HairDX test worthwhile?

[ThinFast]

KeeptheHair, I do also have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, however my hair loss on my head is not spotty. I do have some patches on my legs. While it probably doesn't help that my thyroid levels are off (although I do have this controlled with medication), my hair loss is consistent with MPB.

The type of test done to determine whether or not you will benefit from hair loss drugs checks whether you have short or long alleles. I have friends in the medical profession that have told me that these types of tests can be questionable. Apparently it is not easy to determine whether someone has short or long alleles. My regimen is currently:

.5 mg Avodart/Day

Dr. Richard Lee formulas
******* 15% plus/once for night
Minoxidil 6% plus/once for daytime application
5% Spiro Cream (just started)
Regrowth shampoo (every other day)

[KeepTheHair]

Nice regimen!

Dr. Lee really sells extremely good products... I love his stuff! The shampoo is really awesome.

[ThinFast]

Yeah, it seems many people have really good results on his products. Unfortunately nothing that I try seems to work. I'm not even trying to grow anything back, I'd just like to keep what I have. It doesn't seem that I can even slow my hair loss.

[KeepTheHair]

mhh. That is really unlikely considering what you are using for your hair. My hair loss DEFINITELY slowed down considerably recently. I hope I can get some regrowth in the next few months.

Please let me know how it goes man. If your regimen is not working for you then I am somewhat convinced there is an underlying problem...because I can't see how DHT can still wage war on your follicles when you use that 3 topical DHT inhibitors/blockers AND dutasteride WITH strong minoxidil solutions and a great shampoo to get rid of sebum and inflammation.

I just don't see it failing! How long have you been on those minoxidil solutions?

[ThinFast]

mhh. That is really unlikely considering what you are using for your hair. My hair loss DEFINITELY slowed down considerably recently. I hope I can get some regrowth in the next few months.

Please let me know how it goes man. If your regimen is not working for you then I am somewhat convinced there is an underlying problem...because I can't see how DHT can still wage war on your follicles when you use that 3 topical DHT inhibitors/blockers AND dutasteride WITH strong minoxidil solutions and a great shampoo to get rid of sebum and inflammation.

I just don't see it failing! How long have you been on those minoxidil solutions?

I have been using Dr. Lee's solutions, minus the spiro, since September of last year. I wrote in another thread on here that I really don't know what else to try. You always hear if you catch your hair loss early enough you can at least slow it down. I caught mine in the very early stages, have done everything recommended since day 1 and nothing has helped. My hair loss is in the typical horse shoe pattern, with thinning occuring above my sideburn area also.

Thinning on my scalp did not appear to me until I was 28 years old (it's very diffuse now, i can see my scalp through where my widow's peak is at), although my hair line in my temple area did recede a bit in my early 20's. When I look at my hair that has fallen out, I can see the miniaturization down to the follicle.

It seems the guys with hair crown/vertex loss in their early 20's are the those that don't respond to anything, however based on my own experience, I'm under the impression that sometimes the genes are just too strong for today's medicine to handle... no matter what age you begin to lose hair.

[KeepTheHair]

Well I started losing my hair at 17, wish me luck...

[ThinFast]

KeepTheHair, how old are you now if you don't mind me asking? After thinking about what you and a few other sources said, I sent an email to the office where I had my HairDx test done last year, asking for my CAG score. I am very curious now if there is another issue at hand with my hair loss. Probably just false hope, but I just refuse to go down without a fight.

[KeepTheHair]

Well, 20 at the moment. The temples went extremely fast. Then it slowly progressed from there. My hair is a joke right now. I think I am starting to see SOME regrowth perhaps. I am shedding much less than before, but no ways I can recover the temples. There is only extremely tiny hair there. I guess I can just perhaps thicken the other areas at the moment.

[ThinFast]

I went back and did more research on my HairDx test from last spring. My CAG score was 19, anything less than 22 is considered a plus and there is a 70% chance you will have excellent response to Fin, even hair regrowth. However that is not the case for me. I spoke to the Dr. Bauman regarding this. Without directly quoting him, I will explain what I got from my conversation. There are two separate issues involved in regards to mpb and what the HairDx test determines... I will attempt to describe this accurately, however I am not a Doctor.

The first issue is your sensitivity to DHT. The HairDx test seems to determine this portion of Hair Loss, basically how well you will respond to a decrease in DHT based on the sensitivity of the receptors. The second portion of mpb which the HairDx cannot measure is how many receptors an individual has. In essence, the more receptors you have, the more screwed you are. It was suggested to me that this may be the ultimate problem that I personally am dealing with and why drugs like fin/dut have very little success for me.