Cold Therapy

[HairIsPossible]

But then, why common baldness only affect certains males? genetic issue perhaps?

There is no question baldness is hereditary. The "genetic" factor though is not a single gene or series of genes that encodes some sort of "DHT sensitivity," but rather hundreds of genes which ultimately dictate the susceptibility of the individual to:

1. Lose subcutaneous fat around the hair follicle in response to hormonal changes, stress, etc...
2. Enter into hypoxic states in and around the hair follicles on the scalp
3. Regenerate fatty tissue and oxygenated blood flow to the follicle in response to hypoxic states

I don't pretend to know all the possible biochemical and genetic factors which contribute to these mechanisms, and I hesitate to even mention the ones I do know because I am certain people will over-react and misinterpret the implications of the list.

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I've never head of a cold treatment for hair loss, sounds a bit dangerous putting your head in cold water for 5 minutes ? Have you notice any difference and is their any evidence to back this up.

The bottom line is that oxygenated blood flow must be restored to the follicles and fatty tissue must be present to protect this source of blood flow.

I have found it is more effective to put a few trays of ice cubes in the sink, fill it with cold water and the bend over and submerge only the top of your head in the water. I then take 100 slow deep breaths and pull out. Then I wait until my head warms up again and massage the scalp a bit.

I haven't been doing this long enough or regularly enough to see any results, but I can tell you that you will see your scalp get red (blood flow) and your hair will feel jacked up.

I am doing this in addition to abstaining from masturbation, daily cold showers, semi-daily self scalp massage and I will rub butter on my scalp once a week at night.

I've only started this routine, it will take a few months to know if any of it is having a positive benefit on my hair.

 

[Armando Jose]

HI HairIsPossible, do you know the Edgar Cayce ideas about baldness?
He thought that common baldness is linked to fat loss scalp....

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interac...ar-cayce-was-correct-not-for-the-logical-mind


BTW I concluded that you think that exist two types of hairs over the scalp regarding genetics, ..... My idea is that all healthy scalp hairs are identical, and without diferences between sexes.

 

[HairIsPossible]

HI HairIsPossible, do you know the Edgar Cayce ideas about baldness?
He thought that common baldness is linked to fat loss scalp....

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interac...ar-cayce-was-correct-not-for-the-logical-mind


BTW I concluded that you think that exist two types of hairs over the scalp regarding genetics, ..... My idea is that all healthy scalp hairs are identical, and without diferences between sexes.

Yes, I have heard about it, but like most of Cayce's Revelations its hard to fully grasp and place into context.

I do not think there are two different types of hair on the scalp of the same person. All hair on the scalp is the same genetically (of course) and also phenotypically.

I believe the cause of the pattern in androgenic alopecia is due primarily to gravity and chronic scalp tension.

Gravity has two negative effects:

1. It compresses the follicle against the skull more directly on the top of the head
2. It works against the direction of the needed blood flow to the top of the head

These effects are trivial in the moment, but compounded over years their effect is visibly obvious in more than just hair loss.

Scalp tension is probably the bigger culprit here. Firstly, because it is difficult to avoid in modern times. Secondly, it could very easily and rapidly lead to localized hypoxic states which would explain why some people quickly lose a lot of hair and then find it does not come back.

The scalp is almost always the last muscle in the body to completely relax. This is because it cannot be fully relaxed unless both the back of the head, the shoulders, and the face are all fully relaxed. The shoulders, neck and/or face will become tense in almost any circumstance where some other part of the body is tense. Imagine then, how much tension the scalp must deal with over the course of time and the problems this could create for hair follicles.

 

[Armando Jose]

regarding common hairloss, what is more important for you, scalp tension or gravity?


I am with you, "I do not think there are two different types of hair on the scalp of the same person. All hair on the scalp is the same genetically (of course) and also phenotypically"

 

[logikmtr]

HairIsPossible:If you want to convince people of something, immediately resorting to calling your audience "idiots" is not the best way to do it. It may be within the realm of possibility that the point you are trying to make is legitimate, but that attitude will not get you very far. Just saying.

I am willing to keep an open mind about this, so could you help me understand one point? You are subjecting your scalp to water near 0 degrees Celsius in order to induce the growth of brown fat. However, the study which you cited has the following conclusion:

No significant differences were found between the two subjects, indicating that a lifestyle with frequent exposures to extreme cold does not seem to affect BAT activity and CIT. In both subjects, BAT was not higher compared to earlier observations, whereas CIT was very high, suggesting that g-Tummo like breathing during cold exposure may cause additional heat production by vigorous isometric respiratory muscle contraction. The results must be interpreted with caution given the low subject number and the fact that both participants practised the g-Tummo like breathing technique.

So, I agree with your earlier comment that putting your scalp in cold water probably won't accomplish anything, even if it is localized. Wouldn't your time be better served by manually relaxing the scalp skin with your hands a few minutes a day? Men do something similar with their foreskin to regrow extra skin.

 

[HairIsPossible]

regarding common hairloss, what is more important for you, scalp tension or gravity?


I am with you, "I do not think there are two different types of hair on the scalp of the same person. All hair on the scalp is the same genetically (of course) and also phenotypically"

I do not want to say either one is more important than the other. I don't even like talking about "gravity causing hairloss" because it is a universal factor which affects all people, bald and not bald equally, and there is a limited amount we can do to offset its long term effects other than routine yoga postures which I highly recommend for their vast benefits beyond scalp health.

To say scalp tension causes hair loss can also be equally misleading because there will be many people out there who start experiencing hair loss without any apparent increase in scalp tension.

Fundamentally, what causes hair loss is the gradual deterioration of blood supply to hair follicles on the top of the scalp. I don't even think the "DHT sensitivity" camp can debate that because why else would a vasodilators like minoxidil ever cause the reappearance of terminal follicles?

The "DHT sensitivity" camp insists that the loss of blood supply to the follicles is an automatic function of the follicles in response to DHT binding to the follicle's receptors. As I have pointed out, this theory is completely inconsistent with many aspects of male pattern baldness and it does not hold its own weight under its own tenets.

The various alternative camps have proposed different mechanisms for this loss of blood supply. I am proposing that it is fundamentally a response to stresses on the follicles and the capillaries that feed them oxygenated blood. These stresses would encompass gravity, scalp tension, and global hypoxic states (high stress), to name but a few possibilities. In the case of pre-menopausal women, pre-pubescent men and some post-pubescent men there are adequate protective factors in play to off-set these stresses. There may be several of these protective mechanisms, but without question the most important of them is the prescence of subcutaneous fatty tissue protecting the follicle and its blood supply. This is why I am emphasizing that we figure out how to restore and maintain this fatty tissue in the follicles of those with androgenic alopecia.

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HairIsPossible:If you want to convince people of something, immediately resorting to calling your audience "idiots" is not the best way to do it. It may be within the realm of possibility that the point you are trying to make is legitimate, but that attitude will not get you very far. Just saying.

I am willing to keep an open mind about this, so could you help me understand one point? You are subjecting your scalp to water near 0 degrees Celsius in order to induce the growth of brown fat. However, the study which you cited has the following conclusion:



So, I agree with your earlier comment that putting your scalp in cold water probably won't accomplish anything, even if it is localized. Wouldn't your time be better served by manually relaxing the scalp skin with your hands a few minutes a day? Men do something similar with their foreskin to regrow extra skin.

I apologize about the "idiot" comment, however I was responding to someone who made a low effort reply to my initial post. It seemed like a fair response at the time.

Relaxing the scalp is critical, however I am not sure if it alone will "stimulate" the regeneration of both the capillaries that feed the follicles and the fatty tissue that protects them.

From my experience the head-baths I have done loosen up my scalp more than anything. I have found it the most pliable after these head-bath.

I got the idea for the ice-bath of the scalp yesterday and I did it twice, but the feeling is intense enough that I had to pull out several times before I reached 100 breathes. You can imagine though that once I bring myself to endure the full 100 breathes twice a day that my scalp will have to adapt in some way to adjust to this intense cold. My current thinking is that part of that adjustment will be both increased circulation and fatty tissue in the area that is frequently exposed. Circulation and fatty tissue is exactly what I believe is lacking in and around my hair follicles so I would not be surprised if restored hair growth was a side-effect of these baths.

 

[Armando Jose]

HairIsPossible said: "I am proposing that it is fundamentally a response to stresses on the follicles and the capillaries that feed them oxygenated blood".

Thank you for your kind answer.

Appears a third new key in your theory: Blood supply.

A lot of luck...... IMHO any theory must explain, among other things, the special pattern of coomon hairloss and the diferent incidence between sexes. My bet is that problems in sebum flow is the initial trigger of this multifactorial problem.
BTW what do you think about sebum in this issue?

 

[logikmtr]

I keenly encourage you to document your progress as carefully as possible. Pictures, of course. If you do this religiously and see changes in 4-6 months, I will gladly get on board. I can't say I can agree with the reasoning behind your methodology at this point, but I do agree that the issue of hair loss is an extremely complicated one; so why shouldn't the remedy be equally complicated?

If you do this correctly and give people enough evidence to persuade them that this isn't just a theory, this treatment could be another staple in the stack for people to combat Androgenetic Alopecia. If it doesn't work, that's OK too. At least you are making an effort. The important thing is to be forthcoming with information.

 

[HairIsPossible]

HairIsPossible said: "I am proposing that it is fundamentally a response to stresses on the follicles and the capillaries that feed them oxygenated blood".

Thank you for your kind answer.

Appears a third new key in your theory: Blood supply.

A lot of luck...... IMHO any theory must explain, among other things, the special pattern of coomon hairloss and the diferent incidence between sexes. My bet is that problems in sebum flow is the initial trigger of this multifactorial problem.
BTW what do you think about sebum in this issue?

Blood supply is not a "new key" to my theory. It has always been part of it, in my initial post I specifically said:

how can a follicle grow if it is receiving no oxygen rich blood flow?

I have already explained not only the pattern in hair loss, but also the different incidence between sexes and the different incidence between ages. Where has my explanation been unclear?

There is one new element I do want to mention which is pH. I have seen several anecdotal reports of people experiencing regrowth with the regular ingestion of apple cider vinegar.[1][2][3][4] I have no reason to believe all these people are lying and so if my theory is correct it should be able to explain why this regrowth occurred. The "DHT sensitivity" camp cannot use their theory to explain it, so they will deny that these stories are true.

It has been well-documented that vinegar is anti-glycemic[1]. Because glucose is acidic an anti-glycemic substance can have the effect of alkalizing the blood and local cellular environments. So, the regular ingestion of apple-cider vinegar would ultimately have the effect of increasing the pH in the blood that reaches hair follicles.

The question remains, how can a lower pH regrow hair?

Well it all goes back to hypoxia. The high the pH of the blood, the more oxygen it can store. This relationship is known as the Bohr effect. Hair follicles are more prone to enter into hypoxic states if the pH of the blood is lower. The regular ingestion of apple cider vinegar may have raised the pH of the blood reaching the hair follicles on the top of the scalp in these individuals allowing more oxygen to reach the follicle causing it to once again grow to its full size. In the men that experienced this regrowth, there may have been the additional factor of the higher pH blood breaking the vicious feedback relationship between hypoxia, DHT, and subcutaneous fat levels.

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I keenly encourage you to document your progress as carefully as possible. Pictures, of course. If you do this religiously and see changes in 4-6 months, I will gladly get on board. I can't say I can agree with the reasoning behind your methodology at this point, but I do agree that the issue of hair loss is an extremely complicated one; so why shouldn't the remedy be equally complicated?

If you do this correctly and give people enough evidence to persuade them that this isn't just a theory, this treatment could be another staple in the stack for people to combat Androgenetic Alopecia. If it doesn't work, that's OK too. At least you are making an effort. The important thing is to be forthcoming with information.

I am more interested in people using their own minds to realize that the "DHT sensitivity" theory could not possibly be the case. Even if I were to experience significant regrowth, there is no way I will be able to tell exactly what "method" caused the regrowth. I am doing many different things simultaneously and I'm not about to pretend that I've isolated a particular method which will work universally.

I doubt that a natural cure is even possible in someone who has't truly reached a higher level of awareness of their own body and their habits.

I do believe that every person can find their way to a cure if they keep at it. People give up or turn to drugs and transplants because they have been lied to and told that hair loss is all part of their genetic programming. Doctors do not even mention things like hypoxia, pH, and subcutaneous fat when they talk to people about hair loss. Yet, somehow people sit around expecting science to come up with a permanent, universal cure.

As one person, all I can do is put an idea out there. Considering the infinite varieties of lifestyle and scalp health it would impossible for me to sit here and pretend that I've got a solution to everyone's hair loss. If a person's scalp is totally calcified and inflamed and they live a chronic high stress lifestyle no amount of scalp massage or vinegar or cold therapy is going to help them until they address their chronic stress habits. However, there are some who live generally healthy lifestyles, but their hair is not growing back because need a method to stimulate the regeneration of hair follicles and the restoration of the fatty tissue that protects them. They may stand a chance to grow a lot of hair back if the proper method is implemented.

The point is that two people with the same symptom, baldness, may really have two completely different problems, one is poisoning their own blood with stress, the other needs to regenerate fatty tissue. This is why cures come along that do it for a few people where 95% find no results.

 

[LongWayHome]

Blood supply is not a "new key" to my theory. It has always been part of it, in my initial post I specifically said:

I have already explained not only the pattern in hair loss, but also the different incidence between sexes and the different incidence between ages. Where has my explanation been unclear?

There is one new element I do want to mention which is pH. I have seen several anecdotal reports of people experiencing regrowth with the regular ingestion of apple cider vinegar.[1][2][3][4] I have no reason to believe all these people are lying and so if my theory is correct it should be able to explain why this regrowth occurred. The "DHT sensitivity" camp cannot use their theory to explain it, so they will deny that these stories are true.

It has been well-documented that vinegar is anti-glycemic[1]. Because glucose is acidic an anti-glycemic substance can have the effect of alkalizing the blood and local cellular environments. So, the regular ingestion of apple-cider vinegar would ultimately have the effect of increasing the pH in the blood that reaches hair follicles.

The question remains, how can a lower pH regrow hair?

Well it all goes back to hypoxia. The high the pH of the blood, the more oxygen it can store. This relationship is known as the Bohr effect. Hair follicles are more prone to enter into hypoxic states if the pH of the blood is lower. The regular ingestion of apple cider vinegar may have raised the pH of the blood reaching the hair follicles on the top of the scalp in these individuals allowing more oxygen to reach the follicle causing it to once again grow to its full size. In the men that experienced this regrowth, there may have been the additional factor of the higher pH blood breaking the vicious feedback relationship between hypoxia, DHT, and subcutaneous fat levels.

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I am more interested in people using their own minds to realize that the "DHT sensitivity" theory could not possibly be the case. Even if I were to experience significant regrowth, there is no way I will be able to tell exactly what "method" caused the regrowth. I am doing many different things simultaneously and I'm not about to pretend that I've isolated a particular method which will work universally.

I doubt that a natural cure is even possible in someone who has't truly reached a higher level of awareness of their own body and their habits.

I do believe that every person can find their way to a cure if they keep at it. People give up or turn to drugs and transplants because they have been lied to and told that hair loss is all part of their genetic programming. Doctors do not even mention things like hypoxia, pH, and subcutaneous fat when they talk to people about hair loss. Yet, somehow people sit around expecting science to come up with a permanent, universal cure.

As one person, all I can do is put an idea out there. Considering the infinite varieties of lifestyle and scalp health it would impossible for me to sit here and pretend that I've got a solution to everyone's hair loss. If a person's scalp is totally calcified and inflamed and they live a chronic high stress lifestyle no amount of scalp massage or vinegar or cold therapy is going to help them until they address their chronic stress habits. However, there are some who live generally healthy lifestyles, but their hair is not growing back because need a method to stimulate the regeneration of hair follicles and the restoration of the fatty tissue that protects them. They may stand a chance to grow a lot of hair back if the proper method is implemented.

The point is that two people with the same symptom, baldness, may really have two completely different problems, one is poisoning their own blood with stress, the other needs to regenerate fatty tissue. This is why cures come along that do it for a few people where 95% find no results.

Your way of thinking is refreshing, and I absolutely agree with you.
That's why there are people that take Propecia/Avodart and see no results, while others do.
That's why you can see someone on a random forum that says "Nizoral really slowed down my hair loss"
while all I've gotten from it is maybe an extra fart.
And that's why stemoxydine works perfectly for me, and gave me back some of my hairline, while for most people it's in the best case an ok treatment.
I don't know about the cold therapy thing, but it's a theory that makes you think out of the box, which most people are scared to do here, and in general,
but you're not terrified about some of the comments here and you really shouldn't, just continue writing here, it's a pleasure reading it.

 

[HairIsPossible]

Your way of thinking is refreshing, and I absolutely agree with you.
That's why there are people that take Propecia/Avodart and see no results, while others do.
That's why you can see someone on a random forum that says "Nizoral really slowed down my hair loss"
while all I've gotten from it is maybe an extra fart.
And that's why stemoxydine works perfectly for me, and gave me back some of my hairline, while for most people it's in the best case an ok treatment.
I don't know about the cold therapy thing, but it's a theory that makes you think out of the box, which most people are scared to do here, and in general,
but you're not terrified about some of the comments here and you really shouldn't, just continue writing here, it's a pleasure reading it.

Thank you for the comment. There are so many people out there who have already decided that baldness is 100% genetic and cannot be cured except by the graces of advanced technology. These people will attack anyone saying otherwise as a snake oil salesman, yet they are ironically the biggest supporters of the real snake oil: minoxidil, finasteride and nizoral, which may give limited results for some people, but these results are never satisfactory and they are never worth the long term financial investment or side effects.

There is a real way to make our hair grow back, just like there was a real way to build a plane that could travel across a continent. But, if it weren't for a bunch of rogue mechanics who actually thought about what could make a plane fly we would be stuck with all the big budget projects of top engineers building bigger and bigger engines that did nothing except make the problem of flight seem more impossible. It took the correct application of the concept of lift for the design of any engine to have a meaningful impact on flight, and it will take the correct application of an equally as elusive concept for us to design a universal regime to have a meaningful impact on hair-loss.

We are taught to believe the highest level thinking alway occurs in well-respected institutions, but often times the opposite is true. These institutions are stuck in their ways and prevent their top talent from taking the necessary risks to find the real solution, so often time the highest level thinking can happen on something as basement-level as this forum.

Do not underestimate the power of your own mind.

 

[musky]

wow

 

[WangMQ]

Very interesting HairIsPossible. I've long noticed that balding/thinning always happens where one's scalp gets thin. And you're not the only one who paid attention to this correlation. I've seen discussion about fighitng male pattern baldness by increasing scalp fat in another forum, but the thread was soon left as random BS.

I've also seen attempts to cure male pattern baldness by "exercising your scalp". The people who came up with that theory proposed that hairloss happens because your skull expands as you grow older, leaving certain areas of the scalp thinner with less blood flow. They tried to redistribute the blood flow pattern there by "training" some muscles around one's skull. And some claimed it worked. Though it sounds so ridiculous the mechanism behind might coincide with yours.

Anyway I do believe there is at least some extent of truth in your theory and I'm looking forward to your progress. But here comes a question:

You claim that ingestion of apple cider vinegar could possibly change people's blood pH. But that is somehow against my common sense. A man's inner body pH (blood, tissue fluid,...) should be under strict control of your system with very minor fluctuations. I thought elevated pH suggests severe health problems. So how is that possible?

(I do believe ACV is very good to your external pH conditioning when you apply it on your scalp instead of drinking it though. I am among those doing this)

And good luck to your research out there!

 

[HairIsPossible]

You claim that ingestion of apple cider vinegar could possibly change people's blood pH. But that is somehow against my common sense. A man's inner body pH (blood, tissue fluid,...) should be under strict control of your system with very minor fluctuations. I thought elevated pH suggests severe health problems. So how is that possible?

(I do believe ACV is very good to your external pH conditioning when you apply it on your scalp instead of drinking it though. I am among those doing this)

And good luck to your research out there!

Those minor fluctuations may not be inconsequential. For example, there has been a lot of talk that testosterone is more likely to be converted to DHT in hypoxic states, though nobody has ever definitely said why this is the case to my knowledge. Could it be that the reason for this is related to pH?

A hypoxic local environment would almost definitely result in a lower pH and this more acidic state may activate a protein, let's say "protein X" involved in the metabolism of testosterone to DHT through "function K". It is possible that at a higher pH, that "protein X" denatures and is not able to carry out "function K", thus resulting in lower localized levels of DHT.

I believe that you mean lowering of pH towards more acidic blood causes health problems. Of course, highly alkaline blood could cause health problems, but in modern society that is far less common than the acidic extreme.

 

[WangMQ]

I just happened to come across the kerastem therapy today and it is obviously linked to fat cells. Amazing.
Ummm, looks like someone's already been on what we're looking for.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

It occurs to me that just putting an icepack on your head for ten minutes would probably work better.

I'm trying to prevent foot injury. I run a lot to lose weight and maintain a healthy heart, but if my feet go I'm out. So a few weeks ago, I put my feet in an ice bath. I put them in and out for 90 seconds at a time, because I didn't want to get frostbitten. I noticed about an hour later, after the ice bath was done, that my feet were basically burning, as the blood was rushing back in as I was walking outside. It felt ... wonderful.

If I can stop being lazy, I might try it on my hair, my balls, my lower back, my knees, and my feet, on a regular basis, rotating.

 

[WangMQ]

A very strange anecdote for you:

Years back I saw a guy on a forum in my country (I'm in China) who claimed he stopped male pattern baldness using Qi-Gong.

Qi-Gong is a traditional mental+physical training in China. A little bit similar to yoga. It translates as "life energy cultivation". People who practice Qi-Gong are believed to be able to influence or control their "Qi" (life energy). For example, a man who knows his way of Qi can concentrate his "energy" on his one hand, and after a few minutes that hand would be significantly warmer than the other. Yoga has similar concepts. I personally understand it as influencing your blood flow and micro circulation. It sounds funny and few people are still doing it but it's true.

So what that guy claimed he did was concentrating Qi on his scalp. Back then I laughed at him but maybe there were actually some truth in it, if the blood flow theory makes sense.

 

[opti]

how is it going with your cold therapy Hairispossible?

I think hypoxia is the cause for the hair to shrink. DHT is not the cause but it leads to it. Due to too much dht or sensitivy or stress or whatsoever(who knows) the scalp becomes inflamed which leads to fibrosis (DHT increases collagenase which builds collagen, in this case too much . DHT and T also burn fat cells. Well now we got rarely any subcutanous fat in balding areas and alot of thick and hard collagen which results in hypoxia/blood flow decrease.

simpliest way to get more subcutanous fat would be to use estrogens which can reverse this bad situation, but thats not side effect free.

 

[buckthorn]

Bump.. Has the cold therapy effected your scalp in any way? decreased inflammation?

 

[FuianoMonster]

Very interesting. According to Edgar Cayce, subluxations can play a role in baldness.
My balding started after i had back pain for the first time in my life, and a X-RAY scan showed one of my vertebral discs had began to flatten.