. In fact, this might be the oddest thing anybody has ever posted online, but: I have one new hair on my head. I'm certain it's new, because it's right near another hair on my temple that has been obstinately hanging on for years while all its brother's had disappeared (I have another hair like this where my widow's peak used to end, it's thin, but it shows how low my hairline was when I was a teenager).

I know this seems daft (and it is), but I wanted to make a point. This is a recent thread about my hair greed, and these days I'm pretty good about taking finasteride regularly, and minoxidil.........fairly regularly.

I'm certain this must be why I have a 'new hair'. Since we have been married, without knowing I was or wasn't taking finasteride, my wife has noticed the difference in the thickness of my hair when I am taking it and when I'm not.

I have been frequenting baldness forums for 15 years, I'm 37 now, and I want to be the obi-wan old man, and say: I wish so much that I had started taking finasteride sooner. I first noticed I was balding in 2002, but didn't start taking fin until 2009. I don't even like to imagine how much torment I could have saved myself if I had had the guts to go to a doctor and ask for a prescription - I even went to the doctor, but he was a grumpy chap who wasn't interested, and said something about the only treatment for baldness was rubbing steroids on your head, and I never had the courage to say "You're wrong. There is a pill called propecia. Please will you prescribe it for me?"

There is a lot of talk about side effects from finasteride, and young guys asking whether they should take it, and I wanted to add my voice to the 'yes' side of the debate, because I think there might be a slight bias towards 'no', simply because people who have had a bad experience are more likely to post online than people who have had no side effects and got on with their lives.

I drank away my 20s, and lost what little confidence I had, and it makes me sad now to think how much heartbreak I might have saved myself if I had just had this little pill and taken it every day. Maybe I would never have needed to have a hair transplant. Maybe I wouldn't be thinking seriously about having another one. Maybe I would still have almost all of my original hair, and wouldn't have wasted all those years.