Jesus I wish I started fin sooner

[25 going on 65]

Caution: bad language ahead.
Disclaimer: I am not Scorpion. Don't even think about suggesting it.

Ever have one of those days where you really ****ing wish you could do whatever the hell you wanted without any risk of showing hair loss? Ride rollercoasters, swim, run through the wind and rain without hair ever crossing your mind?
This is one of those days for me. I could ****ing punch myself in the gut for not starting finasteride just a little sooner. I don't believe I have lost any hair since starting, in fact my hair looks better than it did when I started, and now most days I can live with reasonable comfort and confidence.
But the fact is I'm creating the goddamn illusion of a full head of hair instead of actually having one. I either throw on a cap or style the shit out of it so no one will ever know what's going on. I am sick to my stomach of doing this. I want to wake up and be able to go out in the sun with bed head and not have to worry about who can see where it has thinned. I want to drive a ****ing car with the window down and feel the wind in my face.
The fact we can perform a face transplant but not regrow some dead cells on a goddamn scalp is completely mind boggling at times. Another thing that boggles my mind is that I am one of the "lucky ones" who caught this problem early and should be thanking my stars that I even have the option of creating the impression of a full head of hair. But it feels like living a bloody lie some days, knowing that if I just lived however I wanted without bothering with my hair, people WOULD notice. That is my nightmare, being a "balding guy" in the eyes of others. being one in my own eyes is ****ing horrible in itself.
I may never ride another rollercoaster in my life, ever. I may never go to the beach and swim in the ocean again. I may never get the chance to stand in the wind and rain anymore, ever. My life has been reduced to just "getting by" and finding self-affirmation in casual sex with women who I never let get too close since it is unacceptable for any of them to ever get an inkling that I might have lost hair. Some of them even tell me how nice or full it is, which like a drug lifts me up for a short time, then sends me crashing down as I realize I'm basically bullshitting them and the world. I'm a stage magician who is in the middle of an act ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.
I'm living half a life.

However, this is a bad day. A terrible day. I will survive the night, wake up in the morning, and feel better about things....more grateful for what I have instead of obsessing over what I do not. At least I hope so.
Here's to "another five" ****ing years.

[gutted]

so what are you saying finasteride is not "working"for you???

[25 going on 65]

Finasteride works incredibly well. It is damn near a miracle drug in my case, and possibly the main reason I'm alive right now. I have better hair today than I did 2-3 years ago (hence why I say I wish I started sooner).
The problem is that it's still not MY hair. My real hair, as it was before any sign of MPB started. I would give almost anything to have that mane back, because it was the difference between "the impression of a full head of hair after pain-in-the-ass styling" and a legitimate 100% FULL head of hair that could withstand any amount of water, wind, bed head or sunlight without showing any square centimeter of thinness. It is the difference between living the life I want and living the limited, narrowed down life that I am living right now.
I guess I should be thankful that I saved as much as I did. But at this point in time, on this day, I really am not thankful for jack shit. There's so much I miss doing from my "old life", I almost feel like I died and was reborn as a shell of my former self.
I wish pattern hair loss was a person so I could beat the hell out of it with a splintered hockey stick before shoving it into an open flame and feasting on the remains, then putting pictures of it on this site so everyone could celebrate about how the arch villain got what was coming to it.

Again, just to put things in perspective, today has not been a great day for me mentally.

[gutted]

Finasteride works incredibly well. It is damn near a miracle drug in my case, and possibly the main reason I'm alive right now. I have better hair today than I did 2-3 years ago (hence why I say I wish I started sooner).
The problem is that it's still not MY hair. My real hair, as it was before any sign of MPB started. I would give almost anything to have that mane back, because it was the difference between "the impression of a full head of hair after pain-in-the-ass styling" and a legitimate 100% FULL head of hair that could withstand any amount of water, wind, bed head or sunlight without showing any square centimeter of thinness. It is the difference between living the life I want and living the limited, narrowed down life that I am living right now.
I guess I should be thankful that I saved as much as I did. But at this point in time, on this day, I really am not thankful for jack shit. There's so much I miss doing from my "old life", I almost feel like I died and was reborn as a shell of my former self.
I wish pattern hair loss was a person so I could beat the hell out of it with a splintered hockey stick before shoving it into an open flame and feasting on the remains, then putting pictures of it on this site so everyone could celebrate about how the arch villain got what was coming to it.

Again, just to put things in perspective, today has not been a great day for me mentally.

yeah i get what you mean.

most of those hairs are dormant, they need reactivating/woken up and finasteride alone is not enough to do that...lets hope there is something released that can achieve this and will restore pre mpb density for us in the future! just try to hold on to what you have for now.

[boourns]

Ya I had a lot of years like you're having now where I had to do a lot of work to disguise my hair loss. As long as I could disguise it though, I felt just fine.

However, it's not as easy now and not as disguisable and now I feel those things you're feeling now like feeling very self conscious in certain situations.

I'll tell you one thing though. If the day comes where your hair loss is way more noticeable you'll kill for the kind of hair you have today. Just be thankful you can hide it still cause it could be so much worse very easily.

[25 going on 65]

Thanks guys. I am trying to regain perspective.....I will feel better in the morning. Today was just really bad. Its probably annoying for the advanced Norwoods to read posts like these, but no matter what NW you have, hair loss feels like a prison when it affects you like this. You feel like you have disappeared and been replaced by an imposter sometimes. All you want is to do the things that people without any hair loss take for granted.
At least there is some hope for our generation of better things to come. The waiting game is just a nightmare at times.

[johnbath]

Fin is the only reason you're alive? You really need to put life into perspective mate. Because that's just embarrassing.

[25 going on 65]

It isnt the least bit embarrassing for me. It's how I am wired. Life as a bald person isn't something I have any interest in doing.

[johnbath]

Well i don't want to go bald anytime soon, but it's certainly not worth taking your life over. That is completely pathetic, you only get one life and you'd be willing to end it just because you don't have hair on your head? But yeah, you've said fin has stabilised your loss, can't you just get a transplant to add density and remain on the fin?

[25 going on 65]

Actually I find the idea of walking around bald to be worse. Not for others, just for myself. I would feel the same way if I was disfigured in a fire or car accident. I can't actually say if I would really choose to die if I reached a certain point, no one knows for sure until they are in that position. I just occasionally vent my innermost frustrations and darkest thoughts on this nice forum we have been provided.
Anyway, I guess I can see how other people would find this ridiculous. I'm not recommending my style of thinking to anyone else and I don't know why I was born this way. It is what it is though.

Unfortunately I am mainly a diffuse thinner so a transplant isn't a great option for me. I am hoping for better treatments to become available by the time finasteride starts losing its effect. I do feel pretty sure we will have new options within the next several years, although it remains to be seen what will and wont hit the market, and how effective these things will ultimately be.

[BGP]

Actually I find the idea of walking around bald to be worse. Not for others, just for myself. I would feel the same way if I was disfigured in a fire or car accident. I can't actually say if I would really choose to die if I reached a certain point, no one knows for sure until they are in that position. I just occasionally vent my innermost frustrations and darkest thoughts on this nice forum we have been provided.
Anyway, I guess I can see how other people would find this ridiculous. I'm not recommending my style of thinking to anyone else and I don't know why I was born this way. It is what it is though.

Unfortunately I am mainly a diffuse thinner so a transplant isn't a great option for me. I am hoping for better treatments to become available by the time finasteride starts losing its effect. I do feel pretty sure we will have new options within the next several years, although it remains to be seen what will and wont hit the market, and how effective these things will ultimately be.

I don't think your mindset is uncommon. I personally plan to commit seppuku if I'm unable to control my balding.

[whynot]

I don't think your mindset is uncommon. I personally plan to commit seppuku if I'm unable to control my balding.

Ooo with a bamboo sword, like in that movie Harakiri?

[win200]

I'm pretty appalled that someone would chew you out as being "pathetic" for contemplating suicide in the event of baldness. We're all different, and vanity impacts us all differently. I'm a NW2.5-3 with relatively minor loss, and while I obsess over the fact that I don't have a juvenile hairline, I'm thankful every day for what I have; I don't think any of my family/friends even realize that I've lost hair (but I got a HT a few weeks ago anyway... lol).

Anyway, my point is that I understand where you're coming from, and that I have lots and lots of genuine empathy for your situation. I'm also happy that at least fin has mitigated the loss the took place. We all suffer hair loss differently, and it wreaks more collateral damage on some psyches than others. No one here should feel in a position to judge.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I totally understand what you're saying, 25 Going on 65. I had a truly horrendous day today and I feel utterly terrible. If I wasn't suffering from hair loss, my day would've been fine. Hair loss inhibits the hell out of me too. I now work out wearing a bandana and I absolutely hate doing that. But my hair looks like s**t when I sweat so I have no choice. However, when I go out at night I refuse to wear a hat since I don't want to be a prisoner to just wearing hats all the time. But in order to go out, I too need to blow-dry, shampoo, and style the hell out of my hair just so no one will know that I'm suffering from hair loss. But I wonder how long this illusion will last. Will there come a time when I simply cannot hide my hair loss any longer? I have absolutely no desire to live life as a bald man so I don't what I'll do then.

I wish to God that I would've started Propecia sooner myself. If I had started it even a year earlier, my life would be completely different right now. One year I was posting photos on facebook and having my girlfriend style my hair because I didn't even have to worry about hair loss. The same time the next year, I was a complete mess. I removed my facebook account, didn't pose for photos anymore, and I would never let my girl style my hair anymore. Hair loss is just absolutely devastating.

You're totally right in your frustration when you say "the fact we can perform a face transplant but not regrow some dead cells on a goddamn scalp is completely mind boggling at times". I totally agree and I talk about this all the time. It angers and frustrates me to no end that for a disease (hair loss) that drastically affects the lives of so many people, we have such minimal and ineffective options to regrow hair. Most people don't want FUT hair transplants yet that's all that we're being offered left and right. We need better options (and doctors need to start offering other things besides these hair transplants) because so many of us are so passionate about regrowing our hair yet we're not given any real options to do so.

[ThinningB420]

I'm pretty appalled that someone would chew you out as being "pathetic" for contemplating suicide in the event of baldness. We're all different, and vanity impacts us all differently. I'm a NW2.5-3 with relatively minor loss, and while I obsess over the fact that I don't have a juvenile hairline, I'm thankful every day for what I have; I don't think any of my family/friends even realize that I've lost hair (but I got a HT a few weeks ago anyway... lol).

Anyway, my point is that I understand where you're coming from, and that I have lots and lots of genuine empathy for your situation. I'm also happy that at least fin has mitigated the loss the took place. We all suffer hair loss differently, and it wreaks more collateral damage on some psyches than others. No one here should feel in a position to judge.

I wouldn't say it's pathetic to contemplate suicide because of baldness. I would say it's a severely psychologically disturbing thought and anyone who would rather kill themselves than be bald needs serious mental help.

Yeah, everyone responds differently to situations. However, no rational person would consider suicide a reasonable response to baldness.