Jaygee
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I've been on fincar for 5.5 months. (I was on minoxidil since May '03, but stopped putting on top recently. Plan to start again.) There has been no change. I still shed over 150 hairs every day in the shower alone. However, my crown and vertex still look the same, as far as I can tell. Thinnish, but still fully covered.
It's my front that's gotten me in knots lately. My Norwood 2 hairline has been transparent under light for a while, but my right side has recently become noticeably more so. I can see the outline of a Norwood 2.5 through the hair. I wish I could be positive, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't quite that transparent 5 months ago. Also, for quite awhile I've had those "frontal strays" I referred to once---those wisps that poke out in front and won't go with the others when you pull it back.
There are three questions about all this that have me really confused.
1. The frontal strays that fall out are usually, as much as I can make out, not any thinner than the other hairs I shed from other parts of the head. If being a "stray" means that the hair is near death, why would it be the same thickness as ones from the top that are shrinking but still very much alive?
2. Although 90% of the shed hairs I see are still miniaturizing, quite a few start out super-thin and colorless, then widen out and darken, then thin out slightly before the bulb (not counting the very end, which someone said is usually thinner even on a normal hair). I have no idea what this indicates. Does that just mean the hair was in a resting phase, and that when it "woke up" it was thin and colorless before resuming normality, but then was miniaturized?
3. The back of my head is definitely thicker than the rest, but when I run my fingers through it, the hairs that emerge are just as thin as the ones from everywhere else. This is true no matter how low I pull them out from. Please don't tell me that means I'm gonna be a Norwood 9 or something. My dad is only a 5.5 or so, and I don't know any blood relatives who were worse. Does it sound like I'm losing my back, too? It's hard to imagine, since it feels and looks completely normal. But the individual hairs are still just as thin as the others, and some of them are tapering.
I know this is neurotic over-analyzing, but I don't know what to think about my situation. There's been no stoppage in shedding in 5.5 months, and I'm getting nervous now. I think the right temple has gotten more transparent during that time, since I didn't notice it before. The frontal strays are shorter than the others but usually not any thinner. My back is thick but the individual hairs are thin and tapered like the rest.
Is it somehow possible that I've already lost a lot of individual hairs, as in density? I didn't think it worked that way. I thought it took a long period of miniturization before a hair died altogether, and this hasn't been going on long enough for that. In response to the temple situation, I'm now putting minoxidil there. Sometimes once but usually twice a day.
Have you ever heard of any success on finasteride with time stats like mine?
I apologize for my neurosis and would greatly appreciate insight from anyone with a grain of an idea about this stuff.
(Sometimes I try to somewhat console myself with my hairdresser's contention that "a lot of people thin in their early '20s but don't go bald." HairLossTalk.com said much the same thing the other day. Wish I knew if that applied to me.)
It's my front that's gotten me in knots lately. My Norwood 2 hairline has been transparent under light for a while, but my right side has recently become noticeably more so. I can see the outline of a Norwood 2.5 through the hair. I wish I could be positive, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't quite that transparent 5 months ago. Also, for quite awhile I've had those "frontal strays" I referred to once---those wisps that poke out in front and won't go with the others when you pull it back.
There are three questions about all this that have me really confused.
1. The frontal strays that fall out are usually, as much as I can make out, not any thinner than the other hairs I shed from other parts of the head. If being a "stray" means that the hair is near death, why would it be the same thickness as ones from the top that are shrinking but still very much alive?
2. Although 90% of the shed hairs I see are still miniaturizing, quite a few start out super-thin and colorless, then widen out and darken, then thin out slightly before the bulb (not counting the very end, which someone said is usually thinner even on a normal hair). I have no idea what this indicates. Does that just mean the hair was in a resting phase, and that when it "woke up" it was thin and colorless before resuming normality, but then was miniaturized?
3. The back of my head is definitely thicker than the rest, but when I run my fingers through it, the hairs that emerge are just as thin as the ones from everywhere else. This is true no matter how low I pull them out from. Please don't tell me that means I'm gonna be a Norwood 9 or something. My dad is only a 5.5 or so, and I don't know any blood relatives who were worse. Does it sound like I'm losing my back, too? It's hard to imagine, since it feels and looks completely normal. But the individual hairs are still just as thin as the others, and some of them are tapering.
I know this is neurotic over-analyzing, but I don't know what to think about my situation. There's been no stoppage in shedding in 5.5 months, and I'm getting nervous now. I think the right temple has gotten more transparent during that time, since I didn't notice it before. The frontal strays are shorter than the others but usually not any thinner. My back is thick but the individual hairs are thin and tapered like the rest.
Is it somehow possible that I've already lost a lot of individual hairs, as in density? I didn't think it worked that way. I thought it took a long period of miniturization before a hair died altogether, and this hasn't been going on long enough for that. In response to the temple situation, I'm now putting minoxidil there. Sometimes once but usually twice a day.
Have you ever heard of any success on finasteride with time stats like mine?
I apologize for my neurosis and would greatly appreciate insight from anyone with a grain of an idea about this stuff.
(Sometimes I try to somewhat console myself with my hairdresser's contention that "a lot of people thin in their early '20s but don't go bald." HairLossTalk.com said much the same thing the other day. Wish I knew if that applied to me.)
