Well, here I am, finally able to post in the success story forum.
Like the title says, I'm finally getting results I'm happy with, after 18 months of worrying endlessly about my hairloss, and lots of experimenting.
Short timeline:
I first noticed hairloss in about 2007, when a friend of mine noticed some thinning on my crown. It was pretty much unnoticable at that point, it only became apparant when I had my hair buzzed short, and under direct sunlight. After my friend commented on it I got on finasteride for about a year. I stopped because my hair was fine, and I didnt think it made much of a difference.
My hair stayed pretty much the same until 2009, when it started falling very quickly. At the end of 2009 I got a real shock when I looked at my families christmas pictures. My hair was TERRIBLE, and I seemed to have lost it in only 6 months.
At that point in my life I was a complete mess. I was overweight, bordeline alcoholic, had health problems due to an extreme diet I did at the start of 2009, and my long term relationship with my first real girlfriend ended, which left me extremely depressed. I'm quite sure this contributed to my hairloss, even though the main culprit was of course genetics.
I started treatment in march of 2010, but I did it very naively, and inconsistent. I took differend doses of finasteride, switched amount and brand of minoxidil a lot, and just kept losing hair. In Nov of 2010, my hair looked the worst yet, and I decided to get it over with and buzz it all off. BIG MISTAKE! I look absolutely horrible bald, and this realisation made me revamp my regiment. So in December of 2010 I started with the following:
- Regaine foam in the morning, spectral dnc in the evening.
- 1.25g of finasteride
- Revita shampoo and conditioner
- folligen for blondes and emu oil.
The results were promising, but lacking. A couple of friends mentioned that my hair looked better a couple of times, but my crown still looked horrible, and I wasn't satisfied at all. The folligen ran out at some point, and I didn't order any new bottles. I did try tricoming though. Also, my scalp was horribly inflamed, and hurt a lot. Mostly in the ares where the thinning was worst, i.e. the temples and crown.
One month ago, I decided that I had to do something against the itching, and changed my regiment as follows.
- 1g of finasteride
- Regaine foam in the morning, spectral mx5 low alcohol in the evening.
- Folligen for bloneds and emu oil every 2 days.
- A rotation of shampoos
- Ket once every 4 days, tee trea shampoo the following day, and revivogen on the other days.
- A generous amount of pure aloe vera gel with the shampoo, daily.
- Apple cider vinegar rinse once a week.
Immediately after starting all this, the itch and irritation dissapeared, and has yet to become a problem again. My scalp is not 100% perfect, but I can finally comb my hair again without the skin hurting. Some days before, even the wind blowing through my hair would cause it to hurt!
The reason for finally posting is that my hair has improved tremendously in the last 4 weeks. My temples, which went almost to the level of my ears, have filled in a lot. My hairline stayed the same after it initially recovered a bit, but when looking "between" the existing healthy hair, I can see a lot smaller hairs poking through.
When I part my hair, there are a lot of hairs showing, which seem to slowly grow longer, and have started to get pigmented again. My crown is also recovering noticably, 2 months ago I would need to use a fair amount of toppic for it to look acceptable, today I only used a tiny amount, and it looked quite good! The hair on my crown is lighter in color, and when you look closely in the mirror you can still see the scalp a bit, but it's worlds better than it was before.
The hair is also recovering the same dark blonde color it used to have, before I got improvements, my side and back of the head was a dark and dense blonde, while the top was a lot lighter. You could basically see a border of dark and light hair where my scalp was thinning, and this is almost completely gone now
Last week I went to the barber, and got my hair cut a bit shorter than I wore it the last 18 months, closer to the length I used to have it before my hair loss started, and when I look into the mirror I finally see the man I was before this all started. When I shower, or comb my hair, there is also a lot less hair in my hands afterwards.
I'm satisfied with my regiment right now, the next step is getting my body in shape, I know this is quite controversial on these forums, but I absolutely think that living a healthy life style at the very least compliments a solid regiment. I want to ditch smoking, sugar, and fast food in the next couple of months, as well as starting exercising regularily. I'm hopeful that my hair will continue to improve, but also scared that I may only be experimencing some short lived success, like others on hairlosstalk have. We'll see how it goes!
Some experiences of note that I made in the last 18 months:
- Patience is ABSOLUTELY VITAL. Hairloss can take a lot of time to revert, even with a good program.
- Revita and the conditioner didn't do a lot for me, I don't think it made things worse, but it may have contributed to my irritation.
- Eating healthy at the very least reduced how oily my hair would become at the end of the day.
- Most supplements are propably a waste of money, at some point I ordered a huge amount of different stuff, which I took for 3 months, without any changes, exept for the amount of money I had. When you eat healthy you can propably get a lot of the vitamins and minerals you need without paying as much. I still do take fish oil, b vitamins, and milk thiste (I had liver problems a year ago)
I'm not bashing them completely, but they are very expensive.
- Folligen for blondes is propably one of the things that had the most impact for me, it helped my irritation and my hair started recovering a lot faster after I started using it again.
- Apple cider vinegar made a huge, huge difference on my scalp, I recommend it to anyone who has itchy scalp or dandruff. I use 1/2 glass of acv, and 1/2 water, and rinse my hair once a week after shampooing my hair. DO NOT do this more than once a week, when I did my scalp burned horribly.
Ok.. quite a lot of text here, but I wanted to get this off my chest
I hope this is interesting to some of you, and feel free to ask me about anything I forgot or is unclear. I am not posting pics because I don't like the idea of having my hair on display, and because I think a friend of mine is browsing here. IF my hair ever returns to a status I am 100% satisfied with however, I will post pics.
Like the title says, I'm finally getting results I'm happy with, after 18 months of worrying endlessly about my hairloss, and lots of experimenting.
Short timeline:
I first noticed hairloss in about 2007, when a friend of mine noticed some thinning on my crown. It was pretty much unnoticable at that point, it only became apparant when I had my hair buzzed short, and under direct sunlight. After my friend commented on it I got on finasteride for about a year. I stopped because my hair was fine, and I didnt think it made much of a difference.
My hair stayed pretty much the same until 2009, when it started falling very quickly. At the end of 2009 I got a real shock when I looked at my families christmas pictures. My hair was TERRIBLE, and I seemed to have lost it in only 6 months.
At that point in my life I was a complete mess. I was overweight, bordeline alcoholic, had health problems due to an extreme diet I did at the start of 2009, and my long term relationship with my first real girlfriend ended, which left me extremely depressed. I'm quite sure this contributed to my hairloss, even though the main culprit was of course genetics.
I started treatment in march of 2010, but I did it very naively, and inconsistent. I took differend doses of finasteride, switched amount and brand of minoxidil a lot, and just kept losing hair. In Nov of 2010, my hair looked the worst yet, and I decided to get it over with and buzz it all off. BIG MISTAKE! I look absolutely horrible bald, and this realisation made me revamp my regiment. So in December of 2010 I started with the following:
- Regaine foam in the morning, spectral dnc in the evening.
- 1.25g of finasteride
- Revita shampoo and conditioner
- folligen for blondes and emu oil.
The results were promising, but lacking. A couple of friends mentioned that my hair looked better a couple of times, but my crown still looked horrible, and I wasn't satisfied at all. The folligen ran out at some point, and I didn't order any new bottles. I did try tricoming though. Also, my scalp was horribly inflamed, and hurt a lot. Mostly in the ares where the thinning was worst, i.e. the temples and crown.
One month ago, I decided that I had to do something against the itching, and changed my regiment as follows.
- 1g of finasteride
- Regaine foam in the morning, spectral mx5 low alcohol in the evening.
- Folligen for bloneds and emu oil every 2 days.
- A rotation of shampoos
- Ket once every 4 days, tee trea shampoo the following day, and revivogen on the other days.
- A generous amount of pure aloe vera gel with the shampoo, daily.
- Apple cider vinegar rinse once a week.
Immediately after starting all this, the itch and irritation dissapeared, and has yet to become a problem again. My scalp is not 100% perfect, but I can finally comb my hair again without the skin hurting. Some days before, even the wind blowing through my hair would cause it to hurt!
The reason for finally posting is that my hair has improved tremendously in the last 4 weeks. My temples, which went almost to the level of my ears, have filled in a lot. My hairline stayed the same after it initially recovered a bit, but when looking "between" the existing healthy hair, I can see a lot smaller hairs poking through.
When I part my hair, there are a lot of hairs showing, which seem to slowly grow longer, and have started to get pigmented again. My crown is also recovering noticably, 2 months ago I would need to use a fair amount of toppic for it to look acceptable, today I only used a tiny amount, and it looked quite good! The hair on my crown is lighter in color, and when you look closely in the mirror you can still see the scalp a bit, but it's worlds better than it was before.
The hair is also recovering the same dark blonde color it used to have, before I got improvements, my side and back of the head was a dark and dense blonde, while the top was a lot lighter. You could basically see a border of dark and light hair where my scalp was thinning, and this is almost completely gone now
Last week I went to the barber, and got my hair cut a bit shorter than I wore it the last 18 months, closer to the length I used to have it before my hair loss started, and when I look into the mirror I finally see the man I was before this all started. When I shower, or comb my hair, there is also a lot less hair in my hands afterwards.
I'm satisfied with my regiment right now, the next step is getting my body in shape, I know this is quite controversial on these forums, but I absolutely think that living a healthy life style at the very least compliments a solid regiment. I want to ditch smoking, sugar, and fast food in the next couple of months, as well as starting exercising regularily. I'm hopeful that my hair will continue to improve, but also scared that I may only be experimencing some short lived success, like others on hairlosstalk have. We'll see how it goes!
Some experiences of note that I made in the last 18 months:
- Patience is ABSOLUTELY VITAL. Hairloss can take a lot of time to revert, even with a good program.
- Revita and the conditioner didn't do a lot for me, I don't think it made things worse, but it may have contributed to my irritation.
- Eating healthy at the very least reduced how oily my hair would become at the end of the day.
- Most supplements are propably a waste of money, at some point I ordered a huge amount of different stuff, which I took for 3 months, without any changes, exept for the amount of money I had. When you eat healthy you can propably get a lot of the vitamins and minerals you need without paying as much. I still do take fish oil, b vitamins, and milk thiste (I had liver problems a year ago)
I'm not bashing them completely, but they are very expensive.
- Folligen for blondes is propably one of the things that had the most impact for me, it helped my irritation and my hair started recovering a lot faster after I started using it again.
- Apple cider vinegar made a huge, huge difference on my scalp, I recommend it to anyone who has itchy scalp or dandruff. I use 1/2 glass of acv, and 1/2 water, and rinse my hair once a week after shampooing my hair. DO NOT do this more than once a week, when I did my scalp burned horribly.
Ok.. quite a lot of text here, but I wanted to get this off my chest
I hope this is interesting to some of you, and feel free to ask me about anything I forgot or is unclear. I am not posting pics because I don't like the idea of having my hair on display, and because I think a friend of mine is browsing here. IF my hair ever returns to a status I am 100% satisfied with however, I will post pics.