I won't give up without a fight!

[mitzkity]

Okay, so I'm 61 years old - I STILL don't want you to see my scalp!!

My hair has been thinning for as long as I can remember, and I have half-heartedly using 2% minoxidil off and on, bought a can of Tricomin and didn't use it much, letting it get worse and worse until one day I noticed that I couldn't hide the thinness AT ALL. No matter how I fluffed and folded, there wasn't enough hair to go around.

And it's color-treated so it's dry and breaks easily too. It's baby soft and almost fuzzy looking.

To make matters worse I am fair and blonde, heavyset and can't take heat or sun - so I sweat on my head and whatever treatment I have on it, well I hope I don't get it in my eyes when it runs off.

You see, I am the luckiest woman I know because I have been happily married for 22 years. My husband is 18 yrs younger than I and we are still a team in everything, housework and play. He says nothing matters, he knew I would continue to age, but I want to hit this thing from all sides.

Today is 1/20/11. For my coming birthday I did 2 things...I applied for Social Security (LOL), and I ordered 5 items - Nizoral, the Revivogen & Tricomin, the spironolactone stuff when it comes into stock again, & the minoxidil Foam. I am committing myself to washing hair at least twice a week, and following a routine of treatment, and believe me, I DO NOT TAKE WELL TO ROUTINES!!

I need help - I will take pictures and keep a log of this stuff, and I will be starting a journey alone, hoping to find some other folks who are further down the road than I. Is anyone out there who can relate to my story?

 

[Anita1978]

hi mitzkity

I was on a regime of minoxidil 2% and sprionolactone for about 5 years. Together, they definitely slowed down my hair loss, so they do work. If you actually look at medical studies, only a small percentage of people actually regrow hair using minoxidil and spironolactone, most however do manage to slow down and possibly even halt hair loss. However the problem is that most people's stories are like yours. when we first experience loss we try to ignore it, use eloborate ways to camouflage our hair and generally deny it....even to ourselves.

By the time we actually get round to 'doing something about it' we've lost a significant amount of hair. For me, the decision to stop treatment was realising that the medicines were working, but by the time I started the drugs i had lost a fair amount of hair already. all the Minoxidil and spironolactone were doing was slwoing down the rate of hairloss. i decided to stop as I was already wearing hair pieces to cover the hair loss, and thy actually fit better when you have less hair (yes, cna you believe it, I now am wishing my hair away :roll: )

so i guess you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself truthfully, are you happy with the way you look now and just simply want to halt further loss. If the answer is yes, then do the regime properly (not half heartedly as you have done before - its just a waste of medicine and money if you don't get into a routine as these products don't work at all when applied half heartedly). Also stick to the regime for a year solidly, you may lose even more hair than normal for the first 3 months, but within a year you will regain it back to what it is now (and for a lucky few, may even have thicker hair)

However, if you look in the mirror now and are not happy with your appearance already, then you need to be realistic. Most people with perseverence can slow down and halt further loss with Minoxidil and spironolactone, but not many gain more, and those who do don't gain a hell of a lot more. In this case it may be better to save your money and look for camouflage options out there.

Re the other items you have bought, here's my views on them:

Re Nizoral - this is a shampoo containing Ketoconazole. Ketoconazole is an anti-inflammatory and its believed that possibly it helps with aloepcia that is assoicated with psoriasis or inflamation. However, the FDA does not recognise Ketoconazole as helpful to hair loss. It only recognises its efficacy in treating dandruff. the only reasonable test done was back in 2005 on mice, and the results were good. but that was on mice. no extensive studies done on humans. If you have dandruff, psoriasis, or you feel that your scalp is tender and sore, this may help. But otherwise I'd save your money and wait until much more reliable evidence is gathered regarding Ketoconazole.

Revivogen is a testosterone blocker (the science is more complicated than that, but I won't bore you with the details), basically soing the same thing as Spironolactone. spironolactone has had many more trials so I wouldn't bother taking both, and would choose spironolactone over Revivogen (Revivogen is expensive!)

Tricomin - this uses copper peptides to shorten the resting phase of each hair. therefore a larger percentage of folicles on your head will be active at any one time giving the appearance of thicker hair. There is definitely some evidence to support this, although it is still not FDA approved as yet. If you really wanted to get a 3rd product apart from Minoxidil and spironolactone then I would go for this over Nizoral and Revivogen

Hope this has helped

 

[twenty.five]

So how's it going, mitzkity?

Anita1978 -- I totally disagree that Tricomin is preferable to Nizoral. Nizoral is not only much cheaper, but you've got to shampoo anyway, so why not choose it?