The scalp inflammation/itchy/burning/tingling thread

[jamesst11]

Mic28,
You used it for a year and you lost a ton of hair... may I ask, why are you starting again? It obviously doesn't work for you.

[Ziggyz123]

Hey guys,

Just a bit of an update on my situation. I have maintained finasteride at 1.25mg every second day for 2 weeks after using it every day for a year and getting nothing but shedding and diffuse loss. I am now starting to get a few pimples on my face and neck in keeping with acne. Wondering where to go next. Want to stop finasteride completely and maybe start up again later but afraid I might get a large amount of loss. Can't really lose much more as I'm pretty diffuse at the moment.
Should be starting my 1mg oral minoxidil in the next few days so that might give me hope for re growth. It's a low dose but dermatologist reckons due to potential heart problems she doesn't want to go any higher yet.

Hey mic, you may be one of the responders that needs a very low dose of the drug. Also, 1mg loniten is not going to do much of anything in terms of regrowth from what I understand. 5mg is what seems to be safest and effective. Is your derm just trying to see how your body will react to oral minoxidil?

[mic28]

Hey James,

To be honest things were going ok enough up until a couple of months ago and I lost a lot of hair with an itchy scalp etc. it's not that I have been losing the whole time. Things look very diffuse when the sunlight or bright light hits my head...I may aswell be bald to be honest it's that bad. I'm just afraid that it's a massive shed and will come back, although my hair is very thin now.

Hey Ziggy,

The dermatologist just wants to see how I fair out with the 1mg at first. If I'm all good then il ask to go higher.

I'm really unsure of where to go from here. I could quit and I may see a big recovery due to propecia not being effective or I could go even thinner and more diffuse. This is very depressing!

[Ziggyz123]

Yeah it is extremely depressing mic! I'm in the same situation where I took the pill with VERY minimal loss. Now, my hair is getting extremely thin on and behind my hairline and my shedding has been going on for 9 months now.. I feel so trapped now! I wish prp worked because I'd just start maintaining with that, but it's not worth wasting the money on. And then there is dutasteride which could f*** us even more or save us... Again, might not be worth the risk. Oral minox was shown to grow hair a lot better than topical so if you do well on 1mg (fingers crossed) get on 5 and you should thicken up considerably. Do you know how much that stuff is by any chance?

[jamesst11]

Ziggy, you think the sides or oral minoxidil are worth it and dutasteride is not? I don't know man, those are some nasty, nasty sides. I would be really afraid to mess around with my cardiovascular health.

[jamesst11]

I hope to God fin doesn't start having the same effects on me man... God, this hair loss thing sucks. In short, we are all just f*cked. Might as well just give up and go live in a cave.

[Ziggyz123]

Ziggy, you think the sides or oral minoxidil are worth it and dutasteride is not? I don't know man, those are some nasty, nasty sides. I would be really afraid to mess around with my cardiovascular health.

The sides of oral minox at 5mg are not seen as risky. I'm pretty sure you don't even need a diuretic at that does according to dr. pathomvanich. He prescribes his patients who aren't candidates for a transplant this and has seen good regrowth. The reason for dutasteride not being good is simply because some people seem to experience what we do because of a sensitivity to hormonal differences in the body. Who knows what pathways our hormones try and take while on these meds.

[mic28]

Hey Ziggy it cost $75 for 100x 0.5mg capsules. Reason it is so expensive is because I had to get it made in a compound pharmacy here in Australia. I know now you can get it on inhousepharmacy so il get it there from now on and cut it up.
Did you stop taking finasteride? If so, how long ago?

[Ziggyz123]

Hey mic, na I still take it. I'm not sure if what I had going on was due to an infection or finasteride still. It's just weird that my hairline feels bruised underneath the skin on the one side. This random hairloss and pain only affected one side of my head... I don't know if I had shingles or something crazy lol. I don't know what I'm going to do right yet, but it does seem that finasteride has/had no effect on me.

[mic28]

I'm still in 2 minds on whether to quit or not. I'm down to 1.25mg every 2.5 days but don't notice much difference. Might try stay off it for a week see if I notice any good/bad sides then make more of a call

[Dench57]

Went to see the endocrinologist, she sent me back to my GP to get a further blood test done with more obscure stuff (DHT, SHBG, DHEAS, TGF-1 etc). My GP said these may not even show up on the NHS blood test because they're so obscure, and the endo said it would cost £700 to have this done privately, which I don't have. I have also been referred to a private dermatologist in Harley Street who specialises in androgenetic alopecia. Harley Street is world renowned for specialists in private healthcare, so if they can't help me, nobody can.

Can't even put into words how bad things have gotten recently. The Amitryptyline has helped to mask the most severe burning pain sensation, even though I still feel it somewhat, but the whole front of my scalp is still so tingly and itchy to the point where I'm having trouble sleeping, and have been having to take time off work. All the hair behind my temple on the right side, where the burning has been constant for 8 months now, has completely miniaturized and is now see-through patch that looks really weird. This was completely 100% thick before I took Propecia. The fact that this has spread to the left side of my head (used to just be the right) means that rather than getting better, this thing is progressively getting worse. Giving up hope that it will ever resolve itself. The 1-year travelling trip I have been planning with my best friend for years is close to getting called off because of how bad my condition is getting and how much of my savings I've spent trying to treat this.

On the almost-brightside you can be glad a hair transplant sounds like a viable option for you. If you only recede from the front with no crown loss then sounds like a HT would fix your problem forever.
I'm seemingly diffuse thinning, and potentially losing all over the top. On days I use regenepure, which leaves my hair a little flat and lifeless, hiding scalp can be troublesom. I'd say I'm still a Norwood 1 with a bit of crown loss (hidden the way I style my hair) but the density behind my hairline is destroyed, in bright lights or sunlight if I have my fringe up you can see the damage.
But yeah, sounds like you're the perfect candidate for a HT at least.

I would have been a perfect candidate for a HT (purely receding temple but complete thickness otherwise) but this burning patch has miniaturized a whole massive chunk of my scalp and is now spreading to the left side, so I'll have no hair at all in those areas in a few years. So this now means a shietload more grafts and a shietload more money, and I'll never be able to achieve the same density.

Just recently tried dermaroller, emu oil, T-gel sensitive to no effect whatsoever. Anyway, I hope you guys are doing better than me because it can't get much worse than this.

[Dench57]

My Ramatroban arrived from Iron Dragon today.
Also just bought the stuff to make topical cetirizine.
And have enquired about the group buy for Seti.

Let's hope to god this PGD2-based stuff helps.

[Ziggyz123]

Hey dench, where did you hear about that seti group buy? And is it topical?

[jamesst11]

Man, I feel horrible for you guys, this sucks. The uncertainty and lack of control is killing me as well. I went through EXACTLY what you're going through about a year ago. Itching burning, pin point stabbing and pressure sensations, shedding... it was miserable. For me it was just TE and I hope you guys are able to come to some kind of conclusion soon. I eventually realized that the more I f*cked around with things, the worst it got. The only "solution" that actually worked, and it took about a month, was to stop trying all this different stuff. I would just shampoo with 1% keto with HOT water, scrub it in with my fingernails, let it sit for like 5 minutes and rinse it. Afterwards I used that purador conditioner, let that sit for like 5-10 minutes and then got out of the shower and rinsed it with FREEZING cold water and left my hear under it for like 2 minutes. I just read this somewhere and it stopped the itching dead in it's tracks. I don't know how. Maybe it was just the hot and then cold, maybe the keto, who knows.
Anyway, that's what I do now. It makes my hair look thicker too. I then just style it to cover my thinning spots, fluff it up, put in hairspray and try to forget about it for the day. All these treatments you are looking to try seem to have minimal research behind them, are expensive, hard to properly formulate and putting more crap on your head right now, personally, I think is not a good idea. The body has a way to correct itself. The one thing I realized EVENTUALLY (after like a year and a half) is that with hair, it just takes a long friggin time.

[Not giving up]

My Ramatroban arrived from Iron Dragon today.
Also just bought the stuff to make topical cetirizine.
And have enquired about the group buy for Seti.

Let's hope to god this PGD2-based stuff helps.

Keep us posted how it goes please Dench, The PGD2 route will probably be my next option if this doesn't resolve itself soon.