Hair is not Life but it's Pretty Damn Close; HRT and Pictorial Posts Prove it.

[JaneyElizabeth]

Well, no. Although that is part of the reason why i don't plan to use oral min. Also happy holidays

Are you thinking about crossing back or transgender? You are so young. It's been a pleasure messaging back and forth and I am so impressed with you younger guys and your knowledge. Every time that I need to urinate, I end up combing and brushing my hair and it is such a wonderful feeling and I know that you and ROE and Noah have all experienced that as well from the much younger side of things.

I have fought baldness since I was 20 and this is going to happen for me. There's a feeling of pure joy but for the record, my face seems to be completely feminizing and like the hair, facial feminization had lagged until I hit targets. I almost don't recognize myself any longer. I look a lot like my mother who has fantastic hair and skin at 80. My father has Ronald Reagan hair and he is 83 so grrr. Hair should have been my birthright. I am particularly interested in any of the younger folks detailing their thought processes and what gave them the strength to go the HRT route but really anybody's experience.

 

[Gergely]

Are you thinking about crossing back or transgender? You are so young. It's been a pleasure messaging back and forth and I am so impressed with you younger guys and your knowledge. Every time that I need to urinate, I end up combing and brushing my hair and it is such a wonderful feeling and I know that you and ROE and Noah have all experienced that as well from the much younger side of things.

I see no reason to stop taking estrogen, unless i go bald. Then i don't know what i'll do.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I see no reason to stop taking estrogen, unless i go bald. Then i don't know what i'll do.

They used to say folks should bank sperm which is a good idea but generally functionality returns upon halting estrogen as does fertility. All of the psychological points regarding estrogen are valid to me. It's a healthier state of mind. When we talk about how profound hormones can be, that's a perfect example. Somehow with estrogen dominant, the things that we think and argue about in a male context seem not only not worth the effort but we might not even be able to find the right mind-set to engage in former modes of speaking.

I highly doubt that you will go bald provided you stay on estrogen but you might be able to titrate downward in dosage based upon bio-feedback, which is essentially titrating back up if you see any deleterious changes.

 

[Reciprocity]

I am curious about trying out a non-agressive regime involving anti-androgens in order to go to war with hairloss and I am willing to make some sacrafices, namely loss of body hair, libido (I'd just hop on raloxifen preemtively to avoid gyno) but the problem here is that I have a low libido to begin with. Morning wood maybe 2 or 3 times a year, not jerking off for days because I simply don't feel like it, you name it.
Could you extrapolate from that that I have low T levels to begin with too? And if I did, what would anti androgens even be able to do?

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

It really does amaze me that oral minoxidil doesn't even seem to be very popular. Most people tend to go towards finasteride, dutasteride, RU, or topical minoxidil as their go-to's before even considering loniten. The thing about oral minoxidil is that not only is it sexually side-effect free, but it is also is probably the most efficacious substance we have. It is almost always going to work in some capacity. Whereas with 5ARs and other hormonal based stuff, we know many have sometimes reported on not only non-responsiveness to those drugs, but also a worsening of hair (in rare cases) from users in this community. I've never heard of oral minoxil making someone's hair worse. Loniten was so incredibly powerful that the regrowth was undeniable during those studies - and they weren't even studying its effects on hair, that's how remarkable it was! Just think about that!

Yes and thank you for posting that study which compares the efficiencies of different hair meds with oral minoxidil coming out on top over topical minoxidil and finasteride and dutasteride.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I am curious about trying out a non-agressive regime involving anti-androgens in order to go to war with hairloss and I am willing to make some sacrafices, namely loss of body hair, libido (I'd just hop on raloxifen preemtively to avoid gyno) but the problem here is that I have a low libido to begin with. Morning wood maybe 2 or 3 times a year, not jerking off for days because I simply don't feel like it, you name it.
Could you extrapolate from that that I have low T levels to begin with too? And if I did, what would anti androgens even be able to do?

Welcome to the thread.

All of those things you mention are concerns. I found libido to follow a U-shaped curve whereby it descended slowly and then at some point before reaching adult female levels of E2, all interest in sex was pretty much lost. As estrogen levels continue to rise, many people then find their libido to be very satisfying but also less driven and less compulsive.

I used spironolactone for a year and I have very little good to say about it except all humans are different and some appear able to tolerate spironolactone. But spironolactone's sides are very real and they occur to many who use it. Generally, any AA is going to reduce libido but Bicalutamide is said by some to have less impact on strength and libido and Medroxyprogestrone works well for some as a progestin that acts similarly to an anti-androgen with fewer potential side-effects.

Libido is a complicated thing though and not merely based upon T levels but it is highly correlated with both testosterone relative to estrogen and increasing levels of testosterone.

Anti-androgens used as a term of art when related to hormones refers to substances that spoof lower T levels by occupying prized receptor sites but in actuality, T might usually go up. I use MPA, which works to actually lower testosterone levels in circulation, which is a progestin like CPA but it works to lower T in general.

Whether any of these "blockers" are needed for hair regrowth, we don't know the answer to that. We don't know much about incremental growth before hitting adult female targets. I had some but it was kind of eh, and too slow. What's either muddying or clarifying things depending upon one's point of view is the emergence of oral minoxidil as a substantially improved med compared to the topical version. I am experiencing what I consider explosive growth since I added oral minoxidil ten weeks ago. On the other hand, the trend was already my friend and I had already starting posting improvement picks.

What I would recommend is that you continue with dutasteride while adding 2.5 mg to 15 mg of loniten daily or the ml equivalent of Kirkland's or another generic topical minoxidil. You use a dropper to drizzle it down your throat. It's bitter like quinine so you want a chaser. These are tiny ml amounts especially when taken in split doses which wouldn't be a big deal but literally, the medical droppers with ml markings only have four and the lowest marking is .25. Those are droppers from Amazon. The Kirkland one only has 1 ml marking making it quite imprecise.

I don't have your age or balding history, and your marital situation or desire for children and that makes a difference. All treatments tend to work better the younger one is. That being said, I am 56 so they all seem to be working for me fine. I am highly motivated though and many guys aren't. And what I mean here is that micro-needling seems to work for everyone who stays with it but people tend not to keep doing it since it lacks fun and it hurts some. I tend to take meds both in the morning and evening and except for spironolactone, I haven't really had sides that were hindering at all.

Goddess bless and I hope you will follow up. There are a few guys just starting now who are awaiting their meds by mail or shipping and folks are encouraged to post pics if they are comfortable.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Confidentiality: As a lawyer, I am restrained from breaking confidentiality and since HRT can involve legal issues, folks can be secure that if they privately message me, that that is only between us. Probably a few times a week, I get private messages and I answer all of them. I encourage posting on the main thread but some don't want to do that so all remains private.

I am not a physician so instead, I focus on my mental strengths, which involve essentially synthesizing the most recent findings in the field of hair loss in a way that is more accessible. I have a way of cataloging things in my mind and making connections especially related to risk/reward and side-effects. I also provide the HRT.cafe address from certain Reddit transgender sites but those providers and meds are use at your own risk but many of them are quite reputable.

There's a huge amount of collective knowledge amongst us and what we are trying to do, improves the scientific aspect of all of this. For someone like Rob at PHH, I would think that virtually everything posted here or by @bridgeburn is extremely valuable. Rob wrote a great article on HRT, castration and hair regrowth that led me to take the final step but he could only find one picture. Maybe there were others that weren't so dramatic but here we have a repository of anecdotal remarks and pics and more being posted.

I often add Goddess Bless as a salutation because using HRT in a metaphorical sense is approaching the Goddess and for cis-guys, how close are you able or willing to get? I have had such excellent results that they seem like a blessing but it's mostly schtick but still "approaching the Goddess" via estrogen or HRT is a monumental and life-changing process. Male, female, neither, either or both, means less to me than being able to present as attractive and part of that for me and others, has to do with not merely coverage but with the ability to grow one's hair long. HRT can do that. I don't know that AA's or non-estrogen based treatments necessarily provide the anagen time frames needed for growing hair long. Everyone on here has been so pleasant and helpful and scientific! Much better than on Tressless where there is just a huge amount of misinformation making the rounds.

Goddess Bless and good hair for all!

 

[Reciprocity]

Thanks, I think I'll be looking into bicalutamide. Getting even less horny than I do right now would be kind of whatever to me but the thing I am worried about is not being able to perform when I actively do want to.
Oral minoxidil is probably not an option for me because I am borderline underweight and have a blood pressure low enough for my physician to have commented on it during a routine check-up. An increase in body hair is also not something I'd be looking forward to. In fact, the decrease you'd be hoping to get from AAs sounds appealing to me haha
Also, I am in my late twenties and do want children eventually. Oh and I'm a NW2, I guess? Not noticeable to those unaffacted or unconcerned by hair loss by definitely to those who are. Anyway, there's clearly the infamous "island" of hair forming above my forehead.

Would you say that a low dose of androcur (I'm thinking, say, 10mg here) would be able to change things one way or another? Especially in conjunction with bicalutamide.

 

[Gergely]

Thanks, I think I'll be looking into bicalutamide. Getting even less horny than I do right now would be kind of whatever to me but the thing I am worried about is not being able to perform when I actively do want to.
Oral minoxidil is probably not an option for me because I am borderline underweight and have a blood pressure low enough for my physician to have commented on it during a routine check-up. An increase in body hair is also not something I'd be looking forward to. In fact, the decrease you'd be hoping to get from AAs sounds appealing to me haha
Also, I am in my late twenties and do want children eventually. Oh and I'm a NW2, I guess? Not noticeable to those unaffacted or unconcerned by hair loss by definitely to those who are. Anyway, there's clearly the infamous "island" of hair forming above my forehead.

Would you say that a low dose of androcur (I'm thinking, say, 10mg here) would be able to change things one way or another? Especially in conjunction with bicalutamide.

It is not recommended to take CPA with a non steroidal anti androgen like Bicalutamide. Plus depriving yourself from T without a sufficient amount of E might lead to female pattern baldness. As is the case for most postmenopausal women. Also bicalutamide more than likely will give you some amount of gyno. AAs are really not that nice.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Thanks, I think I'll be looking into bicalutamide. Getting even less horny than I do right now would be kind of whatever to me but the thing I am worried about is not being able to perform when I actively do want to.
Oral minoxidil is probably not an option for me because I am borderline underweight and have a blood pressure low enough for my physician to have commented on it during a routine check-up. An increase in body hair is also not something I'd be looking forward to. In fact, the decrease you'd be hoping to get from AAs sounds appealing to me haha
Also, I am in my late twenties and do want children eventually. Oh and I'm a NW2, I guess? Not noticeable to those unaffacted or unconcerned by hair loss by definitely to those who are. Anyway, there's clearly the infamous "island" of hair forming above my forehead.

Would you say that a low dose of androcur (I'm thinking, say, 10mg here) would be able to change things one way or another? Especially in conjunction with bicalutamide.

I have heard of people taking two AA's at the same time (meaning spironolactone, CPA or Bica, generally) but I have never been sure what the point is. I have used finasteride and dutasteride at the same time but they lack, for me, sides. I have used spironolactone and MPA at the same time, for about a year but dumped spironolactone and stayed on MPA.

From what I know, AA's and reductase inhibitors were developed for prostate cancer patients. Many of them, perhaps from flutamide began showing better hairlines. How AA's do this though is uncertain. Do they increase anagen? Do they improve growth rate? I kind of put out a challenge seeking anyone who claimed substantial hair regrowth using an AA without estrogen. There may be some out there but no one has popped up to tell their story yet.

Don't discount oral minoxidil. The dosages can be easily titrated and for females, beginning dosages are very low, starting out at .25 mg daily. The AA's are a bit problematic because usually only one is used at a time and usually this choice is made based upon side-effects. None of the three are especially impressive in terms of presenting both long-term and short-term effects. I would say bica but it is expensive and many American doctors refuse to prescribe it so it isn't covered by insurance. The insurance issue is often the major deciding factor. spironolactone is cheap and much easier to get. Note, I know the rules of capitalization but every single time that I type spironolactone or spironolactone, the system "corrects" the word or spelling as lower case while printing the entire word without abbreviation.

I am divided regarding incremental hair improvement via AA's or estrogen but it appears that the higher the E2 and the lower the T levels, the better the hair growth. Because breast growth initiates earlier than scalp hair growth, a cis-guy has to pass through the "breast part" to get to the hair part. HRT is very flexible though and that is one of the things about it that fascinate me. I think others will provide answers about their dosage thoughts as well.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

It is not recommended to take CPA with a non steroidal anti androgen like Bicalutamide. Plus depriving yourself from T without a sufficient amount of E might lead to female pattern baldness. As is the case for most postmenopausal women. Also bicalutamide more than likely will give you some amount of gyno. AAs are really not that nice.

Basically, to me, estrogen has no side effects meaning we know what it does and it seems to act similarly in most people perhaps. But the distinction between a bug and a feature varies among us. It is problematic not to have a dominant sex hormone. It can be either T or E2 or both but in the case of neither, bone loss and other problems might arise as you say. AA's are best avoided if possible; they are all synthetic and on spironolactone, I just never felt right physically and I had a major shed, which seems to be another detriment of using AA's.

 

[Jacob Williams]

it seems to me that I’m shedding a ton of hair since starting topical estrogel on my scalp, but interestingly it’s been almost exclusively terminal hairs. I’m thinking the scalp irritation might be too much for me and it’s causing some shedding so I might be switching to a more traditional application site soon.

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

I am curious about trying out a non-agressive regime involving anti-androgens in order to go to war with hairloss and I am willing to make some sacrafices, namely loss of body hair, libido (I'd just hop on raloxifen preemtively to avoid gyno) but the problem here is that I have a low libido to begin with. Morning wood maybe 2 or 3 times a year, not jerking off for days because I simply don't feel like it, you name it.
Could you extrapolate from that that I have low T levels to begin with too? And if I did, what would anti androgens even be able to do?

My approach is to lower my DHT as much as I can without it causing serious problems, backing it up with estrogen and "reasonable" testosterone levels. My hair isn't extremely androgen sensitive, but my hormones have been out of control for the last two years almost and I need to pull the brake handle on them for a bit and get my hair growth back up.

The great part about using estrogen as a topical is that you theoretically can keep your test levels reasonable circulating through the rest of your body and regulate how much or little you want.

My libido has gone down somewhat since I've gone hard into the DHT inhibitors and the EPO, but I think it would go right back up to close'ish to where it was once I'm taking topical estrogen to manage my hair growth.

Right now the estriol is doing a reasonably ok job, but I still have to seriously regulate my test and DHT.

If you are male and you're seriously interested in getting your hair back, while remaining functionally "male", topicals have great potential. What's more, is that if at any time you wish to increase your sex drive and performance all you have to do is to learn how to titrate back on anything you're using to control your test and DHT or even exogenous estrogen. You do that for a short time and get back to your regimen.

I actually prefer the idea of having total control of my hormones that way.

 

[DogoDiLaurentiis]

it seems to me that I’m shedding a ton of hair since starting topical estrogel on my scalp, but interestingly it’s been almost exclusively terminal hairs. I’m thinking the scalp irritation might be too much for me and it’s causing some shedding so I might be switching to a more traditional application site soon.

If it's just an alcohol gel that shouldn't be the case unless you're sensitive, which is unlikely.

That is probably just the shed as your follicles seem to readjust to a different hormonal environment, it happens with finasteride as well, and most people who have enough estrogen - which is how finasteride "actually" works, will just re-grow a lot more hair back once their body has become accustomed to it.

 

[Norwoody]

If it's just an alcohol gel that shouldn't be the case unless you're sensitive, which is unlikely.

That is probably just the shed as your follicles seem to readjust to a different hormonal environment, it happens with finasteride as well, and most people who have enough estrogen - which is how finasteride "actually" works, will just re-grow a lot more hair back once their body has become accustomed to it.

It seems that some people can be big shedders, even without any sort of treatment, yet still retain their hair for life. Obviously, they are just able to regrow at about the same rate they are losing it. Perhaps this is because they have more estrogen in general or aromatase localized at the follicle? Whereas those who are losing hair simply aren't able to regrow it as fast. This could explain why many people can go on 5ARIs and even transgender level antiandrogens at the same time, but still continue to shed and lose hair because they aren't doing anything powerful enough to stimulate regrowth factors.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

It seems that some people can be big shedders, even without any sort of treatment, yet still retain their hair for life. Obviously, they are just able to regrow at about the same rate they are losing it. Perhaps this is because they have more estrogen in general or aromatase localized at the follicle? Whereas those who are losing hair simply aren't able to regrow it as fast. This could explain why many people can go on 5ARIs and even transgender level antiandrogens at the same time, but still continue to shed and lose hair because they aren't doing anything powerful enough to stimulate regrowth factors.

Putting together the various pieces of the Puzzle

One question that I have related to estrogen and HRT involves how anagen rates are affected. What you have specified here could explain the current conundrums related to hair regrowth. As many prostate patients were treated with 'mides and spironolactone and CPA, they began "re-growing" hair "without trying". So then why don't these three seem to regrow hair in everybody? My suspicion is that they are altering scalp hair anagen without actually regrowing dormant follicles. In this scenario, estrogen has all three major effects we want: greater anagen, protection from DHT and the ability to "heal" dormant follicles. AA's on the other hand, might affect anagen to the extent where visually, it appears that the person has regrown significant hair. But the hair isn't "new"; it's due to the lengthening of anagen. This is the mathematical aspect of hair loss and hair regrowth and I see people on Tressless who simply don't understand this and thanks to Norwoody for pointing this out.

Shedding appears to be beneficial at times (although not necessarily to the person) for regrowth. But many, if not most of the time, shedding might put too much of a burden on scalp hair which is already oppressed by DHT. For those going in the right direction as I felt with my total shed last year, though, shedding might occur because all hair is put into a quick state of catagen followed by increased anagen/decreased rate or perception of hair loss and awakening of previously dormant follicles.

The other thing that is part of the puzzle is how diffuse thinning/ hair loss relates to hair loss in only the crown or temples with all the rest of the scalp hair unaffected. As an aside, hair transplants can work sensationally for such folks and have worked great for them going back to the 80's while for folks with any sort of diffuse, overall shedding, transplants, at least in the past, could be a disaster and make the person just look Goddess-awful in appearance.

These are all some of the most interesting questions in hair loss research. How much do we need to know to be able to customize hair loss treatments? But I still think that we are walking the tightrope here between beards, body hair and scalp hair which in races with less pigmentation or who carry significant proportions of such genes, seem to be sexually dimorphically hard-wired and very difficult to change. In this scenario, we might be quite susceptible to sheds when we lack a dominant sex hormone as our bodies struggle to make sense of say, having half T and half E2 in circulation. It might also be difficult to turn on or off the gene expression without estrogen levels telling the pituitary gland "this is a female and females have hair". FtM's appear to often struggle to grow decent beards (they should try oral minoxidil). Anecdotally, some of them notice incipient hair loss when using minoxidil on their faces and I think that Marky pointed this out.

Beard growth itself might send triggers to the system and hence the dermatitis, acne, dandruff and hair loss might be due to the establishment of functioning beard hair follicles. So we know that something is going on; otherwise FtM's should just start beard growth without needing minoxidil. Minoxidil beards usually don't look right to me; they just don't look like a man's beard and FtM's might never establish significant beard growth. There used to be an old SNL bit and movie about Pat, the type of person we all know whose gender is ambiguous. We know the effects of castration on cattle who tend to maintain most of their strength while becoming docile and fat, making them both tastier and more appropriate as work animals. The younger they are neutered, the greater effects on strength which seems to match up with transgender folks where the older you are, the more difficult "passing" can become as some bodily aspects seem to feminize easily with others taking much longer, if at all, like hair regrowth and decreased muscle mass, the ultimate bug versus feature in terms of how estrogen and AA's work for some of us.

Arms might "give us away" but do we actually want to lose the ability to lift heavy objects or not become easily fatigued? Some MtFs want the skinny arms regardless. spironolactone made me feel stereotypically female in terms of strength and ability to walk or do exercise without fatigue. Once I dumped it, these aspects all went more or less back to baseline while feminization continued. In my mind, folks who want to use an AA without estrogen, might have things backwards in terms of enduring stereotypical female sides for the chance at hair regrowth. This means that spironolactone had far more significant effects on things that cis-guys want to avoid, then does estrogen by itself. The main plus about AA's is probably temporal in that using them with estrogen can help a person reach target goals more quickly but this might be pointless unless the person remains in such a state for say, six to 18 months. Doing so is easy for MtF's but asking a cis-guy to go 18 months, or six years, as in my case before seeing cosmetically significant regrowth is far harder.

Anecdotally, I believe that beard removal itself, has significant hormonal effects and essentially puts dermatitis out of business as there is no longer DHT being synthesized in the very beard follicles themselves. I know of ZERO studies but facial feminization itself might be likely to occur in a significant fashion only after significant progress in beard hair removal has been made. Anyone else who has had their beard removed, their anecdotal observations are quite important and I hope they will post.

So is there incremental hair growth using estrogen or AA's or does it only or mostly come once estrogen levels are high enough? I think that both types of hair improvement occur and what we know about receptor occupation would lead us to expect improvement in marginal follicles. But to really get the system into all three improvements, protection from DHT, increased anagen and the re-awakening of dormant follicles, we probably need estrogen and we probably need to "turn on" hair regrowth, almost in a digital sense of off/on. There's not much research but what there is, points to our needing very high estrogen levels to restore hair; otherwise, marginal improvements might occur but they will be more like topical minoxidil "regrowth".

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Hair, its importance as a gender marker and hair loss in Western and Judeo-Christian Civilization:

In terms of prevalence, hair loss seems to have always occurred in white and Semitic males. It might have occurred less though before industrialization. So many folks on Tressless seem to think that hair loss is due to excessive self-gratification and implicitly, a punishment for sinning sexually. Others seem to portray a happy time before industrialization where hair loss was all but unknown.

Nevertheless, the Greeks speak of the shame of hair loss. We have recountings of rulers and emperors like Julius Caesar and other famous Romans going bald and their being ashamed and teased about it. Napoleon was sensitive about his hairline. The prophet Elisha threw curses upon anyone making comments about his hairline. In this context, Jesus's hair as normally rendered probably is highly unusual. We also have seen essentially forever, depictions of people from the Middle East who seem to have huge beards and very little scalp hair.

St. Paul commented essentially that scalp hair was for females and their crowning physical feature. Even the head coverings often used by male Jews known as yarmulkes, might be related to baldness and not flashing the deity with one's naked crown but this might be taking a point too far since St. Paul writing to the church in Corinth states the opposite in one of the most sexist and confounding chapters of the Bible:

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. 2Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. 3But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. 5But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. 6For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. 7For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man."I Corinthians 11:4.

Paul doesn't stop here though but continues with more inarticulate spouting of his personal vision for Christianity. Remember there was no official church at the time to counter his claims and they were later retconned with another bootstrap verse from Paul regarding all scripture being inspired by Providence and therefore, since it was inspired by the Divinity, everything Paul articulates in all of his letters automatically becomes scripture free from error. Hermeuntics and the Godel theorem tell us that such claims make no sense but oh well:

I Corinthians 11:7-10:

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Hey, Paul! Got any references for that aside from your own letter?

And then this: Verse 13: Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14: Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, 15: but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

I have no idea how angels relate to female hair loss vel non or hats in general but Paul seems pretty confident in his bewildering conjectures. Of course, his main goal often forgotten by history was to evangelize without their being any need for circumcision and this was the main issue among early church leaders, who were both Jewish and Christian, especially James, Peter and Paul. Greeks found circumcision to be just as horrible for men as nowadays people feel about circumcision for females and noted correctly, that it was a form of mutilation.

St. Paul to me, seems to be an arrogant sort who articulates his own beliefs and attempts to paint them as deriving from nature or from God and not from Goddess. "Be ye followers of me?" It's all very self-centered and andro-centric from someone who just loves talking about himself all of the time.

Back to science, never say never, but I doubt a general baldness cure without HRT. The precise means by which balding and beard growth occur seems to be delicate. Perhaps for males, increasing anagen is a better goal and it is a pseudo-way of appearing to have regrowth. Estrogen levels have been rising for males but usually via synthetics with an estrogen-like structure. Like phytochemicals, I don't think that we know the effects since both chemicals in the water and eating phytochemicals might actually crowd out estradiol, making situations worse or for MtF's perhaps, making them feminize more slowly if at all, not more so.

The youth-promoting aspects of adding testosterone (in the short term) or estrogen in the long-term appear to be substantial to the point of violating or reversing normal aspects of ageing. I haven't done before and after skin pulls or anything but essentially everything except bone and teeth feels re-matrixed. Scars may spontaneously heal. Muscle decrease in the neck, might actually improve hair loss and make it easier to turn one's head without pain. Fat is re-distributed; collagen increases might take place. It's the closest thing to Ponce de Leon that I could ever dream of and the benefits even beyond scalp hair are staggering to me. I am thrilled about hair regrowth but HRT can be mind-blowing for some and kind of eh for others. Some of this probably has to do with skeletal size and the inability of estrogen to shrink bone while smaller folks haven't had their chests, shoulders, faces and other areas grow away from the pubertal/female oval face shape and less muscular pattern.

Goddess bless.

 

[franzliszt]

Testosterone and DHT really do have inflammatory properties. The rash on my arm that started at 14 went away with testosterone suppression, and flares up with testosterone surges. Has anyone experienced anything similar. In addition to this, I can feel my scalp burn without adequate T suppression.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Testosterone and DHT really do have inflammatory properties. The rash on my arm that started at 14 went away with testosterone suppression, and flares up with testosterone surges. Has anyone experienced anything similar. In addition to this, I can feel my scalp burn without adequate T suppression.

I used to feel a scalp burn when I went outside and it was windy. The movement of my hair in the wind did not feel good but it might have been psychosomatic. Wind is our chief oppressor among the elements. How do we know when our hair recovery is "good enough"? When the wind no longer destroys our hair style and we get back the sort of style memory that juvenile and female hair usually has, meaning they don't have to carry combs everywhere they go since the inclination is back to either bangs or a centered part. How many have freaked out when they discover their comb is gone from their back pocket in their jeans? Fingers work to style thick hair but only a comb works once we pass a certain point of diffuse thinness.

Related to inflammation, I still believe that the all but forgotten polysorbates are effective at halting or slowing hair loss. How, since they don't "unplug follicles"? I think that it has to do with inflammation and I am also beginning to believe that there are two very different types of male pattern baldness/ hair loss. One is highly location specific while the other essentially diminishes the attractiveness of all scalp hair and especially in the fringe areas which are often completely unaffected in others. Perhaps, inflammation is more so the culprit in diffuse permanent hair loss. Anyway, during the infomercials in the 80's related to New Generation (polysorbate 60) and the Helsinki Formulas(polysorbate 80), both men and women provided testimonials about their effectiveness, mostly in halting hair loss but people also presented slight regrowth similar to topical minoxidil. If they work for females, what does this say about hormonal differences as instigators of hair loss?

Informally, ketoconozole might act the same way. Why is it that some seem to have impressive results from keto and others seem to see zilch? It might be due to keto reducing scalp flora and inflammation that way, resulting in less hair loss. Any of the treatments with data behind them, appear to be worthwhile trying when nothing else is working providing that they are affordable.

Ultimately, though, for males, it all does seem to come back to DHT and I fear that for many/most experiencing sheds to baldness or extreme thinning, it is very difficult if not impossible to recover from. It might have to do with the way that the body allocates resources. Why does derma-rolling emphatically reduce and remove scar tissue when the body has already "decided" that scar tissue is "good enough". Why do people vary in their tendency to scar in the first place? The more that I think that I know, though, then there are other aspects that do fit in necessarily with the current proposed theories of hair loss. Once the sebum plug theory of baldness was discredited, people like me tended to stop using them or used them much less. But they were doing something most likely in a different way from predicted. Somebody noticed in the late 70's or whenever that rubbing polysorbates on the scalp was highly beneficial in terms of decreasing hair loss or increasing anagen. The differences in terms of regrowth were small and mostly like topical minoxidil.

DHT gets blamed for everything and somewhat rightfully so but how does DHT fit into our model of healthy scalp hair for XY's or healthy bodies for XY's? I have mentioned my battles with facial dermatitis and how it only cleared after beard removal even though I had lowered T, DHT and increased estrogen.

In a certain sense, androgens appear to pretty much prepare a person for hunting or war, or extreme work like farming when people didn't live long lives and hair was a male luxury not a necessity. So physical strength differences escalate greatly during puberty. Skin becomes tougher and much darker. A beard can provide substantial protection from physical blows or being cut by thorns in the wild. Not having hair on top, might have increased Vitamin D absorption for white males. Now hair also provides protection but it is more easily grabbed and used as a weapon against its bearer or more likely as in the case of King David's son, Absalom, to become ensnared in brambles and trees. There could also be heat regulation aspects to baldness and beard growth and being outside. But pretty much all of these differences are negatives in post-industrial society and I feel that XY's born now have kind of gotten a raw deal in terms of competing with females. We still have math, physics and classical music composition but sitting at a desk is simply not something that many males find fulfilling the way that females might. Notice very few females are opting to be coal miners or steel workers or loggers but these jobs are becoming more and more scarce.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Call Out for Help:

I had someone message me who was using essentially the dream stack for cis-males and his situation just keeps getting worse or to rephrase, he is very close to horse shoe status similarly to @bridgeburn, on top. I keep touting oral minoxidil and he claims no results even after 24 months on oral minoxidil and this is from a person who knows a lot about hormones and hair loss treatments. Does anyone have any insight related to what might reboot hair for this person except for female hormones? When is it appropriate to advise someone to "give up?" Does RU actually work as a med on its own for males as a regrowth agent?

Anyone who has info related to turning the corner on hair loss for XY's, regardless of treatment, please chime in. Having realistic expectations is difficult but at some point, chasing MtF and hair loss treatments by XY's just becomes dispiriting and a bit like Sissyphus (misspelling intended) pushing her rock up the hill again and again. It hurts to see the disappointment when something doesn't work when it seems as though it should.