Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.

[JaneyElizabeth]

I don't agree with all of these but here is a list of things that might happen under HRT:

Second Puberty 101

What to Expect When You're Expecting Boobs

curvyandtrans.com

 

[Solxama]

For people trying to avoid breast growth, I present the following chart so that you can see just how little estradiol is likely to cause breast growth. Over 1 mg daily appears to be certainly enough to start breast growth. The second issue is that the only way to stop breast growth once it starts is not to titrate downward. You must desist because you can see how low these E2 levels are, so just saying, anyone in fear of developed mammaries, keep a sharp look out or down is it?

Hormone Levels During Normal Puberty in Cisgender Girls

Hormone Levels During Normal Puberty in Cisgender Girls by Aly

transfemscience.org

OMG that is a pretty low dose for gyno to start, it really is a trade with these kinds of regimens.

Anyway I had my hormones done not long ago, my total T is about 576 ng/dl, my free T 20.23 pg/ml and my E2 is 23.23 pg/ml. So according to the chart you gave, if I nuked my T levels down to low and started using E, gyno would start pretty fast.

Yeah, it looks like it's a risk that's pretty unavoidable, even with just AAs as they do raise E levels, not as much as HRT but still.

 

[Solxama]

I don't agree with all of these but here is a list of things that might happen under HRT:

Second Puberty 101

What to Expect When You're Expecting Boobs

curvyandtrans.com

Interesting, the emotional stuff I already have for basically all of my life, something like a cute picture can make me cry. I love to watch the sun rising, the beauty of it makes me so emotional and warm inside...

Ok, I'm rambling now, anyway back to the stuff written there, like 90% of it does not bother me at all, the only thing is gyno and some minor body changes (Something I might need to just accept if I do this crazy regimen I'm considering) , although I'm all for some feminization, like softer skin, less body hair and most of all a head full of nice, strong hair (Hopefully)

PS. Lol at the communism thing, I'm already a bit of a commie politically (Yay Eastern Europe) but these days I tend to stay away from politics as it's pretty low vibrational stuff

 

[Solxama]

I don't know where he has been but Almas has been carrying this thread since I started my own but he is similar to you and I think, is planning to have breast or gyno reduction once his hair kicks in. Shhh. He has no baldness at all but we humor him.

Yeah, I've seen his posts earlier in the thread. I can see some similarity between him and me, although he seems to be pretty depressed and bitter, but I really empathize with that, hair loss screws with people's moods and feelings. I won't judge his hair issues, but I can assure you my hair loss is pretty bad.

Almas tried bicaluatamide single-shot and decided it didn't work and so added injections of E2. This is not failure at all. Every time one of us tries something, we have new data points and three years ago or so on here, people were going nuts about trying AA's and then switching all of the time which would cause sheds so then they would give up and that's Addendum B to this. You have to ride out sheds or you are wasting your time. I shed to baldness so I raced off for beard removal because wigs and beards are not a good look and then I put on the wig and rode it out. It's been close to 24 months now and I have all of the relevant pics up here over on my thread and on my blog. I have pics of everything and every body part upon request. There are probably a couple of tasteful breast pics up but that's part of what I consider my duty since things have worked for me.

I have breast pics going back six years so the progression can be established pretty well. I post these so people can actually see worst case scenario which of course in MtF-land is a dream come true....

Janey

That's what I'm thinking of doing at this point, just trying whatever, experimenting etc. If shedding did happen in my case I would ride it out, it can't get much worse then it is now, as there are only two options, either I try to do something radical to save my hair or just give up and go bald and that is something I really want to avoid, so if I have to accept some discomfort on the way, so be it. I could try just Fina/Duta and Minoxidil, or some more natural methods I read about online and have not tried yet, but with my family history and the current state of my hair it would be simply delaying the inevitable. So the choice is simple, either go all in or pretend to be happy with something that I know won't help me get my hair back as it was before I started balding.

 

[Solxama]

You know what, since I already did the first step of setting up an account on this forum and sharing my story, here are some pictures of my hair. I cropped them a bit for privacy reasons but I think they still show how bad it is for a 24 year old guy.

 

[Pls_NW-1]

You know what, since I already did the first step of setting up an account on this forum and sharing my story, here are some pictures of my hair. I cropped them a bit for privacy reasons but I think they still show how bad it is for a 24 year old guy.

This is very bad. I feel ya And I don't think that HRT will do much. Some people on this thread forget that HRT stops in everyone further loss. But good to full regrowth is not guaranteed. Check out some HRT-content-based content creators, they talk sometimes about androgenetic alopecia / male pattern baldness. And it's very often said that by the start of HRT, A.G.A. stops progressing.

You should know that with age dermal papilla cells are getting less and less, they vanish over time. Stem cells are there to bring in some "fresh air" into the hair's house lol. But somehow..., those, "the windows" are blocked. And posters on here suggest that Estrogen is the key for re-activation of that signaling. So no matter what, hair can be brought back, if it weren't for the fibrosis, which sets in a couple of years after loss.

This all is not guaranteed; YMMV.

 

[Solxama]

This is very bad. I feel ya And I don't think that HRT will do much. Some people on this thread forget that HRT stops in everyone further loss. But good to full regrowth is not guaranteed. Check out some HRT-content-based content creators, they talk sometimes about androgenetic alopecia / male pattern baldness. And it's very often said that by the start of HRT, A.G.A. stops progressing.

You should know that with age dermal papilla cells are getting less and less, they vanish over time. Stem cells are there to bring in some "fresh air" into the hair's house lol. But somehow..., those, "the windows" are blocked. And posters on here suggest that Estrogen is the key for re-activation of that signaling. So no matter what, hair can be brought back, if it weren't for the fibrosis, which sets in a couple of years after loss.

This all is not guaranteed; YMMV.

That's why I'm here, I know it's too late for the traditional stuff like Fina/Duta and Minoxidil, even doctors told me it will only delay the inevitable. I am also aware of the dermatological aspects, I try to take care of my scalp by washing my hair a lot, exfoliating and I use a lot of supplements to keep my body healthy. But for hair regrowth in my situation I basically need something nuclear, and this thread looks like the stuff, and if it does not work I will have to learn to live with it, maybe get a transplant if I ever have enough money for it.

I just wish I did something about it earlier, when my balding started. But of course, whenever I spoke to somebody about it I was told to "man up" or I was laughed at, even by my own family. So I did try to "man up", I became toxic, depressed and a very shitty person in general. Now that part of my life is behind me, and my heart aches that I was hurting my body and soul for years, and I threw away my youth for alcohol, video games and a fake personality to gain acceptance from a toxic and hateful environment .

But I can't change the past, so I'm trying to make up for it, and hair loss is one of the things I would really like to reverse, or at least try as much as I can...

 

[Solxama]

And this is how my hair used to look like before it started thinning out, I was 16 at the time this pic was taken.

 

[Pls_NW-1]

That's why I'm here, I know it's too late for the traditional stuff like Fina/Duta and Minoxidil, even doctors told me it will only delay the inevitable. I am also aware of the dermatological aspects, I try to take care of my scalp by washing my hair a lot, exfoliating and I use a lot of supplements to keep my body healthy. But for hair regrowth in my situation I basically need something nuclear, and this thread looks like the stuff, and if it does not work I will have to learn to live with it, maybe get a transplant if I ever have enough money for it.

I just wish I did something about it earlier, when my balding started. But of course, whenever I spoke to somebody about it I was told to "man up" or I was laughed at, even by my own family. So I did try to "man up", I became toxic, depressed and a very shitty person in general. Now that part of my life is behind me, and my heart aches that I was hurting my body and soul for years, and I threw away my youth for alcohol, video games and a fake personality to gain acceptance from a toxic and hateful environment .

But I can't change the past, so I'm trying to make up for it, and hair loss is one of the things I would really like to reverse, or at least try as much as I can...

Well, try out HRT then, if you are ONLY comfortable with some irreversible changes. Playing with hormones is like playing with fire. And male pattern baldness is indeed a result of androgenic action, male sex hormones.

 

[Pls_NW-1]

And this is how my hair used to look like before it started thinning out, I was 16 at the time this pic was taken.

Amazing hair. That drastic change... oh god..

 

[Solxama]

Well, try out HRT then, if you are ONLY comfortable with some irreversible changes. Playing with hormones is like playing with fire. And male pattern baldness is indeed a result of androgenic action, male sex hormones.

I'm going to give myself some time to really think on this and decide what to do. I have a few options, although some of the stuff I've read on this thread is making me seriously consider going in with the strongest regimen I can get my hands on. Before reading this thread I would have not considered something as strong and risky as HRT, but the results some people had from it are really inspiring plus some other effects of it would not be that bad for me. So my options are the following :

1. For a less extreme regimen to avoid some unwanted effects of HRT (Mainly gyno in my case.) I was thinking of trying something like Bica+Duta+Raloxifene for 9-12 months, maybe with Minoxidil but that's something I need to really think about as some things people say about it are disturbing. The minus of this is that it could have little effect on hair, or even negative effects.

2. Full on HRT, If I do this I think I would do something similar to bridgeburns route, AA+E2 topical and maybe Duta to start with. I would also maybe go with higher doses of E as some people say it seems to minimize gyno.

3. Try out a much tamer regimen with Fina/Duta and more natural remedies first, like CBD oil topical (For now I only use oral), Biotin, some other topical oils etc. (This is the least likely option, it may further slow hair loss like the stuff I have been doing for some time, but in the end it will only delay balding and it won't give much regrowth.)

Amazing hair. That drastic change... oh god..

And the worst thing about this is I could have done something much earlier, but instead I behaved like a total idiot. I have nobody to blame but myself especially my ignorance and fear to stand up for myself. I've added one more picture, the one where I first noticed balding has started. I was 17, close to 18 at the time.

PS. Nice avatar, it's very cute I recognized it straight away, although if you think about it the full scene is pretty sad, poor potato girl Sasha. I've seen a few episodes of AOT, but I've never watched the whole series, will have to at some point as it's a bit of a cult classic in Anime and it seems to be good.

 

[KNemo]

@Solxama
You should still go on finasteride and minoxidil + microneedling. It's possible to continue hairloss even with suppressed testosterone and high estrogen probably from local DHT production, finasteride will put a stop to that. Minoxidil does a lot to help hair growth and it's used for women with hairloss as it's a complement to the hair promoting effects of estrogens. Microneedling will enhance minoxidil effects, it's even effective on its own however less so than minoxidil.

 

[Solxama]

@Solxama
You should still go on finasteride and minoxidil + microneedling. It's possible to continue hairloss even with suppressed testosterone and high estrogen probably from local DHT production, finasteride will put a stop to that. Minoxidil does a lot to help hair growth and it's used for women with hairloss as it's a complement to the hair promoting effects of estrogens. Microneedling will enhance minoxidil effects, it's even effective on its own however less so than minoxidil.

Thank you for your insight, KNemo

To be honest Minoxidil has me a bit worried, some people think it might cause dependency and that stopping it in the future makes you loose your gains.

About Fina, from what I understand Duta is stronger then Fina, if I do go all out on this what's the point of going with a weaker drug like Fina? I mean the side effects that are more likely to happen with Duta like low libido and possible infertility will still happen on E or even just AAs, not that I care much for that anyway so I think Duta would be better in my case, but I would like to know your opinion about it.

Yeah, and I did think about Microneedling, a dermatologist who I seen in my country tried to scam me into PRP talking about it like it's some kind of Holy Grail, but at least thanks to his crappy advice I was able to find out about microneedling online which is much cheaper then PRP, can be done at home, and does not have the potential to screw things up like PRP apparently does.

PS. Noob question : How do you make people's names highlight like you did with mine, do I just put a @ before a user's name?

 

[whatintheworld]

@Solxama finasteride and minoxidil are more benign treatments than the others, and can help stabilize your loss which will make you a transplant candidate.

Transplants have come a long way, but the good surgeons are quite expensive. You can have close to a full head of hair if you stabilize your loss and go to a good surgeon.

 

[Die_before_me]

Hai gaes, i want to know what is the best AA for at least stoped hair loss long term use/forever except castration , i don't care about gyno btw

 

[Pls_NW-1]

Hai gaes, i want to know what is the best AA for at least stoped hair loss long term use/forever except castration , i don't care about gyno btw

Prob. Bicalutamide. But as soon as you notice elevated liver enzyms, stop. All AA's aren't great for ya health.

 

[KNemo]

Thank you for your insight, KNemo

To be honest Minoxidil has me a bit worried, some people think it might cause dependency and that stopping it in the future makes you loose your gains.

Think about it like this: if you don't do anything you'll surely go bald, if you use HRT as a treatment you'll need to keep using it. So if minoxidil have to be forever the problem is most likely having to put in on your head twice a day the rest of your life, compared to some other diseases that have to be treated with lot of medications it's trivial and inexpensive.

About Fina, from what I understand Duta is stronger then Fina, if I do go all out on this what's the point of going with a weaker drug like Fina? I mean the side effects that are more likely to happen with Duta like low libido and possible infertility will still happen on E or even just AAs, not that I care much for that anyway so I think Duta would be better in my case, but I would like to know your opinion about it.

The facts that finasteride is enough for most and that dutasteride isn't necessarily better anyway. Some people have switched back to finasteride after using dutasteride as they think it's more effective.

Yeah, and I did think about Microneedling, a dermatologist who I seen in my country tried to scam me into PRP talking about it like it's some kind of Holy Grail, but at least thanks to his crappy advice I was able to find out about microneedling online which is much cheaper then PRP, can be done at home, and does not have the potential to screw things up like PRP apparently does.

PS. Noob question : How do you make people's names highlight like you did with mine, do I just put a @ before a user's name?

Yes it's that simple.

 

[Solxama]

@Solxama finasteride and minoxidil are more benign treatments than the others, and can help stabilize your loss which will make you a transplant candidate.

Transplants have come a long way, but the good surgeons are quite expensive. You can have close to a full head of hair if you stabilize your loss and go to a good surgeon.

Thank you for your suggestion @whatintheworld , but transplants are pretty expensive and I don't really know what my financial situation will be in a few years, so for now I'm going to treat it as a last resort.

Hai gaes, i want to know what is the best AA for at least stoped hair loss long term use/forever except castration , i don't care about gyno btw

You got more courage then me by not caring about gyno To be honest I'm also starting to care less about it every time I see my hair in the mirror, so maybe I'll be on your level soon. I won't lie, not caring would very much help me in deciding about my future regimen lol.

Prob. Bicalutamide. But as soon as you notice elevated liver enzyms, stop. All AA's aren't great for ya health.

Yeah, I'm considering Bica too as my first AA. And yes this is important advice @Die_before_me , If I do decide to go on AAs I will monitor my liver health quite closely and I advise you to do the same.

Think about it like this: if you don't do anything you'll surely go bald, if you use HRT as a treatment you'll need to keep using it. So if minoxidil have to be forever the problem is most likely having to put in on your head twice a day the rest of your life, compared to some other diseases that have to be treated with lot of medications it's trivial and inexpensive.

That is a good way to put it @KNemo ,not gonna lie, it did make me look at Minoxidil in a bit of a different light. About HRT on the other hand, would it really be forever? I mean there have been people in this thread that were able to maintain a lot of their regrowth after stopping HRT by using just 5-ARIs. (I'm mainly talking about @Itsnoahkennedy here, his case is another really inspiring one next to bridgeburns.)

The facts that finasteride is enough for most and that dutasteride isn't necessarily better anyway. Some people have switched back to finasteride after using dutasteride as they think it's more effective.

Interesting, maybe I'll go with Fina then in whatever regimen I decide to do. I won't hide the fact it would be better from a financial standpoint, Fina is cheaper then Duta and I could actually get a legal prescription for it quite easily.

Anyway, I went for a day trip to the seaside today. I had a great day out, forgot about all my worries for a few hours. I watched a beautiful
sunset on the beach and it made me feel very good and happy. After I took a train back to my town and it was getting dark so I could see my reflection in the window, and my crappy hairline caught my attention. This took down my euphoric mood by like 50%, I still feel good and all but I'm less happy then I was before I saw my hairline. Moments like this really make a part of me want to just discard the side effects and go all in with a heavy regimen to do everything I can to free myself from this curse of balding that runs in my family.

Whatever I decide to do, I'll keep you updated as I'm really happy about the warm welcome I received here, not to mention all the priceless information on this forum. It's so much better then the crap so called "medical professionals" tried to tell me!

 

[Solxama]

That's very brave of you and we know how hard it is to post honest pics. I also think your hair situation is urgent.

Janey

Since I was brave enough to post my pictures (It did take me a bit of thinking as I value my privacy a lot, but people here seem to be very nice so I thought screw it, I want people to know why I'm here.) I will be also brave enough to call my hair situation as it is : Totally screwed up and in urgent need of action.

I don't believe that we have any data or evidence about which of the main AA's"work" better for hair or Mtf's. We do have data about relative risk and from my reading of it, spironolactone is the safest long-run but has probably the most persistent and common short-term/immediate side effects. CPA has the worst long-run data and bicalutamide is probably equal to spironolactone in the long-run. Some claim that one or another "works" better for them but to my knowledge this is random and part of normally distributed effects from taking most medications. Estradiol-only is always the safest and it might be the most effective for people who react normally to estradiol supplementation.

That's really interesting @JaneyElizabeth , if I do take the plunge into E, maybe I'll consider going without AAs at first, just with Fina/Duta.

Minoxidil does not cause hair dependency. You won't end up worse than you would have been. Some young guys think that once your start "you are dependent on it" but that's true of any palliative medication.

Yeah, what you are saying and what @KNemo said earlier is somewhat making me reconsider my stance on Minoxidil, who knows, maybe I will start using it.

 

[Solxama]

The founder and I have had similar responses to HRT and he continues as a male and I have no pronouns that are preferred but I have officially changed my gender to female and my name to Jane Elizabeth. I still have a right to use my former name under the common law of the state of Maryland and by extension to other states. The "in it for the hair" notion is my attempt to put us all on the same baseline regardless of gender goals and I hope the idea can make people who need to do this to save their self-esteem and sense of self, more comfortable. Many of these meds are used by males for prostate cancer.

After starting my spiritual journey I really don't care much about gender, like I said before it's something humans made up during the creation of hierarchical society in order to create roles in the hierarchy depending on a person's biological sex. The problem I have with this is the fact that it's really limiting, especially in countries like mine where gender roles are very rigid. Like I'm pretty feminine for a male in my behavior, my beliefs and my emotions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, trying to suppress my real self led me to self destruction and near suicide. For some time I considered the possibility I might be trans, but as I said before, I don't have much overall dysphoria about my body, and I feel no need to change my name, pronouns, expression to female ones. I simply no longer care or even believe in gender at all. There are also spiritual reasons for this, I subscribe to the belief we all have both masculine and feminine energies in us and the best course of action is to balance them out in a harmonious union, divine androgyny and the like, but I won't go into that on here now, after all this is a forum about hair not spirituality

Having said that, thank you for your considerate stance @JaneyElizabeth , as If I do this I'll 100% be a "in for the hair" type of person. I will also repeat what I have said before, my personal beliefs do not mean I seek to invalidate other peoples self expression and identities, every person is valid, important and precious to me.

I suppose if I was really forced by somebody at gunpoint to choose some kind of gender identity, I could say non-binary, but I really prefer not too play the label games as I find them to be limiting. I'm myself and that's all I need

BTW, it is pretty funny that these meds are like you said used in males quite a lot, but a lot of people are afraid of them because they fear loosing their "real man" image. If they don't want to save their hair it's up to them, but why come on places like this and spam and insult others? Like when I was going through this thread I have seen so many people like that, coming on and attacking people with hateful crap, it made my heart ache reading it.

To be fair to yourself, that appears to be rampant baldness and even with finasteride and duta, you might have gotten overrun regardless without estrogen supplementation. It looks as though you didn't really have time to know what was going on before it too late for "male" meds.

That's why I'm on this thread, I already said this but it looks like you see it as well. I need a nuclear regimen, the only question is do I have the balls to screw with my balls....and breasts... (Actually gyno bothers me much more, I'm a pretty weird guy for caring more about breast growth then my fertility and libido, 99% of young males in my country would rather die then hurt their dick, even if they got cancer lol.)

I am not certain there are irreversible sides for people using MtF HRT. There are at least three possible ones for FtM's but even for MtF's at least some breast growth is likely to deflate upon desisting from HTT.

Interesting, it's good you said this, I will keep it in mind if I go for it and the gyno is too much to handle

This person is not a candidate for hair transplants in my view even with substantial improvement.

I thought as much but I'm trying to delude myself in case I chicken out HRT is going to be one of the biggest decisions in my life, as considering the experiences of the people on this thread, the effects are very real but the price is high. But I suppose it's part of becoming a mature person to make these kinds of decisions. I understand the weight of this, as I have done these kinds of decisions before, it took a lot maturity to deconstruct my former fake personality and return to the real me that I was trying to suppress.