well 4 months in a row and no sides. ive been taking a big break from the protocol but I'm thinking I can start again on Monday for a hardcore 2 months. Including additional supplements such as Taurine and black seed currant oil.
Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.
- Thread starter bridgeburn
- Start date
well 4 months in a row and no sides. ive been taking a big break from the protocol but I'm thinking I can start again on Monday for a hardcore 2 months. Including additional supplements such as Taurine and black seed currant oil.
dosage is far too low even if it did go systemic. I've been personally needling and slapping it on and no sides. I speak from 4 months daily usage experience.
- Reaction score
- 2,032
This is what struck me so strongly during my first pass through this thread. Guys switching every month or twp. That will not work. AA's regardless of health are jarring to the system. They have sides that are worse than E2 sides in terms of making life intolerable for some folks. At the least, please try to titrate downwards or upwards. I disrespected the power of 200mg of spironolactone and my bald head is splayed many places on the HRT threads and here.
are you seriously 17? I can't believe male pattern baldness is more prevalent than ever..
- Reaction score
- 2,032
I would say aggressive and/or reckless. Many folks know the risks cause we read MtF HRT boards constantly. MtF's argue about everything and in my opinion, we remain very XY in this sense and people often make categorical statement on here about meds that can be risky or like spironolactone, cause death without knowing all of the different parameters. Better to copy someone else's protocol than grasp in the dark to establish one of our own.
- Reaction score
- 2,032
1mg dutasteride everyday, 6mg buccal estrofem (a couple times i took 8mg but mostly 6mg a day), 200mg spironolactone, 500mg sulfasalizine, 10mg oral minoxidil every other day and topical minoxidil every other day on alternating days (I don't really measure just cover the area). People ask me all of the time for complete Bridgeburn protocols but they change constantly. But what's different is that with the exception of going off AA's at times, Bridge always goes in the MtF direction as do I although I will titrate down at some point. You can't go willy nilly and add bica and reduce E2 or just stop minoxidil cause you are shedding. It's a waste of time, effort, money and you end up looking worse and more depressed. HRT is not for many people at all and certainly not for guys unless they try to emulate Noah. Either titrate to an established protocol or don't do this please as we are not trying to proselytize. At first Bridge had a lot of readers interested in breast removal but I don't think he ever even considered that at any point nor have I.heyy everyone. A few things i'd like to report..
Since I'm back home, I went through my old stuff and I still have a bunch of stuff that i was using during last summer, more than a year ago.. lithium chloride, soy isoflavones, methyl vanillate spray, melatonin, several supplements, etc...
most of these things I'll throw out or won't use. But among these things I'll try to use what I think is useful to not waste it. I found a couple bottles of topical 5% minoxidil, which expiration date is December 2018, it has been sitting in my moms home for a year but its probably still good, I can't be completely sure what the temperature was or if aircon was always on, but i think for most part it was so ill use it to not waste it.
The other item amongst my old bag of experiments that I think is worth any try while I am visiting home is my bottle of sulfasalizine.
it doesn't expire for a few years still, so I'll use it. Ive used it before but who knows, maybe using something prostaglandin based reducing pgd2 will work good if used with hormonal treatments simultaneously?? I don't think anyones ever tried that as far as I know. Idont know if itll help but maybe itll have synergy, but still hard to prove since hair tends to get boosted every so often somewhat cyclically while on hrt. so this regimen is just what Ill be using while in my home country anyway...
I've been taking so far since shortly after arriving here this regimen: 1mg dutasteride everyday, 6mg buccal estrofem (a couple times i took 8mg but mostly 6mg a day), 200mg spironolactone, 500mg sulfasalizine, 10mg oral minoxidil every other day and topical minoxidil every other day on alternating days (I don't really measure just cover the area)..
I think this reg is really good. I can say I can see already hair is still def improving,I will give update pics after I return to my country of residence.
Another thing also, Another package of mine came and I'm going to try Progesterone (oral) 100mg, everyday for the next week.(in addition to all above of course). Mostly I'm a bit curious to try it honestly. I may use it again at some point after returnkng home. in some ways I believe it works together with estradiol. estradiol and progesterone both inhibit 5ar but in different mechanism. they both improve collagen, and both have neuroprotective effects. I also think since I'm on 1mg dutasteride now, I should take a bit of P to boost neurosteroids utilizng any 5ar that is possibly left.
I know how horrible all of this is but you will ruin your life worse if you try this without taking certain precautions. I joke about you change check out any time you want but you can never leave but yes, HRT can be psychologically addictive which then takes us to the chicken and egg. Does HRT make you trans? No, but going this route might make you want to be trans or non-binary.
I say Goddess bless because that's the mind-set. Probably a lot of this is good fortune with the rest being that I am a voracious reader about all aspects of hair loss and feminization and I have been at this for 36 years. Bridge's a genius, literally. Are we?
- Reaction score
- 207
sorry to hijack this thread but i see you're still aking oral min can i ask you how re things going skin aging wise as you seem to value youthfullness and wrinkles skin free as much as i do , did you notice an increase in forehead wrinkles /under eyes and overall crepiness of the skin? also would you say you look more bloated since using oral min? thanks
ps : for the french guys wanting an AA just order on anageninc even if the stuffs are probably fake but that were i used to get my RU
- Reaction score
- 1
Hello I'm 22 years old, Norwood 3 maybe, I have been on 200mg of oral spironolactone treatment for 2 months but there is no sign of change yet, the thing I want to ask here is, does spironolactone inhibit or reduce Vitamin B12 like Cyproterone acetate does?
And haven't seen the results on 200 mg of spironolactone for 2 months, is this normal?
Thankyou for your reply
And haven't seen the results on 200 mg of spironolactone for 2 months, is this normal?
Thankyou for your reply
- Reaction score
- 1,104
It started for me when I was 13/14. I lost density by a half, i think even more. And my crown is almost gone, same as my top.
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- 1,335
You guys are entertaining typing stuff like that in a thread called "Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life."
- Reaction score
- 2,032
An Interim Negative Evaluation of any MtF meds for any Males Based Upon Essentially No One Following Bridge:
I am very high on micro-needling for face and scalp and neck even if folks use no carrier. Some people have limited success on things like CB or RU and a couple of others but it's not clear that it's regrowth as opposed to a lengthening of anagen or a temporary resurrection of hair still destined to go. For younger guys such regrowth from topical min or these other "male" meds can be impressive and restore a hairline for a while.
I am not dissing maintenance at all. Maintenance is the crowning achievement in the history of male pattern baldness so far. I maintained for years and years on Min/finasteride and Duta and then it stopped working. None of these ever regrew hair for me though. I started early on Min at 26 and still use it and have barely ever missed a day; same with finasteride and no sides from these. But RU and CB are used mostly by folks with crippling sides from Min/finasteride or people just wary. Maybe if someone used loads and hundreds of dollars of them plus enza or daro or whatever these experimental guys are using or touting, maybe some cosmetically significant regrowth is barely possible.
Even on the few HRT threads only a couple of people currently post pics, maybe two or three of us but mostly only me and I have stopped posting as much because it seems like bragging or inviting bad karma and I don't want to make folks feel worse as stated by Ein in the first part of the thread. But I have posted scores and scores over the last six years and I have hundreds and hundreds more even of balding scalp. I couldn't look directly to take a pic of it generally but I held my phone up while watching television and clicked and clicked my face, scalp and entire body for both MtF feminization and hair purposes and I share these freely privately but I think just posting hundreds can often obscure more than be indicative cause nobody really wants to look at other people's baldness unlike certain feminization effects but if the hair folks want to see certain degrees of feminization at certain points where I know exactly what I was on, cause I tested fairly often, then I don't mind. I have already posted obscured nipple pics and no guys want anything even remotely close to what I have and maybe no cis-females either. Like Bridge I love them and most guys and MtF's seem to like them for me in the context of my presenting as female. People kept begging Bridge for a few pics and he did post a couple that were similar to me in attribute. This continues to be highly unlikely even for MtF's but do you guys want to chance it for hair?
As far as we know, I know the best levels generally to induce breast growth and it's under 2 mg. But under 2 mg is usually only effective for hair in the longer-run, maybe several years and even then, it's unlikely enough except for maintenance. Inertia is a huge thing in baldness which no one seems to get. Yes, maintenance is key cause it's difficult to cure fibrosis without all of the female skin effects. Males lack the proper environment for hair regrowth. This has nothing to do with George Harrison or Brad Pitt wearing their hair long and looking great. Of course many cis-males can do that, and some forever like my father at 83 with his frickin crew cut of perfect hair that he doesn't even appreciate so I get all of you. There's nothing worse than a father with hair who won't let you grow it long because he hates the Beatles....
But for folks using any of these HRT meds, first use something for inflammation and titrate upwards slowly to reduce the chances of shedding but there are no guarantees and any and all of these common HRT meds might cause benevolent shedding that isn't worth it or even close to worth it in terms of cost/benefit. It will freak you out if you aren't committed to this for a life-time. I was like, eh, I know estrogen and spironolactone grow hair. It didn't faze me for a second except I started wearing slacks more until beard removal which I then rushed to complete.
Bridgeburn and I were both cueballs with his only from male pattern baldness and half of mine being from a massive shed to baldness. Neither of us stopped at any point, nor did we even titrate downward. We both kept increasing our estrogen levels to those of cis-females but several times more, say from 800 pg/ml or higher for him, to for me, 2,500 pg/ml the last year.
With HRT there is no looking back. Do not start HRT if you are not going to see it through. You don't have to be MtF but you cannot let your E2 levels drop below about 200 to 300 pg/ml and you need to stay there for six to 18 months, which both of us did. I have tested but his protocol was just as extreme. 2,500 pg/ml freaked my doctor out but I won't stay here forever. We both added large amounts of oral min when we were already seeing excellent results. We both then halved our oral min because of excessive peripheral hair growth, for me, mostly my beard. I did stay at 12.5mg for several months until last week.
If you want long hair, this is it unless you are under 23 and caught it right away.
My shed was the best thing ever in the long-run but how many of you can cope with shaving it all to the same cueball length and staying the course without dropping out? I was bald according to the man in the street definition of bald for six to 12 months. I couldn't wear a wig until I had beard removal because that look doesn't work for many. So I do insist that people have a back-up plan cause you might go completely bald before you reach semi-complete or complete restoration. You cannot stop or this will not work and you will be more despondent with no hair for many months either way so you have to stay the course. People on this thread earlier simply did not understand this or the commitment cause this is what Bridge actually did more than what he predicted he would do earlier which was somewhat more conservative with "male-ish" goals.
I wanted to be a hero and go one step further to find a middle way but it didn't work and it doesn't work for many MtF's cause they never reach adult cis-female levels of estradiol and they don't know it cause some of them have large breasts (very few) and some facially feminize and some see marginal results in other places. But I answer questions often from people on HRT for 36 months who allege no differences at all except softer skin (which is key but not enough). The MtF who turned me on to this thread used large amounts of bica and was only 23 but balding since 15 and I think they gave up on the hair part and only focused on breast growth and other feminization and seemed defeated to me and they was young but after eight years of rampant balding, I mean, it's tough.
Know why this doesn't work for "guys"? Cause the boobs and fat *** and facial feminization all come before the really good hair, meaning they start at minuscule levels of any form or type of beta-estradiol or estrone or ingestion method. For estriol, eh. None of us use estriol except as an adjunct therapy that probably works better for us than for males. Avoiding breast growth does not mean estriol works to grow hair. Most people report back with no results or imaginary ones like tingling in the temples. Bull. Tingling is a placebo thing every single person alleges even from polysorbates. It comes from inflammation which is good if you are starting a benevolent shed only but it doesn't mean something is working and it is usually a placebo effect.
I wish I could be more sanguine but I strongly advise all males against anything from HRT or anything like RU or fluridil or whatever cause you might shed and then struggle to recover and they don't do much alone anyway. None of them are close to min/finasteride, nor is alfatradiol. But that's a slew of great meds for you to try already with the Big 3 and the peripheral ones I have mentioned. Using bica before an RI is virtually always laughable.
The good part is that inflammation seems to be just as key as male pattern baldness for maintenance although they are difficult to separate. So yes, use keto, selsun blue and polysorbate 80 for inflammation as step one. If you can then add topical min and if you still need more help there is finasteride and there's duta both of which maintain great. Nothing tends to regrow hair for males though.
Some use anti-androgens like bica as stated which might partially work but only because they raise estrogen levels most likely. Regrowth that is significant currently is based upon three meds : A reductase inhibitor; estradiol of any form or ingestion method save estriol and an AA, which is rarely if ever necessary. There's little evidence that AA's do anything better that more estrogen cannot do. @bridgeburn did use AA's frequently but he was a bit early in terms of evidence and all of the advanced MtF's are basically going E2-only with possibly natural P4 or progesterone and titrating slowly upwards but only in the direction of increasing E2 levels. Even a year ago, I thought duta was unnecessary conjecturally but it's vital for some and since most of us don't know how vigorous self-production of DHT from skin and adrenals is, many only have success if they use duta it appears. I won't risk stopping using it because I read the MtF message boards and castrated folks often struggle to regrow hair even with E due to persistent production of DHT peripherally.
My goal was to find an intermediate way to restore hair but for men, there isn't one unless cycling works but that has serious issues too. These meds jar the system and then folks whine about sheds and switch and stop and start again and add min and then stop min and none of this works. It's self-defeating and only some MtF's or non-binary folks or folks who will accept hair regrowth at all costs are successful. But even on the HRT threads very few post pics or their testing levels although many assert results. Such anecdotal assertions are unscientific until they pass a certain threshold when they can be tested with double-blind studies. Folks on here assess their own regrowth under various lighting and conditions and pic clarity, often using only close-ups which obscure more than show anything and then they start spouting.
Males have several effective meds though so it's a good time to be in a state of incipient baldness as a male. For folks who are already bald, meaning folks that others might point towards and say, he's a bald guy, I am sorry.
You missed the train. You can get transplants if you have very high stable fringe but that's it. Game over and most of the guys on here are at the game-over stage and this is a hobby to them and a way to meet nice folks and engage in argumentative banter but nobody is restoring anything close to a pubertal hairline except for the very young who start immediately or even before balding and people using estrogen, along with other MtF HRT meds and even there it is hit or miss because nobody bothers to check the reddit MtF boards. They sit around conjecturing and since baldness in human males makes no sense to begin with since T promotes hair growth in most mammals, none of the conjecturing works. They all end up in sisyphean fashion
(denoting or relating to a task that can never be completed) spinning their wheels. But many male apes and monkeys do bald similarly but with much more vigorous "vellus" hair.
There's nothing out there in the pipeline either. You guys are males. Here's what often works for you: Keto; a blue dandruff shampoo, min/oral min; finasteride/Duta and micro-needling. For the obsessive, yes Retin-A but probably not Latisse which is Goddess-awfully expensive. That's it. The shampoos are unlikely to do a lot for most people but they do help with inflammation, Keto has mild estrogenic effects though.
I am not against anyone and I will continue to try to help any and all via PM or direct question and I am open to changing my views but mostly I agree with the male naysayers who say that are destroying their essence as males.
I usually state things non-categorically and I do change my mind but it's been mostly towards the mainstream view. Males don't touch estrogen at all, ever, even in jest just with your fingers. We all know that it's not what men do.
Bica is no better; It's just another form of estrogen delivery that has many more dangerous sides, impacts fertility, libido and all of the rest of it. It is not good for the liver or anything else except in the short-term. It's irrelevant if you can still maintain your bodybuilding on bica or plow 12 chicks a week; that has nothing to do with it being better for hair than estradiol. And if you can do that, then why be female?
Both Bridge and I have spent thousands of words on the health effects of estrogen and they are all essentially, 99 percent of them, life-extending and incredibly youth enhancing. Bica and spironolactone have serious sides. I took 200mg spironolactone with minuscule Premarin at 1.25 mg and it was a miserable, miserable experience and I have never had a side with any med my entire life. Titrate downwards? Only people on E2 can do that because anything less than 100 mg alone is unlikely to do squat but it will make you incapable of fantasizing for many. It's right in this very thread in the first 70's pages one of the guys trying HRT on for size stated it exactly right. I had this side too. None of the old sexual mind-set worked even if I could still get it up. Get ready to toss all of your midget p**rn videos cause they will seem incredibly stupid and pointless to you. As Bridge stated so correctly, only when you hit peak levels of estradiol does libido come back and it is far better but your junk will now work at least marginally more like a clit and labia majora and might look like that. Yes, I have pics and this inter-sex aspect is very, very common on HRT.
But I made it through about a tenth of this thread today and most of what people say on here who are not MtF's (meaning committed to it for a lifetime) is completely at odds with what @bridgeburn actually articulated, did in actuality and then posted pics of. I am doing this without any of the big 3 AA's cause I get sick of hearing about them all of the time. It's a crappy, risky, shed-ladened path for males and so far I don't miss them but I do use provera which has only positive sides for me. It's similar to CPA but weaker depending upon stardard dosaging.
spironolactone and Bica are the exact same thing. They work all but identically for hair loss related to receptor blocking and increasing circulating T but one works better for some; the other for others in terms of feminization and hair growth. Estrogen works far better and far more safely than either.
CPA and Provera might be useful in the short-run since they actually lower circulating T but neither is necessary nor is P4. Because Bridge and I know this cold, both from the literature and bio-feedback, we know how not to work against ourselves. Virtually no one else gets this. Bridge knew this would work for him from day one and so did I but I wasted 5 years trying to regrow hair incrementally as a "male" and it didn't work. Biestro is great for boobs but for hair, eh, you need like a bottle a week applied several times a day to groin and scalp and even then it works better for MtF's since we have thinner, but fattier scalps and already are on E2. I spend and spent huge amounts of time on this. Hours and hours and hours of research on micro-needling and different gauges and I search relentlessly all of the E2 only papers.. If you don't have that dedication and can't simply do exactly and I mean exactly with one of Bridge's protocols or one of mine, if I keep getting such results then stick with male meds.
I will continue to follow the bica people's progress if any of you actually start taking it or spironolactone single shot but I don't think it will work anywhere close to the thread founder's results.
Dude was a genius.
Ein was very young.
finasteride and min work for the very young and people who don't let much time elapse between the initiation of hair loss and beginning treatment.
All of you virtually, will either drop out at the beginning because yes, Bica has significant sides and health issues and notice Bridgeburn used all three in a cycling fashion and went without any often. He didn't pound his liver but you guys don't understand how complicated all of this is to understand and implement. I didn't either until my spironolactone fiasco when I realized these meds have to be used with great caution and wariness. I took another look at my paltry 2.5 premarin which had grown incredible boobs and switched to stead-state patches X 2, Climara 100's. One Climara will get you to adult female targets. I also kept 1.25 mg Premarin, and used virtually unlimited amounts of estrogel, far far more than Bridge. I have spent well over $1,000 this year on Estrogel and Retin-A. All of my other meds are covered but Estrogel is bloody expensive and a tube lasts me a week if I am lucky. Once or twice I have used an entire tube in a day testing various MtF's theories along with my pregnancy level of estradiol theories. I have bought all three Life Flo Products and their P4 cream hundreds of times since 2013 but eh, they were great for boobs and *** but for hair, I used at least a bottle a week when it was marginally improving my hair. I have posted the pics and the med intervals. You can lose ground rapidly even using 1 mg of estradiol. Some can re-set the axis at 2mg over time. But if you want to really do this then these are the best options: Needles, parenteral estradiol, and then sublingual. Pills work but they won't get you to adult female targets quickly unless you suck on them. Of course, MtF's all screw up in the opposite direction and take too much too soon but all trans folks have a tendency to use too much. But breast growth and hair growth might never happen but if they do, you need to take slightly different approaches.
These just isn't for XY's who want to breed unless you are suicidal, then jump on board and I will help but spinning our wheels about bica being the great salvation, no, it's not. I wish it were and it might be a partial solution but the shedding risks are very, very high and it is very difficult to reach target levels even if you give in to the feminization mind-set. That's the reason for the AA's cause it's hard to reach levels, not because they are any good for anything except cancer when compared to estradiol. I have also explained why doctors prescribe them. Cause they are idiots who still won't prescribe enough bio-identical estrogen.
Shoot for maintenance and then get a transplant. HRT will blow your mind and f*** with your head and you won't know who you are likely. People say that Bridge and I proselytize.
No. Beware all who enter here. This is almost certainly not for you psychologically, in terms of feminizing or in terms of results if you don't stay the course. Males except for a tiny few do not try this. Even some of the folks who are getting great results hair-wise aren't thrilled with the facial feminization. The costs of this path are extreme.
Goddess bless all of us but this is for transfolks and guys who will do anything to have long pubertal locks or suicidal who are able to simply use one of Bridge's protocols. Yours is not likely to work and you are re-inventing the wheel. Thousands of guys have tried your partial way and eh. But we pays our money and takes our chances, all of us. No whining, no griping, and no more going around in circles because I love you all but I will not enable you to wallow in this mess. It's not psychologically healthy.
I am very high on micro-needling for face and scalp and neck even if folks use no carrier. Some people have limited success on things like CB or RU and a couple of others but it's not clear that it's regrowth as opposed to a lengthening of anagen or a temporary resurrection of hair still destined to go. For younger guys such regrowth from topical min or these other "male" meds can be impressive and restore a hairline for a while.
I am not dissing maintenance at all. Maintenance is the crowning achievement in the history of male pattern baldness so far. I maintained for years and years on Min/finasteride and Duta and then it stopped working. None of these ever regrew hair for me though. I started early on Min at 26 and still use it and have barely ever missed a day; same with finasteride and no sides from these. But RU and CB are used mostly by folks with crippling sides from Min/finasteride or people just wary. Maybe if someone used loads and hundreds of dollars of them plus enza or daro or whatever these experimental guys are using or touting, maybe some cosmetically significant regrowth is barely possible.
Even on the few HRT threads only a couple of people currently post pics, maybe two or three of us but mostly only me and I have stopped posting as much because it seems like bragging or inviting bad karma and I don't want to make folks feel worse as stated by Ein in the first part of the thread. But I have posted scores and scores over the last six years and I have hundreds and hundreds more even of balding scalp. I couldn't look directly to take a pic of it generally but I held my phone up while watching television and clicked and clicked my face, scalp and entire body for both MtF feminization and hair purposes and I share these freely privately but I think just posting hundreds can often obscure more than be indicative cause nobody really wants to look at other people's baldness unlike certain feminization effects but if the hair folks want to see certain degrees of feminization at certain points where I know exactly what I was on, cause I tested fairly often, then I don't mind. I have already posted obscured nipple pics and no guys want anything even remotely close to what I have and maybe no cis-females either. Like Bridge I love them and most guys and MtF's seem to like them for me in the context of my presenting as female. People kept begging Bridge for a few pics and he did post a couple that were similar to me in attribute. This continues to be highly unlikely even for MtF's but do you guys want to chance it for hair?
As far as we know, I know the best levels generally to induce breast growth and it's under 2 mg. But under 2 mg is usually only effective for hair in the longer-run, maybe several years and even then, it's unlikely enough except for maintenance. Inertia is a huge thing in baldness which no one seems to get. Yes, maintenance is key cause it's difficult to cure fibrosis without all of the female skin effects. Males lack the proper environment for hair regrowth. This has nothing to do with George Harrison or Brad Pitt wearing their hair long and looking great. Of course many cis-males can do that, and some forever like my father at 83 with his frickin crew cut of perfect hair that he doesn't even appreciate so I get all of you. There's nothing worse than a father with hair who won't let you grow it long because he hates the Beatles....
But for folks using any of these HRT meds, first use something for inflammation and titrate upwards slowly to reduce the chances of shedding but there are no guarantees and any and all of these common HRT meds might cause benevolent shedding that isn't worth it or even close to worth it in terms of cost/benefit. It will freak you out if you aren't committed to this for a life-time. I was like, eh, I know estrogen and spironolactone grow hair. It didn't faze me for a second except I started wearing slacks more until beard removal which I then rushed to complete.
Bridgeburn and I were both cueballs with his only from male pattern baldness and half of mine being from a massive shed to baldness. Neither of us stopped at any point, nor did we even titrate downward. We both kept increasing our estrogen levels to those of cis-females but several times more, say from 800 pg/ml or higher for him, to for me, 2,500 pg/ml the last year.
With HRT there is no looking back. Do not start HRT if you are not going to see it through. You don't have to be MtF but you cannot let your E2 levels drop below about 200 to 300 pg/ml and you need to stay there for six to 18 months, which both of us did. I have tested but his protocol was just as extreme. 2,500 pg/ml freaked my doctor out but I won't stay here forever. We both added large amounts of oral min when we were already seeing excellent results. We both then halved our oral min because of excessive peripheral hair growth, for me, mostly my beard. I did stay at 12.5mg for several months until last week.
If you want long hair, this is it unless you are under 23 and caught it right away.
My shed was the best thing ever in the long-run but how many of you can cope with shaving it all to the same cueball length and staying the course without dropping out? I was bald according to the man in the street definition of bald for six to 12 months. I couldn't wear a wig until I had beard removal because that look doesn't work for many. So I do insist that people have a back-up plan cause you might go completely bald before you reach semi-complete or complete restoration. You cannot stop or this will not work and you will be more despondent with no hair for many months either way so you have to stay the course. People on this thread earlier simply did not understand this or the commitment cause this is what Bridge actually did more than what he predicted he would do earlier which was somewhat more conservative with "male-ish" goals.
I wanted to be a hero and go one step further to find a middle way but it didn't work and it doesn't work for many MtF's cause they never reach adult cis-female levels of estradiol and they don't know it cause some of them have large breasts (very few) and some facially feminize and some see marginal results in other places. But I answer questions often from people on HRT for 36 months who allege no differences at all except softer skin (which is key but not enough). The MtF who turned me on to this thread used large amounts of bica and was only 23 but balding since 15 and I think they gave up on the hair part and only focused on breast growth and other feminization and seemed defeated to me and they was young but after eight years of rampant balding, I mean, it's tough.
Know why this doesn't work for "guys"? Cause the boobs and fat *** and facial feminization all come before the really good hair, meaning they start at minuscule levels of any form or type of beta-estradiol or estrone or ingestion method. For estriol, eh. None of us use estriol except as an adjunct therapy that probably works better for us than for males. Avoiding breast growth does not mean estriol works to grow hair. Most people report back with no results or imaginary ones like tingling in the temples. Bull. Tingling is a placebo thing every single person alleges even from polysorbates. It comes from inflammation which is good if you are starting a benevolent shed only but it doesn't mean something is working and it is usually a placebo effect.
I wish I could be more sanguine but I strongly advise all males against anything from HRT or anything like RU or fluridil or whatever cause you might shed and then struggle to recover and they don't do much alone anyway. None of them are close to min/finasteride, nor is alfatradiol. But that's a slew of great meds for you to try already with the Big 3 and the peripheral ones I have mentioned. Using bica before an RI is virtually always laughable.
The good part is that inflammation seems to be just as key as male pattern baldness for maintenance although they are difficult to separate. So yes, use keto, selsun blue and polysorbate 80 for inflammation as step one. If you can then add topical min and if you still need more help there is finasteride and there's duta both of which maintain great. Nothing tends to regrow hair for males though.
Some use anti-androgens like bica as stated which might partially work but only because they raise estrogen levels most likely. Regrowth that is significant currently is based upon three meds : A reductase inhibitor; estradiol of any form or ingestion method save estriol and an AA, which is rarely if ever necessary. There's little evidence that AA's do anything better that more estrogen cannot do. @bridgeburn did use AA's frequently but he was a bit early in terms of evidence and all of the advanced MtF's are basically going E2-only with possibly natural P4 or progesterone and titrating slowly upwards but only in the direction of increasing E2 levels. Even a year ago, I thought duta was unnecessary conjecturally but it's vital for some and since most of us don't know how vigorous self-production of DHT from skin and adrenals is, many only have success if they use duta it appears. I won't risk stopping using it because I read the MtF message boards and castrated folks often struggle to regrow hair even with E due to persistent production of DHT peripherally.
My goal was to find an intermediate way to restore hair but for men, there isn't one unless cycling works but that has serious issues too. These meds jar the system and then folks whine about sheds and switch and stop and start again and add min and then stop min and none of this works. It's self-defeating and only some MtF's or non-binary folks or folks who will accept hair regrowth at all costs are successful. But even on the HRT threads very few post pics or their testing levels although many assert results. Such anecdotal assertions are unscientific until they pass a certain threshold when they can be tested with double-blind studies. Folks on here assess their own regrowth under various lighting and conditions and pic clarity, often using only close-ups which obscure more than show anything and then they start spouting.
Males have several effective meds though so it's a good time to be in a state of incipient baldness as a male. For folks who are already bald, meaning folks that others might point towards and say, he's a bald guy, I am sorry.
You missed the train. You can get transplants if you have very high stable fringe but that's it. Game over and most of the guys on here are at the game-over stage and this is a hobby to them and a way to meet nice folks and engage in argumentative banter but nobody is restoring anything close to a pubertal hairline except for the very young who start immediately or even before balding and people using estrogen, along with other MtF HRT meds and even there it is hit or miss because nobody bothers to check the reddit MtF boards. They sit around conjecturing and since baldness in human males makes no sense to begin with since T promotes hair growth in most mammals, none of the conjecturing works. They all end up in sisyphean fashion
(denoting or relating to a task that can never be completed) spinning their wheels. But many male apes and monkeys do bald similarly but with much more vigorous "vellus" hair.
There's nothing out there in the pipeline either. You guys are males. Here's what often works for you: Keto; a blue dandruff shampoo, min/oral min; finasteride/Duta and micro-needling. For the obsessive, yes Retin-A but probably not Latisse which is Goddess-awfully expensive. That's it. The shampoos are unlikely to do a lot for most people but they do help with inflammation, Keto has mild estrogenic effects though.
I am not against anyone and I will continue to try to help any and all via PM or direct question and I am open to changing my views but mostly I agree with the male naysayers who say that are destroying their essence as males.
I usually state things non-categorically and I do change my mind but it's been mostly towards the mainstream view. Males don't touch estrogen at all, ever, even in jest just with your fingers. We all know that it's not what men do.
Bica is no better; It's just another form of estrogen delivery that has many more dangerous sides, impacts fertility, libido and all of the rest of it. It is not good for the liver or anything else except in the short-term. It's irrelevant if you can still maintain your bodybuilding on bica or plow 12 chicks a week; that has nothing to do with it being better for hair than estradiol. And if you can do that, then why be female?
Both Bridge and I have spent thousands of words on the health effects of estrogen and they are all essentially, 99 percent of them, life-extending and incredibly youth enhancing. Bica and spironolactone have serious sides. I took 200mg spironolactone with minuscule Premarin at 1.25 mg and it was a miserable, miserable experience and I have never had a side with any med my entire life. Titrate downwards? Only people on E2 can do that because anything less than 100 mg alone is unlikely to do squat but it will make you incapable of fantasizing for many. It's right in this very thread in the first 70's pages one of the guys trying HRT on for size stated it exactly right. I had this side too. None of the old sexual mind-set worked even if I could still get it up. Get ready to toss all of your midget p**rn videos cause they will seem incredibly stupid and pointless to you. As Bridge stated so correctly, only when you hit peak levels of estradiol does libido come back and it is far better but your junk will now work at least marginally more like a clit and labia majora and might look like that. Yes, I have pics and this inter-sex aspect is very, very common on HRT.
But I made it through about a tenth of this thread today and most of what people say on here who are not MtF's (meaning committed to it for a lifetime) is completely at odds with what @bridgeburn actually articulated, did in actuality and then posted pics of. I am doing this without any of the big 3 AA's cause I get sick of hearing about them all of the time. It's a crappy, risky, shed-ladened path for males and so far I don't miss them but I do use provera which has only positive sides for me. It's similar to CPA but weaker depending upon stardard dosaging.
spironolactone and Bica are the exact same thing. They work all but identically for hair loss related to receptor blocking and increasing circulating T but one works better for some; the other for others in terms of feminization and hair growth. Estrogen works far better and far more safely than either.
CPA and Provera might be useful in the short-run since they actually lower circulating T but neither is necessary nor is P4. Because Bridge and I know this cold, both from the literature and bio-feedback, we know how not to work against ourselves. Virtually no one else gets this. Bridge knew this would work for him from day one and so did I but I wasted 5 years trying to regrow hair incrementally as a "male" and it didn't work. Biestro is great for boobs but for hair, eh, you need like a bottle a week applied several times a day to groin and scalp and even then it works better for MtF's since we have thinner, but fattier scalps and already are on E2. I spend and spent huge amounts of time on this. Hours and hours and hours of research on micro-needling and different gauges and I search relentlessly all of the E2 only papers.. If you don't have that dedication and can't simply do exactly and I mean exactly with one of Bridge's protocols or one of mine, if I keep getting such results then stick with male meds.
I will continue to follow the bica people's progress if any of you actually start taking it or spironolactone single shot but I don't think it will work anywhere close to the thread founder's results.
Dude was a genius.
Ein was very young.
finasteride and min work for the very young and people who don't let much time elapse between the initiation of hair loss and beginning treatment.
All of you virtually, will either drop out at the beginning because yes, Bica has significant sides and health issues and notice Bridgeburn used all three in a cycling fashion and went without any often. He didn't pound his liver but you guys don't understand how complicated all of this is to understand and implement. I didn't either until my spironolactone fiasco when I realized these meds have to be used with great caution and wariness. I took another look at my paltry 2.5 premarin which had grown incredible boobs and switched to stead-state patches X 2, Climara 100's. One Climara will get you to adult female targets. I also kept 1.25 mg Premarin, and used virtually unlimited amounts of estrogel, far far more than Bridge. I have spent well over $1,000 this year on Estrogel and Retin-A. All of my other meds are covered but Estrogel is bloody expensive and a tube lasts me a week if I am lucky. Once or twice I have used an entire tube in a day testing various MtF's theories along with my pregnancy level of estradiol theories. I have bought all three Life Flo Products and their P4 cream hundreds of times since 2013 but eh, they were great for boobs and *** but for hair, I used at least a bottle a week when it was marginally improving my hair. I have posted the pics and the med intervals. You can lose ground rapidly even using 1 mg of estradiol. Some can re-set the axis at 2mg over time. But if you want to really do this then these are the best options: Needles, parenteral estradiol, and then sublingual. Pills work but they won't get you to adult female targets quickly unless you suck on them. Of course, MtF's all screw up in the opposite direction and take too much too soon but all trans folks have a tendency to use too much. But breast growth and hair growth might never happen but if they do, you need to take slightly different approaches.
These just isn't for XY's who want to breed unless you are suicidal, then jump on board and I will help but spinning our wheels about bica being the great salvation, no, it's not. I wish it were and it might be a partial solution but the shedding risks are very, very high and it is very difficult to reach target levels even if you give in to the feminization mind-set. That's the reason for the AA's cause it's hard to reach levels, not because they are any good for anything except cancer when compared to estradiol. I have also explained why doctors prescribe them. Cause they are idiots who still won't prescribe enough bio-identical estrogen.
Shoot for maintenance and then get a transplant. HRT will blow your mind and f*** with your head and you won't know who you are likely. People say that Bridge and I proselytize.
No. Beware all who enter here. This is almost certainly not for you psychologically, in terms of feminizing or in terms of results if you don't stay the course. Males except for a tiny few do not try this. Even some of the folks who are getting great results hair-wise aren't thrilled with the facial feminization. The costs of this path are extreme.
Goddess bless all of us but this is for transfolks and guys who will do anything to have long pubertal locks or suicidal who are able to simply use one of Bridge's protocols. Yours is not likely to work and you are re-inventing the wheel. Thousands of guys have tried your partial way and eh. But we pays our money and takes our chances, all of us. No whining, no griping, and no more going around in circles because I love you all but I will not enable you to wallow in this mess. It's not psychologically healthy.
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No.
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Sorry, I repeated the question, because there is one more thing I want to say, So I'm 22 years old NW3-4 I have been taking oral spironolactone 200mg for 2 months, and dutasteride 0.5mg daily for the first 10 days, then once a week, I haven't seen the update in over 2 months, but my gino is showing up, and I am fine with it, has someone said that this will work for me?,
because my hair is still falling out as usual Thank you
because my hair is still falling out as usual Thank you
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Are you taking Estrogen?
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Two months is too early to tell, but if you're really far gone minoxidil might be necessary to see cosmetically significant change.
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Just as an aside, keto has been known to increase in triglycerides and impact hair loss adversely.
The key is not to eliminate sugar altogether, because the body needs some level of carbohydrates to grow hair, it's about getting your glycemic response sensitive enough that you don't need to eat disgusting amounts of sugar.
Before I got on the E2 gel, I had absolutely insane sugar cravings along with my high testosterone, I did my best to curtail them, but I really did have an absolutely ravenous appetite and I felt like I could never produce enough body energy to a satisfactory degree without a ton of sugar and carbs.
Since I've been on the E2 gel, my desire to consume sugar has plummeted, proving that it wasn't at all just an addiction to sweets or a paradoxical craving, it was related directly to my glycemic response which I believe has definitely improved taking E2 gel.
My eyes since my hormones shifted away from an estrogen balance always had sporadic issues with blurriness and not being able to define clear features at a distance, and that is mostly entirely gone now. If I recall correctly E2 does modulate glycemic response, and I feel as if for my body anyhow, that because my estrogen got so low, it started to have adverse effects on other processes in my body.
I used to be able to eat half a cake and wake up the next day like nothing happened, I had a voracious appetite, and now not so much, the idea of consuming sugar now puts me off quite a bit which is good, it means I'll only consume the necessary carbs and not perpetuate a further spiral into insulin resistance.
The key is not to eliminate sugar altogether, because the body needs some level of carbohydrates to grow hair, it's about getting your glycemic response sensitive enough that you don't need to eat disgusting amounts of sugar.
Before I got on the E2 gel, I had absolutely insane sugar cravings along with my high testosterone, I did my best to curtail them, but I really did have an absolutely ravenous appetite and I felt like I could never produce enough body energy to a satisfactory degree without a ton of sugar and carbs.
Since I've been on the E2 gel, my desire to consume sugar has plummeted, proving that it wasn't at all just an addiction to sweets or a paradoxical craving, it was related directly to my glycemic response which I believe has definitely improved taking E2 gel.
My eyes since my hormones shifted away from an estrogen balance always had sporadic issues with blurriness and not being able to define clear features at a distance, and that is mostly entirely gone now. If I recall correctly E2 does modulate glycemic response, and I feel as if for my body anyhow, that because my estrogen got so low, it started to have adverse effects on other processes in my body.
I used to be able to eat half a cake and wake up the next day like nothing happened, I had a voracious appetite, and now not so much, the idea of consuming sugar now puts me off quite a bit which is good, it means I'll only consume the necessary carbs and not perpetuate a further spiral into insulin resistance.
Do you have any pictures of your growth with topical E?