mires's story

[mires]

I don't know if you have ever considered this, but it's just a thought. My hair loss is very similar to yours, except for the fact that I'm a little younger. I went with the shaved look for a short time, and it never worked for me at all! Receding with hair an inch long is so much better for me than the shaved look!

It wasn't until I discover concealers that it changed a lot for me. It looks like you've gotten a little regrowth, and who knows how good it might look if you grow it out and add a little concealer to it. Just a thought, but I had to mention it to you because I've never been happier since I first started putting a little concealer on the top. It looks better, and better everyday that my hair gets longer.

Never thought I'd ever consider a concealer in my hair, but at the end of the day it works, and I've always told myself I'd do anything. There's some picks of my results on my page. Good luck to you buddy!

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=70476&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Thanks for the reply, I actually have purchased HairSoReal-fibers and dermmatch some time ago. You seem to be having nice results with concealers . I didn't like the fibers much, the colour wasn't a perfect match and it just didn't look all that great with short hair. I'm thinking that the fibers work best with longer hair. Dermmatch, on the other hand, works great even with very short hair.

The problem with concealers is that you'll have to stick with them once you start and I'd hate being caught wearing them. My goal is to first try and regrow as much hair as possible with my regimen and then add concealers when I reach a level where it starts to look like I'm just maintaining or losing ground again.

That's interesting you find that DermMatch works with short hairs. I use both a fibre (Toppik) and DermMatch. DermMatch will look like that you've "painted your scalp" on short hair. I have medium length hair and I usually apply dermmatch for a base then fill it in with Toppik. Works great, although I think it's important to always carry a hat especially if it's windy.

Have you tried scalp micropigmentation? I saw a report on it and it may be good if you like to buzz your hair like that. I'm sure there are pluses/minuses to it like everything else but it could work.

I never managed to make the fibers (HairSoReal) stick properly and they don't seem to have my colour, it just looked way too fake. I think it might work ok with longer hair, though.

And no, I haven't tried scalp micropigmentation. My goal is to be able to let my hair grow out again and then any micropigmentation would just be a waste of money. If, however, I will lose the battle against male pattern baldness even with my current regimen before I'm 40 then I might consider it. It's better than the horseshoe, at least

 

[mires]

Week 23 - 13.3.2012

Haven't updated this thread in a while, mainly due to lack of time and interest. I am still sticking to my regimen but I'm not monitoring my hair as closely as I did in the beginning (which is a good thing) and I haven't bothered taking pictures.

I've been growing my hair out a lot longer now, I haven't had hair this long since 2009 I think. I feel a lot more confident and happy with my looks, the overall density of my hair has improved and it grows significantly longer now. My temples still look bald but even there are a lot of tiny vellus hairs with pigment.

I don't really want to buzz my hair all the way down to 2mm now anymore because I am finally able to let it grow out a bit again so the most recent pictures are of 4-6mm hair. I have recently added a conditioner to my regimen because all the alcohol and other crap I smother my scalp with makes the hair very dry and brittle. Fortunately a good conditioner solves this problem. I buzz the hair a bit shorter on the sides to improve the look so my actual results aren't quite as good as the pictures make them out to be. Still, I am happy with the progress so far considering the baseline (check out page 1 of this thread also).

My hair is obviously different lengths in the comparison picture but you should be able to see that improvement has been made.

 

[mires]

Oh and I almost forgot, here is my

Current regimen:

Topicals:
Rogaine Foam 5% in the morning
Kirkland minoxidil 5% in the evening
Nizoral 2% topical cream twice a week
Emu oil EOD after applying kirkland minoxidil

Anti-androgens:
0.625mg finasteride daily

Supplements:
Priorin twice a day
2.5mg Biotin daily
15mg zinc daily
40mg methionine daily
2 grams MSM daily (morning, evening)
Fish-liver oil capsules twice a day with 650mg Omega-3, 10ug D3, 250ug A and 10mg E in total

Shampoos and conditioners:
Nizoral 2% shampoo every other day
Priorin shampoo (supposed anti hair loss product) whenever I don't use Nizoral
L'Oreal Volume Collagen conditioner ~5 times per week

Other:
Needling EOD
Scalp exercises (haven't really remembered to do these at all lately)

 

[mires]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Week 27 - 9.4.2012

Today is the 6-month mark of my regimen and to "celebrate" that I buzzed my hair down to 2mm again to get a better before and after comparison of my progress. Unfortunately I was unable to take a decent picture of my buzzed hair but I'll post a picture of it regardless.

The area between the crown and the thin patch before "the island" has filled up nicely and if things continue to improve at this rate it'll soon look like I have no hair loss at all in that area! The crown has also filled up nicely but is still clearly very thin and I suspect it will take another 6 months before it looks somewhat normal and thick again.

The temples, unsurprisingly, still look pretty much slick bald but as mentioned earlier I have a nice amount of new vellus hairs with pigment sprouting even there. The hairs are 1-3mm in length and they seem to be getting stronger, darker and longer but progress happens very, very slowly. I do however consider it a success that I have managed to re-activate most (if not all) hair follicles in the temple areas that have been dormant for almost 10 years.

In short; my first 6 months of treatment brought me back to NW4 from NW5.

 

[dboty]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Sick results dude! That looks like a lot of progress for just 6 months.

 

[Baker1986]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Looking good! I would say your back to a NW2.5-3.

 

[Northman]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Great tracking. We have similar hair loss patterns and I am hoping to achieve the kind of baseline progress you have.

 

[mires]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Thanks for the replies, I hope you'll make good progress as well, Northman.

I feel like the finasteride really kicked in 3 months ago or so and all regrowth I got before that was mainly thanks to the minoxidil. So no surprise there, the big 3 is still your best bet if you want good results.

Apart from the big 3 the things that have helped me the most are:

1. Skin needling after showering - it dramatically increases the absorption of topicals and promotes collagen growth.
2. Emu oil - it is awesome for the skin, not just the scalp. It reduces the redness and itchiness caused by minoxidil, ketoconazole and other irritants. It also supposedly helps the absorption of other topicals.
3. Biotin & MSM - they've greatly improved the overall quality and strength of hairs all over my body.
4. Hair conditioner - I had never used conditioner before in my life but all the alcohol in minoxidil together with Nizoral shampoo really dried out my hair and made it look greyish and thin so I had to do something about it. I've noticed that a proper conditioner helps in at least giving an illusion of healthier and thicker hair.

Btw, I did try dermmatch just before I buzzed my hair and it did actually make me look like a solid NW2.5 without seeming fake. It was nice to have at least the illusion of a full head of hair again after all these years but I'm not going to start using it regularly. My goal is still to have hair thick and long enough to not need concealers for good coverage.

 

[mires]

Re: mires's story, new pics

Week 31 - 23.5.2012

Today's update includes two new pictures taken today and an old one from when I had just started on my regimen. The pictures encompassing most of my head obviously have different lighting and different angles and the length of hair isn't the same but it still pretty much sums up my progress so far.

I still clearly have the annoying "island" at the front and my crown is thin but I have made nice gains in all areas including my temples which is seen in detail in the high-res close-up. If only those vellus hairs would turn terminal... They are at the moment only visible at close range and my temples still appear completely bald when viewed at a distance (see picture #2). Well, at least the vellus hairs have pigment now which wasn't the case a few months back. The length of my hair is 5-7mm in the most recent pics.

I haven't really made any changes to my regimen during the last month except for applying nizoral cream maybe only like once a week nowadays. I just don't feel like it's doing all that much and it's annoying to apply now that my hair is longer.

 

[Northman]

Re: mires's story [update 23.5.2012]

That looks like you are making significant improvement!

 

[mires]

One year mark (week 51/52) - 9.10.2012

I now have been on my regimen for a whole year and if you compare my current pics with the ones page 1 you will see that I have made a lot of progress. I have managed to completely halt the balding process and I have quite a lot of regrowth in all male pattern baldness-affected areas. That being said I had hoped for more progress considering the time, effort and money put into this "project".

I have noticed/learned through experience during the last year that it is indeed true what they say about male pattern baldness; the sooner you begin treatment the better. I am still regaining ground from male pattern baldness and I believe I will continue to do so for at least another year but the process is painstakingly slow. The hairs I have "gained" are highly minoxidil-dependent and it is almost impossible to transform them into proper terminal hairs. Also, all the minoxidil-hairs are thinner than regular hairs and they have less pigment. If you look closely at Picture #4 you can see 2-3 terminal hairs amongst a bunch of minoxidil-hairs and the difference in colour and thickness is very obvious. Another important thing here is that even when the hair goes terminal the follicle keeps producing only one hair whereas in non-male pattern baldness affected areas the follicles push out several hairs at once. This combined with the lighter pigment and thinness of the minoxidil hairs is the main reason why my balding areas still look quite bad to the naked eye even though all the follicles are active even in my temples. I am thinking that I probably should start dyeing my hair regularly to make the new hairs more visible. Oh and one more thing that I have noticed, even in the newest male pattern baldness-affected areas where I have had a lot regrowth and vellus hairs going terminal the hairs do simply not possess the same "strength" as hair immune to DHT. The hairs simply do not stand up like normal hairs do, for example when wet, probably due to the detachment from the arrector pili-muscle. So when I get out from the shower all the hairs on the top of my head are lying flat against my scalp whereas the hairs on the sides and in the back are standing up. This is most likely something that current treatments can't do anything about and it is another piece in the male pattern baldness-puzzle which prevents us from completely reversing the balding process.

So in short; good news is that pretty much all of my follicles have reactivated and they are now pushing hairs and even regaining pigment BUT the bad news is that they really don't seem to want to go terminal and the density is crap because the hairs produced are thin and there is only 1 hair per follicle.



Attached pictures:

1st and 2nd, before cutting my hair today
3rd, hair buzzed down to #2 guard
4th, close-up of right temple



Current regimen:
Topicals:
Kirkland Foam 5% in the morning
Kirkland minoxidil 5% in the evening
Nizoral 2% topical cream EOD
Emu oil EOD after applying kirkland minoxidil in the evening


Anti-androgens:
0.625mg finasteride daily

Supplements:
Priorin twice a day
5mg Biotin daily
2 grams MSM daily (morning, evening)
Fish-liver oil capsules twice a day with 650mg Omega-3, 10ug D3, 250ug A and 10mg E in total
Resveratrol 250mg daily
B-vitamin supplement (B1,2,3,5,6,12)

Shampoos and conditioners:
Nizoral 2% shampoo every other day
Priorin shampoo (supposed anti hair loss product) whenever I don't use Nizoral
L'Oreal Volume Collagen conditioner ~2 times per week

Other:
Needling EOD
Scalp exercises (haven't really remembered to do these at all lately)
Every now and then I rub in castor oil and I'm testing topical MSM on my left temple

 

[antman]

thanks for the post / update. the change in the overall quality of your hair is impressive but i c what you mean about it not quite what you want. hopefully u'll find something that works for u.

 

[mires]

Week 57 - 21.11.2012

A quick update about Careprost (generic bimatoprost). I have purchased two bottles (3ml each) of Careprost and I will be testing it on my left temple to see how much merit it has against male pattern baldness. I've talked about this over at the "other forum" and I'll post the same thing here:

I've now received my bottles of careprost in the mail. I'm thinking about only applying it to my left temple, one drop/day. But I am already using minoxidil (+ EOD emu oil and nizoral cream) on my scalp every morning and evening and I don't that I should mix it with the careprost. So I'm thinking that I should probably apply it in the middle of the day, or? I need to find some way to apply the drop evenly without getting most of it on my fingers, maybe with a touch screen stylus or something?

A couple of pictures just for you guys:

Click here for fullsized picture: http://i.imgur.com/kYkYw.jpg

Click here for fullsized picture: http://i.imgur.com/xOxaZ.jpg

The first one is from pretty much exactly one year ago, the other one is taken today (21.11.2012). My regimen has improved the situation a lot but there are some really tiny vellus hairs at the edge of my hairline which seem to refuse to become bigger and longer (see close-up of the second picture). I am hoping bimatoprost will change that. I have enough Careprost for at least two months if I apply one drop and spread it evenly on the temple area. I'll get back to you guys in january and post a new high resolution close-up.

Oh and since the length of hair, lighting and camera angle are different in the pictures I thought I'd post a comparison picture where I have circled the same two liver spots/scars/whatever they are on both pictures:

Click here for fullsized picture: http://i.imgur.com/7l9Ep.jpg

 

[mires]

Looking at your PICS, Mires. Whilst you may not been fully content with the amount of regrowth you have achieved. The results you have got are still pretty damn good considering you were a NW5. You could however be a good candidate for FUE, is that an option you would consider?

Thanks for your reply. I haven't really considered FUE or any other hair transplantation methods for treating my hair loss mainly due to cost and the fact that I've gotten used to keeping my hair really short. I am probably one of the "lucky ones" in that a shaved look suits me so male pattern baldness is not *that* big of a deal to me... I could live with shaving my head for the rest of my life. Right now my goal is to get as much regrowth as possible and maintain what I have in hope that we'll get better treatment options in the future.

FUE and stuff like scalp micro-pigmentation are things that I don't really care to try because I'm not really "HC" enough about my hair loss to resort to such methods. I like to go the non-surgical route and see how much I can do with just eating a few pills and smothering my scalp with various chemicals.

 

[mires]

Week 59 - 8.12.2012

I've been using Careprost (generic bimatoprost) for a couple of weeks now and so far I haven't seen results from it. Remember that I am applying it to an area which has been slick bald for many years and hasn't responded much to my regimen so far. Which means that it is easy to spot any changes due to the low density and length of hair. My initial minoxidil regrowth I did notice after just two weeks when I started my regimen a year ago.

Anyway, I have also ordered 5 bottles of Capillogain and I might even try to completely replace Kirkland 5% liquid minoxidil with it if it seems to be a quality product. It contains triaminodil which is very similar to minoxidil so it doesn't make sense to use them both at the same time. Capillogain has a lot of awesome ingredients so I'm hoping that it will help me with gaining even more ground. But I am also sceptical because it for sure has good ingredients on paper but how well they actually work together when put into the same bottle is something no one knows. The safety of Capillogain hasn't (as far as I know) been researched either...

For anyone else here who keeps a blog/"story" over their hairloss, please consider posting your results in this thread which is about who has had success and with what treatments: http://www.hairlosshelp.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=103271&enterthread=y

To conclude todays post here is a merged image from several hairline/front pictures from the beginning of my regimen to today in chronological order (MM/YYYY):




(click image for fullsize picture)

 

[mires]

Week 66 - 21.1.2013

A couple of things to report regarding my regimen;

• I've now been using Capillogain for ~1 month
• I've been applying Careprost (generic Bimatoprost) on my left temple for 1.5 months
• I've stopped using Nizoral cream
• I've reduced the usage of Nizoral shampoo to 1-2 times/week

I finally learned at the end of last year that sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to Nizoral use. Until now I had experienced some level of scalp itch during my entire regimen and last fall it slowly got significantly worse and my hair was actually starting to look worse again after a few months of no progress. I desperately tried to remedy the situation by using more 2% Nizoral cream and other topicals and washing my hair up to 4-5 times per week with 2% Nizoral shampoo but it didn't seem to help so then I finally decided to try and cut down on treatments and noticed that my scalp itch was pretty much completely eliminated in just a few days after stopping Nizoral.

Tl;dr, Nizoral was causing major irritation inflammation with scalp itch which led to hairloss.

The catastrophe with Nizoral taught me the importance of monitoring scalp itch levels when using topicals. My scalp has been feeling a lot better now and my hair looks better as well, I'm even skipping shampooing altogether on some days because it does seem to give my skin a needed brake and some time to recover. My hair also looks a lot thicker if I don't wash it every day.

So all in all now that I've eliminated the irritation inflammation and introduced Capillogain into my regimen I have high hopes for making good progress in 2013. The inflammation from nizoral overuse probably set my progress back by several months but I don't think I did any permanent damage at least :crazy:


This picture was taken today under very harsh lighting (click image for fullsize picture):

 

[TMNK]

I'm sorry, but I'd rather not share my location.

I understand that buddy. I feel the same. The reason I asked was that I need help to find finasteride in Denmark. I can't find any trustworthy pharmacy sites who delivers to my country. If you know a site, I will be ever gratefull.

 

[mires]

I understand that buddy. I feel the same. The reason I asked was that I need help to find finasteride in Denmark. I can't find any trustworthy pharmacy sites who delivers to my country. If you know a site, I will be ever gratefull.

Nope, sorry, I haven't looked into pharmacy sites at all really. I was really lucky with my finasteride prescription because I found a doctor who knew about what a rip-off brand name Propecia actually is and he was more than happy to prescribe me generic 5mg finasteride which is dirt cheap. The first Doctor I had talked to knew nothing about hair loss and the positive effects of finasteride on hair and he very reluctantly prescribed me 1mg Propecia. I quickly dropped it though due to the cost (I was a student at the time).

What I'm saying is that convincing a doctor to "upgrade" your existing Propecia prescription to 5mg generic finasteride is probably in most cases a lot easier than trying to get that generic 5mg finasteride to begin with. Might be worth a try?

For the sake of my blog/story, here's my updated regimen:

Topicals:
Capillogain Tonic in the morning
Kirkland minoxidil 5% in the evening
Emu oil EOD after applying kirkland minoxidil in the evening

5α-reductase inhibitor:
0.625mg finasteride daily

Supplements:
5mg Biotin daily
2 grams MSM daily (morning, evening)
Fish-liver oil capsules twice a day with 650mg Omega-3, 10ug D3, 250ug A and 10mg E in total
Resveratrol 250mg daily
Bio-Curcumin 400mg daily
15mg Zinc daily
25 micrograms D3-vitamin daily

Shampoos and conditioners:
Nizoral 2% shampoo every other day
Priorin shampoo (supposed anti hair loss product) whenever I don't use Nizoral
L'Oreal Volume Collagen conditioner every now and then

Other:
Microneedling EOD in the evening

 

[TMNK]

I should give that a try. Did you just send a lot of mails to different doctors, or where you just lucky ending up with a doctor knowing about Propecia?

Thanks for your help. The prices are really expensive, but 5mg could might well be the answer then. How much does it cost for you?

 

[mires]

I should give that a try. Did you just send a lot of mails to different doctors, or where you just lucky ending up with a doctor knowing about Propecia?

Thanks for your help. The prices are really expensive, but 5mg could might well be the answer then. How much does it cost for you?

I just got lucky with the second doctor, I was still studying at the time and he was a dedicated student doctor. He had a "stick it to the man (Merck)" attitude and was more than happy to prescribe me generic Finasteride. I bought 100 5mg pills for about 20 dollars (converted obviously) and since I cut the pills into 1/8ths it'll last me over two years. So Finasteride is costing me only the equivalent of 10 dollars/year. The first prescription ran out ages ago but once you have the original prescription you can just take it with you to the doctor and show it to him/her and they'll renew it without any objectionsm, at least where I live.

Oh and here are a couple of pictures showing my latest progress which I mainly attribute to introducing Capillogain into my regimen 2 months ago:



(click picture for larger image)