I've just turned 37. I've been fighting hair loss since my mid-20s with pretty good success. It is, however, creeping back in and I'm here asking if there are any good additions to the regimen I'm using anyways.
I've always had thin hair and a high forehead, but it was always just thick enough to where it looked okay. For some reason, it looked particularly thick when I was exercising a lot and particularly thin when I was being sedentary and not eating a good diet.
In my mid-twenties, some guy told me I "looked like I was ready to go bald," and some chick basically said she wouldn't date me "because of my hair." It was then that I decided that I'd rather be a lifer on some kind of baldness medication than go bald. It's a peculiar sting that I'm sure you all know -- it sounds vain to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but goddamn losing your hair really sucks. It has a HUGE effect on how attractive and youthful you perceive yourself.
So I went on Rogaine, which I haven't stopped since. Not long after, I went on Propecia. After a while of shelling out too much money for this, I got scripts for Proscar from several local community clinic doctors by simply telling them the truth.
It was hard to tell if there was regrowth, as sometimes it would look thick while at other times it looked thin enough to where I thought I should shave it. But one thing that did happen is I never lost much more than what I started with at around 25/26: it wasn't a mane like Christian Bale, but still wasn't too bad.
I'm lucky it stayed at this level because there were other things going on; those were dark days for reasons besides hair loss. But I fortunately managed to get my act together by around age 30.
I stopped taking Propecia, as I'd read all the horror stories about how it ****s your endocrine system. I didn't notice much difference after stopping it, but my girlfriend did -- I seemed better "endowed" afterwards, but I had also stopped taking antidepressants around this time as well, so who knows. I also had very mild gyno, but I'd had it since I was a little kid. If the gyno was aggravated by anything, it seemed to have been the SSRI antidepressants in my early twenties -- or their combination with weight gain brought on by not exercising. I don't know.
I read about topical Spironolactone and managed to get a super affordable supply of the stuff by getting a doctor to write a script, and then getting it from a local compounding pharmacy. Using this stuff about 3 x a week along with some very intensive exercise (training in Kenpo and Jiu Jitsu) coincided with my hair seeming to be almost as thick -- okay, like four-fifths as much -- as when I was nineteen. I received compliments from both friends and strangers about it. I tapered down on the spironolactone to like once a week for fear of it screwing up my hormones even though doctors told me only insignificant amounts would get into my bloodstream. This spate of exercise, fairly good diet, a steady job with decent pay, and spiffy hair lasted until I was 35. I also got man-boob surgery which was worth every penny.
Unfortunately, I got laid off from my job in April of 2014, after which I went on unemployment for the first time in my life. It precipitated a deep depression and torpor where I holed up in my apartment and obsessed over my lack of accomplishments in life, both in a career and with relationships. It's the same old demons that drove me to my dark days in my mid to late twenties, but I at least wasn't drinking or messing with drugs.
I lost what felt like a LOT of hair. It SUCKED. So did the stress of job searching and considering going into an entirely different field, which I fortunately have not had to so far -- some persistence and a handful of contacts had me working again after eight months. But my diet was crap, I rarely exercised, and I got more out of shape than I'd been since the bad old days. I even started smoking again, which I hadn't done for like seven years.
So now I have a promising job that is relatively low on stress, I've quit smoking, I'm getting back to the gym, and perhaps most importantly seeing a shrink and trying to go deep and figure out why I haven't been more successful in life. I'm back on topical spironolactone about 3 x a week, I've started massaging the rogaine onto my head instead of dropping it there, I've cut way down on processed foods and simple carbs, and I'm eating more raw veggies. So now I just want to ask you good folks here what you'd recommend I add to my regimen.
Here's some very recent pics: the shaved head three months old, the others from yesterday.
Those were taken with wet, greasy hair and with a desk lamp pointed right at my vertex, so it should look as bad as it gets. Which isn't good, but is a little better than I was afraid it'd look. I like to think that exercise with a kick from the finasteride will make it grow back in a bit, as it has before. But you can see that there's been a lot of hair loss in a short amount of time, which makes me hopeful that it was caused by stress and therefore will maybe grow back in.
Anyway, my sincere thanks for reading this. I'll see you on the boards.
I've always had thin hair and a high forehead, but it was always just thick enough to where it looked okay. For some reason, it looked particularly thick when I was exercising a lot and particularly thin when I was being sedentary and not eating a good diet.
In my mid-twenties, some guy told me I "looked like I was ready to go bald," and some chick basically said she wouldn't date me "because of my hair." It was then that I decided that I'd rather be a lifer on some kind of baldness medication than go bald. It's a peculiar sting that I'm sure you all know -- it sounds vain to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but goddamn losing your hair really sucks. It has a HUGE effect on how attractive and youthful you perceive yourself.
So I went on Rogaine, which I haven't stopped since. Not long after, I went on Propecia. After a while of shelling out too much money for this, I got scripts for Proscar from several local community clinic doctors by simply telling them the truth.
It was hard to tell if there was regrowth, as sometimes it would look thick while at other times it looked thin enough to where I thought I should shave it. But one thing that did happen is I never lost much more than what I started with at around 25/26: it wasn't a mane like Christian Bale, but still wasn't too bad.
I'm lucky it stayed at this level because there were other things going on; those were dark days for reasons besides hair loss. But I fortunately managed to get my act together by around age 30.
I stopped taking Propecia, as I'd read all the horror stories about how it ****s your endocrine system. I didn't notice much difference after stopping it, but my girlfriend did -- I seemed better "endowed" afterwards, but I had also stopped taking antidepressants around this time as well, so who knows. I also had very mild gyno, but I'd had it since I was a little kid. If the gyno was aggravated by anything, it seemed to have been the SSRI antidepressants in my early twenties -- or their combination with weight gain brought on by not exercising. I don't know.
I read about topical Spironolactone and managed to get a super affordable supply of the stuff by getting a doctor to write a script, and then getting it from a local compounding pharmacy. Using this stuff about 3 x a week along with some very intensive exercise (training in Kenpo and Jiu Jitsu) coincided with my hair seeming to be almost as thick -- okay, like four-fifths as much -- as when I was nineteen. I received compliments from both friends and strangers about it. I tapered down on the spironolactone to like once a week for fear of it screwing up my hormones even though doctors told me only insignificant amounts would get into my bloodstream. This spate of exercise, fairly good diet, a steady job with decent pay, and spiffy hair lasted until I was 35. I also got man-boob surgery which was worth every penny.
Unfortunately, I got laid off from my job in April of 2014, after which I went on unemployment for the first time in my life. It precipitated a deep depression and torpor where I holed up in my apartment and obsessed over my lack of accomplishments in life, both in a career and with relationships. It's the same old demons that drove me to my dark days in my mid to late twenties, but I at least wasn't drinking or messing with drugs.
I lost what felt like a LOT of hair. It SUCKED. So did the stress of job searching and considering going into an entirely different field, which I fortunately have not had to so far -- some persistence and a handful of contacts had me working again after eight months. But my diet was crap, I rarely exercised, and I got more out of shape than I'd been since the bad old days. I even started smoking again, which I hadn't done for like seven years.
So now I have a promising job that is relatively low on stress, I've quit smoking, I'm getting back to the gym, and perhaps most importantly seeing a shrink and trying to go deep and figure out why I haven't been more successful in life. I'm back on topical spironolactone about 3 x a week, I've started massaging the rogaine onto my head instead of dropping it there, I've cut way down on processed foods and simple carbs, and I'm eating more raw veggies. So now I just want to ask you good folks here what you'd recommend I add to my regimen.
Here's some very recent pics: the shaved head three months old, the others from yesterday.
Those were taken with wet, greasy hair and with a desk lamp pointed right at my vertex, so it should look as bad as it gets. Which isn't good, but is a little better than I was afraid it'd look. I like to think that exercise with a kick from the finasteride will make it grow back in a bit, as it has before. But you can see that there's been a lot of hair loss in a short amount of time, which makes me hopeful that it was caused by stress and therefore will maybe grow back in.
Anyway, my sincere thanks for reading this. I'll see you on the boards.
