hair loss treatments for black men, Shen Min & HairGene

[bbking]

Hi all,

This is my first post here. I'm a 26 year old black male and I've noticed a very mild thinning of the top portion of my hair. It's been pretty gradual over the last year, but over the past few months it's gotten more noticeable, enough so that I want to do something about it. I was looking into Rogaine, but it says it's only for the top back of the head - my thinning seems to be over the entire top. Also, it seems most of the research done was for white men within a specific age range - so I'm not sure what the effectiveness is for black men (I guess they normally just cut all their hair off and look fine, but I don't want to do that).

So does anyone here have any experience or information about what might work for black men? And also, does anyone have information about what works best for my particular brand of thinning? Not a bald spot, not a receding hairline, just overall thinning all over the top of my head.

Thanks so much for you help, and I hope to contribute as I start trying things.

Oh - one last thing - I bought Shen Min DHT blockers a month ago, and haven't noticed anything yet. The board doesn't seem very optimistic about herbal treatments, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with Shen Min specifically, or HairGenesis.

Thanks,

BB

 

[Bismarck]

I've never heard that there is a difference concerning the efficiacy of male pattern baldness treatments between black men, white men, Chinese men,.... (although in the trials they're mentioning the "caucasian type" (???))
Furthermore chen ming won't work for any skin color.

I recommend Finasteride (Propcia/Proscar) as a starting point.

bis

 

[bbking]

I did some research just now into what you suggested, and I found several website that have "generic propecia" for about 1/4 the price. Is that real?

http://www.legalmedsonline.com

Also, because of the nature of my thinning hair (thins evenly around the entire top portion, no change in hairline and no bald spots), should I not bother with Rogaine and just stick with propecia?

Thanks again for your help!

BB

 

[mvpsoft]

There are only three hair loss treatments that are "proven." These are finasteride (propecia/proscar), minoxidil and Nizoral shampoo. You should probably start with one or more of those. They will all work (or not work, they don't work for everyone) on all parts of your head. There are others that also have pretty good science behind them. The best of these are the copper peptides (Tricomin and Folligen) and Revivogen. Then there are the more experimental treatments such as Fluridil, Kevis and spironolactone, down to what appears to be outright snake oil such as Procerin.

Some advocate starting slowly, say with finasteride and Nizoral for a year for two reasons. One, some people will do just fine with that, no need to spend money needlessly, and two, for many people even effective treatments don't continue to work years down the road, so you leave yourself a treatment to add later if that happens to you.

Another approach is to start much more aggressively. This might be a good idea if you really want to go all out and try to regrow as much hair as possible as quickly as possible. But no matter which approach you take, make a choice and stick to it for a year. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

The "big three" of finasteride, minoxidil and Nizoral have synergistic effects. That means you will probably see better results from them together than separately. But at some point even that combination might stop working for you. It might be five years from when you start, it might be longer, but even if you are a good responder, the results may not last forever.