Hair Today Hair Tomorrow Hair Forever

[JaneyElizabeth]

If there is a no more testosterone being produced (meaning to the levels of a pre-pubescent kid) any 5-ar inhibitor will be useless

Exactly. But many people like @bridgeburn and me formerly when I was DIY, do not test. The idea is that dutasteride still protects you from incipient fibrosis if your E isn't high enough and your T isn't low enough. So you use duta all the way through and then you can drop it when you hit targets. Some people keep Duta to actually keep T from going too low since it raises overall T levels.

 

[Androgenic Alpaca]

It's highly effective, but over the long term you probably need to increase the concentration. If you make it yourself you can get the powder tested.

None of the trial participants for finasteride or dutasteride failed to have a response to the medications. By a response I mean a reduction of DHT, not hair growth.

When you say "It's highly effective, but over the long term you probably need to increase the concentration." - is this because the androgen receptors will up-regulate or something?

 

[pegasus2]

When you say "It's highly effective, but over the long term you probably need to increase the concentration." - is this because the androgen receptors will up-regulate or something?

That does seem to be the case.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

You mean eplerenone? No, only myself and one other person have tried it AFAIK. You can't expect anything to work miracles as a standalone treatment except 17b-estradiol. If you want serious regrowth it's either the kitchen sink approach attacking every pathway, or the HRT route.



spironolactone is a poor choice for a AA. It will work to a degree, but without being metabolized in the liver it's a weak AA. Unless you want to use it orally you're better off with RU or any of the others. I'm not a fan of topical spironolactone

That's actually real progress if people can accept that about estrogen as it has been largely unknown that it can restore slick bald scalp and disputed in the near past. If you look at the comments on Rob's site regarding MtFs and male pattern baldness, a couple of different transsexuals comment and say that hair regrowth is not possible for MtFs and that article came out in September of 2018, I believe so even many trans folks apparently were unaware. Undoubtedly, which is why finasteride/Duta mean the world to me, it is easier to transform intact XY hair into XX hair in the transgender female context. Regrowth though appears to be quite iffy especially for follicles that might have suffered from significant fibrosis.

I still see many guys posting all around that estrogen causes hair loss. I try to tell folks that male pattern baldness is always and everywhere a hormonally-caused situation and that many/most/all successful treatments are likely to be hormonal in nature which of course, doesn't thrill the anti-finasteride folks. YMMV but I try to monitor how well the guys using topical versions of things except estrogel of course, are doing and eh.

I saw one guy maybe on here claiming that spironolactone is only effective when it passes through the liver and that therefore spironolactone topicals are likely to be ineffective although Dr. Lee is still selling one, on here, I think but somewhere.

 

[ElToso]

I reread the main post. I am surprised when you say that at some point you will stop most of the treatments and switch to maintenance with duta. Do you really think it's possible? Shouldn't new hair become addicted to substances?

 

[pegasus2]

I reread the main post. I am surprised when you say that at some point you will stop most of the treatments and switch to maintenance with duta. Do you really think it's possible? Shouldn't new hair become addicted to substances?

I don't believe in addiction theory. People lose ground when they stop minoxidil because minoxidil isn't actually reversing the damage, it's increasing cell proliferation just enough to push telogen hairs back into anagen and keep them in anagen slightly longer. There was a study done on microneedling that showed the gains from microneedling+minoxidil do not quickly vanish after treatment cessation the way they do after stopping minoxidil monotherapy.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I reread the main post. I am surprised when you say that at some point you will stop most of the treatments and switch to maintenance with duta. Do you really think it's possible? Shouldn't new hair become addicted to substances?

I think that is an old husband's tale and I engage a lot of folks on tresses related to that.

Baldness is likely caused by fibrosis in my view. Hair only grows when it is either unaffected or partially unaffected by fibrosis of the dermal papilla. We don't know how exactly but I believe that only estrogen can reverse fibrosis. So once hair is terminal in a female context, the fibrosis should be gone. In the male context, if there is minoxidil dependence, it is probably in fibrotically-challenged follicles that only receive partial blood flow and nutrients. So finasteride can't reverse these marginal follicles but minoxidil acts as a vasodilator to keep them going at least for at while. It has nothing to do with there being minoxodil hair and finasteride hair.

I am highly skeptical of most minoxidil sides and finasteride sides and there seems to be a drive by some guys to scare other guys off these meds.

I have been on minoxidil and finasteride/duta since 1988 and 1998 and never had a shed. My only shed was from spironolactone last summer and I posted pics of my formerly bald head on another site. Of course, the guys on tresses do ask me lots of questions because they are eager to know if those meds work forever and all but literally, I have not missed a day with first minoxidil and then reductase inhibitors since 1988 so, yes it can be done but you can't just look 36 years out since I was 20 when male pattern baldness announced itself.

 

[pegasus2]

what is the cost of your regimen? I can afford to do this but I’m also saving for a house so I’ll need to be careful not to over spend lol

I adjusted some of the doses in the OP today as what I was using was overkill on some things. Then I added up the costs on everything, and it's under $300/mo. if you buy in bulk. If you buy one month's supply at a time then it's going to be a lot more. You could even cut that in half and maybe get the same effect.

I also updated the OP with links to some information about the various compounds.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I adjusted some of the doses in the OP today as what I was using was overkill on some things. Then I added up the costs on everything, and it's under $300/mo. as is if you buy in bulk. If you buy one month's supply at a time then it's going to be a lot more. You could even cut that in half and maybe get the same effect.

I also updated the OP with links to some information about the various compounds.

I might be using $200 a month of estrogel but I can't keep this up. I am doing a pregnancy level hair push and then hopefully back to patches or pills and estradiol-only.

 

[pegasus2]

I might be using $200 a month of estrogel but I can't keep this up. I am doing a pregnancy level hair push and then hopefully back to patches or pills and estradiol-only.

I have a few tubes of estrogel that I got in case the estriol didn't work. I keep them around just in case my progress stalls out.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I have a few tubes of estrogel that I got in case the estriol didn't work. I keep them around just in case my progress stalls out.

Yeah maybe at some point on the other page, you could write something a little long about your estriol experience. I see guys over at tresseless who say they are interested in the extreme treatment topic. There's a lot of misery on that site and it is palpable.

 

[Analogies]

@pegasus2 It's been exactly a month since your last photo update. Can you show us an update on your progress?

Wuhan forgot to include the SW in my package, so I have to wait another two weeks to begin.
I'm hoping to see similar results with SW, PGE2, PGF2a, RU and finasteride. Thanks for your contributions.

 

[Catagen]

@pegasus2 It's been exactly a month since your last photo update. Can you show us an update on your progress?

Wuhan forgot to include the WAY in my package, so I have to wait another two weeks to begin.
I'm hoping to see similar results with WAY, PGE2, PGF2a, RU and finasteride. Thanks for your contributions.

New pics are at the bottom of the post, I wish we got new temple pics.

 

[Selb]

By the way, what’s the best way to micro needle? Roller or pen? I’m planning on doing it daily (not wounding) and once a week wounding

 

[pegasus2]

By the way, what’s the best way to micro needle? Roller or pen? I’m planning on doing it daily (not wounding) and once a week wounding

Definitely a pen. You can't wound properly with a roller. There's no way you'll achieve the optimal wounding density with a roller. If you're doing it every day then light needling with a roller is fine, but that's more for absorption of topicals.

 

[pegasus2]

@pegasus2 It's been exactly a month since your last photo update. Can you show us an update on your progress?

Wuhan forgot to include the SW in my package, so I have to wait another two weeks to begin.
I'm hoping to see similar results with SW, PGE2, PGF2a, RU and finasteride. Thanks for your contributions.

Good luck. SW+PGE2 is a heavy hitter. Take some good pictures for us.

 

[Derelict]

Definitely a pen. You can't wound properly with a roller. There's no way you'll achieve the optimal wounding density with a roller. If you're doing it every day then light needling with a roller is fine, but that's more for absorption of topicals.

Are you sure there is not more to needling daily with a roller instead of a pen that is more than just more absorption? most of the great results i see are people rolling daily before applying minoxidil as opposed to using a pen which as you say, definitely wounds more effectively.

 

[pegasus2]

Are you sure there is not more to needling daily with a roller instead of a pen that is more than just more absorption? most of the great results i see are people rolling daily before applying minoxidil as opposed to using a pen which as you say, definitely wounds more effectively.

Sure. It upregulates various growth factors, particularly VEGF. To separate the effect of that from minoxidil absorption I'd like to see a study of daily rolling without minoxidil.

 

[Catagen]

Sure. It upregulates various growth factors, particularly VEGF. To separate the effect of that from minoxidil absorption I'd like to see a study of daily rolling without minoxidil.

Do you think that VEGF plays a crucial role in deminiaturization?

 

[Selb]

Sure. It upregulates various growth factors, particularly VEGF. To separate the effect of that from minoxidil absorption I'd like to see a study of daily rolling without minoxidil.

So it might be worthwhile to daily roll for a few mins before minoxidil application and then once a week do 1.5mm/wounding with the derma pen.