Do you think we'll be the last generation to experience the horror of male pattern baldness?

[Dench57]

Just something I've been thinking about recently. The impact of hairloss is really starting to sink in with me, I'm starting to feel how all-consuming and life-altering it can be.

Let's look at the big picture, the human race, we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Countless millions of men have experienced male pattern baldness through the years. Obviously male pattern baldness was obviously not the problem it is today, there was none of the pressure on appearance, and the stigma attached to it, that has happened in the last 50 years or so. But it's still been a ****ing curse that will reduce your desirability, reduce your chance for popularity, intimacy, offspring, all that important stuff that makes life enjoyable.

We can all agree that being in 2015 and not having anything resembling a "cure" for this debilitating curse is ****ing unbelievable, even how poorly understood male pattern baldness still is by modern science and medicine. finasteride and minoxidil are great for those who it helps, and we should be grateful we at least have something (more than our predecessors had). But the sacrifices and side effects these treatments can come with, if they work at all for you, are ridiculous in this day and age.

Call me optimistic but I really believe a truly effective, side-effect free treatment is only 5-10 years away. I think 30 years from now there will be a proper cure, where some Star Trek laser **** scans your bald NW7 scalp and restores your teenage hair in 10 minutes.

I know it's a pointless exercise but I do sometimes think to myself...we'll be the last generation, us guys on this forum, in the 200,000 year history of the human race, to have to live with this curse. If only I'd been born 10, 15, 20 years later, ahh what could've been!

 

[xetudor]

We don't even have a vaccine to prevent dental cavities. If we cannot kill bacterias in our mouth and we have to get our tooth drilled then no way they will grow hair on a bald scalp any time soon.

A doctor once told that all that incredible discoveries that the humans made were just the easy ones, just like grabing fruit from a fruit while standing. Now they have to climb that tree or take a ladder, things aren't that easy now. Great things will come but there's no point in thinking about them because they are too far in the future.

 

[blackg]

Sorry, pal, but your optimism is misplaced.
It (a cure) ain't gunna happen for at least 60 years.

 

[Dench57]

Sorry, pal, but your optimism is misplaced.
It (a cure) ain't gunna happen for at least 60 years.

Maybe I am being optimistic...but where do you get 60 years from? That's basically sci-fi territory with the way technology is going. Look how different the world is between 1955 and today, the same space of time. We can't even comprehend the technology available to us that far ahead. The rate of advances in technologies is just getting faster and faster, and will continue to do so provided we avoid nuclear war or whatever.

We still seem to be so in the dark about male pattern baldness. We discovered a long time ago DHT was a significant player at the start of the process. Just look at the PGD2 stuff that was discovered as recently as 2012. I'm sure there's more stuff like that to be worked out.

And even if treatments in the form of pills or lotions don't progress as predicted.....you know what is guaranteed to get better, safer and more affordable with time? Hair transplants. Look how far they've come in the last 20 years. Demand for them will only increase as they become more "accepted" by society - it's only in the last few years we have seen celebrities coming out about their transplants - because they look good.

- - - Updated - - -

And the kind of treatment I'm talking about in 5-10 years would ideally be an affordable pill (screw topicals)you can take, every day or once a week whatever, that guarantees 90%+ maintenance, stops hairloss dead in its tracks, for 100% of Androgenetic Alopecia sufferers. With negligible or no side effects at all - because it only specifically targets and effects the mysterious process that happens in the dermal papilla of scalp hair.

Regrowth is another thing entirely unfortunately.

 

[swingline747]

the only viable cure honestly would be hair multiplication and who knows where that went. I would say scalp transplant but your immune system would attack it since its not your own genes.

 

[hellouser]

Maybe I am being optimistic...but where do you get 60 years from?

He pulled the number out of his ***. Ignore him.

 

[Exodus2011]

it ain't **** if it ain't regrowth

and to be fair propecia and rogaine are nearly the cure as far as maintenance goes . . . . .

also they have just been discovered in the past couple of decades, i can definitely see better treatments coming out as well

 

[swingline747]

it ain't **** if it ain't regrowth

and to be fair propecia and rogaine are nearly the cure as far as maintenance goes . . . . .

also they have just been discovered in the past couple of decades, i can definitely see better treatments coming out as well

minoxidil barely works and for a small portion of people. finasteride "can" work with some nasty sides.
Neither are anywhere NEAR a cure even for maint EX or you wouldnt be here.

To turn "off" whatever causes male pattern baldness would be tough because, just from my reading, its still not 100% known why it happens. They know it has to do mostly with DHT but why and how is beyond them. You would need to turn that gene off and that would have to be done pre birth.
There will never be some one time magic pill to "cure" hair loss, ever.
Perhaps we can get lucky enough to have some kind of treatment but it would need to be started young (cause once that hair is dead its dead) and kept up forever. Def not a cure in my book.

Wanna know the REAL cure, a fuqing lobotomy so you just dont care anymore.

 

[hellouser]

it ain't **** if it ain't regrowth

and to be fair propecia and rogaine are nearly the cure as far as maintenance goes . . . . .

also they have just been discovered in the past couple of decades, i can definitely see better treatments coming out as well

Cure is not maintenance and no, neither or even both really provide that either.

 

[uncomfortable man]

I predict that america will reach the same point nazi germany did in terms of genetic perfection/looksism. All bald guys will be rounded up and castrated like they were in nazi germany. Everyone will be convinced by the media culture that bald guys are not real human beings so they can legetimize such criminal actions. Or china will just take over and kill eveyone leaving millions of full black heads to come in and replace us.

 

[Dench57]

Cure is not maintenance and no, neither or even both really provide that either.

It would be pretty close to a cure for me - all I've ever wanted to do is maintain but everything I've tried has either accelerated my hairloss or done nothing. I started treatment when I was a NW1 with full thickness, just looking to slow male pattern baldness down, but instead accelerated it.

If you wait til you're a NW3-4 and then think "****, I should probably do something" then that's your own fault imo. Looking for a miracle regrowth cure is gonna be 10x harder than something that can just maintain.

 

[blackg]

minoxidil barely works and for a small portion of people. finasteride "can" work with some nasty sides.
Neither are anywhere NEAR a cure even for maint EX or you wouldnt be here.

To turn "off" whatever causes male pattern baldness would be tough because, just from my reading, its still not 100% known why it happens. They know it has to do mostly with DHT but why and how is beyond them. You would need to turn that gene off and that would have to be done pre birth.
There will never be some one time magic pill to "cure" hair loss, ever.
Perhaps we can get lucky enough to have some kind of treatment but it would need to be started young (cause once that hair is dead its dead) and kept up forever. Def not a cure in my book.

Wanna know the REAL cure, a fuqing lobotomy so you just dont care anymore.

This is a more realistic expectation. Smart post, Swing.
And it's also why I threw out the number of 60 years.

There is just way too much that is unknown about the condition.
And would you say it's a priority, as far as society is concerned??

My answer is, unfortunately, N0!

 

[Dench57]

I guess everyone has a different definition of "cure". A cure for me would be taking an affordable pill, whether its daily, weekly, monthly, that guarantees maintenance with no/negligible side effects. Then anyone who spots male pattern baldness in their teens or whenever it first hits them, has a safe, affordable and guaranteed effective treatment option for keeping their hair. And no, Propecia ain't that, though it's the closest we have.

 

[blackg]

He pulled the number out of his ***. Ignore him.

I did NOT pull this number out of my ***! There reason I think a cure may take this long is because: At the micro scientific stage, very little is known about why male pattern baldness occurs. Hell they can't even figure out why it occurs in a "patten."

To stop hair follicles being so sensitive to DHT will take them years, I believe. And would you say male pattern baldness research is a priority for
the worlds top scientists??

**** no!

 

[ben760]

the last generation to experience male pattern baldness would probably be the last men to see the end days of this miserable planet.

 

[xetudor]

Toms, stop trolling. Or if you're serious, get help.

 

[whatevr]

If bald men would get killed off, I wouldnt mind, because:
1) I dont have the desire to live if im ugly and miserable and I would be thankful for painless death.
2) That would save many souls from having to live the terrifying life with premature baldness.


Im really sorry for the negative post, but looking at how much baldness changed my life, this is how I feel.

Except that, AFAIK, even women can carry the genes so...you know, there goes that 'solution'. Gene therapy is going to be the only real cure.

 

[swingline747]

second time this week Ive seen this lol. First was IGN I think


Funny thing is id there ever WAS a cure all that would happen is we would all take it and the like 4 guys who cant use it would make out because bald guys would become the hot new trend lol

 

[I.D WALKER]

REnder everyone bald and see where that takes us.

 

[RoyD]

idk how people can be so optimistic about a cure let alone a proper treatment. Look at the progress that has been made in medical science and science in general and compare that with the progress on hair loss treatments. Don't you have your answer?
People keep mentioning finasteride and Min but please remember that both of these were discovered accidentally and not through research and development. If you want a cure just pray that some bald guy takes some random medicine and starts growing his hair back and reports it. That's our best bet.

Now hellouser will mention some Dr. Santa Lauster Claus who will gift us all our hair for Christmas.