minoxidil- Hair Gain

[giggsy]

All,

I recently saw one of the top doctors in Australia who has become an Endocrinologist and deals with hair loss in many forms. She actually advised that I should get onto rogaine to grow back my hair as a result of telogen effluvium.

I asked her about the hair that is gained and whether you lose all the hair gained from minoxidil once you stop usage. She said that it is not true that you lose ALL the hair that you gain.

She says that in most cases she sees, some hair is maintained and rejoins the original cycle. She gave the example that if you regain 60% of the hair that you lose, in most cases 40% of that hair can be maintained once usage is stopped. She says she has seen this in most case.

 

[Lizzad]

She says that in most cases she sees, some hair is maintained and rejoins the original cycle. She gave the example that if you regain 60% of the hair that you lose, in most cases 40% of that hair can be maintained once usage is stopped. She says she has seen this in most case.

Interesting. But i'd like to see studies before i get my hopes up! Seems very plausible tho...

 

[giggsy]

I agree.

Take my word for it that she is a top doctor in Australia. I mean award winning and stuff.

 

[Lizzad]

Sounds very likely. It's unlikely all the hairs stimulated by minoxidil are "dying/dead", some are probably merely in a resting phase. Difficult to assess what percentage tho as it will differ in each case.

Lets keep our fingers crossed! :rockon:

 

[Redbone]

Very interesting as most doctors in the US even the manufacturer say you will loose all hair re-grown within three for four months of cessation. I have never heard anyone argue this point. Sounds great if it is true but I somehow think there are long term users on this board who will disagree with your Doctor. Some even say minoxidil becomes inaffective after 5 years of usage.

 

[giggsy]

Are these the same doctors that say that minoxidil does not work on frontal hair loss and that minoxidil only works to combat hereditary hair loss?

 

[NilesTilden]

You say you had a telogen effluvium? Was it caused by surgery, medication, stress or something?

Could she have meant that the hairs you lost due to the Telogen Effluvium would remain after stopping minoxidil? Because I've read that when one loses hair due to Telogen Effluvium, those hairs will regrow on their own anyway, without any treatment.

I've always heard you can expect a major shed after quitting minoxidil, makes sense to me.

 

[joe_mama]

Hey

NilesTilden is right. This doctor is talking about hairloss due only to a telogen effluvium. minoxidil kicks these hairs into the growth stage earlier than they would on their own. Now to maintain results due to male pattern baldness, you need to continue minoxidil use.

 

[giggsy]

--

Yeah, I guess both of you raise a good point-- She didnt actually mention male pattern baldness at all

 

[Pelican]

DHT

By the same token, the advantage of using Minoxidil with a DHT blocker is that more than likely the DHT blocker is preventing the follicular damage responsible for 'losing all the hair your regrew when you go off Minoxidil'.

If you're regrowing hair in significantly thinned/near-slick areas, you probably don't have much chance of retaining the hair on a regimine that includes a DHT blocker, but if you're a guy thickening up his hairline and thinned areas there's a strong case to be made for using both for the exact reason that you're more likely to protect - for at least several years - your follicles in anticipation of more effective future treatments.

A guy I used to work with but lost contact with about a year ago went down a similar path. He used 1.25 mg of Finasteride daily (divided Proscar), one tablet total per week meaning two days a week off it, and Minoxidil. He used this system for a couple of years and had some cosmetically notable success (filled in a relatively large thinned but not slick area in the crown, substantially thicked up the area immediately behind his hairline and filled in enough of his hairline that to look at him you'd never know he thinned, you might think he's just one of the many guys who have 'that kind of hairline' that's a bit higher and not even close to straight across). Sometime in early 2001 I believe he stopped using Minoxidil. He said he thinks he saw some increased fallout in the first few months and that his temples may have thinned a bit, but he also changed his hairstyle slighty at the same time so I couldn't be sure. Either way, he left for a different job around this time in 2002, and in the year and a half or so between the time he stopped minoxidil and then I never noticed any real change in his hair other than his monthly haircut. He maintained what he had grown using just the finasteride, at least for that period of time. Again, he didn't regrow slick bald areas, but he had definite regrowth with minoxidil/finasteride and definitely kept the vast majority of it for at least a year+ with just finasteride.