My scalp has gone to hell.

[wastingpenguins]

This is a little long, but I am eternally grateful to anyone who will read through and help me with my questions at the end.

So anyway. After being on minoxidil for nearly a year, I saw no changes in any way. No improvement, no slowing of hairloss, but no visible shedding, no irritation, inflammation, or itching. NOTHING.

So I started to get worried, and jumped on the Finasteride train. I've been using brand name Propecia and Nizoral 2% for a little over four months. In the past three months, my hair has been shedding pretty fast. It is visibly thinner than it was three months ago, easily.

Now, I would stay calm and just try to ride this out, but I've got another problem-- FLAKES. My scalp has become insanely peely and flaky, and I've afraid that this is only going to make my hairloss worse and worse.

I went to the Derm about five days ago. Her first impression was that it looked like Telogen Effluvium, and she questioned me about stress and medical conditions. Of course, there is definite history in my family for male pattern baldness, so...

First she suggested stopping minoxidil for some other things, but I expressed my concern with stopping-- she agreed that I might actually lose hair from stopping, so she said to just stick with it for now.

She told me to stop the nizoral and put me on a shampoo called Loprox, as well as a 2X per day topical solution called Lidex. She told me that if we can get my scalp under control, there's a good chance of me keeping my hair for now.

1) How much does flaking have to do with hairloss? Is it the same as the dreaded "inflammation" that I hear so much about? Itching isn't bad, I only have a VERY slight itch every once in a while-- it's mostly just flakes peeling off my scalp.

2) Anyone ever heard of Loprox/Lidex?

3) How am I supposed to apply two topicals in the morning? Do I put one on, wait a little while, then put the other on? Is it possible to put them both on around the same time? How long do I have to wait?

4) My derm suggested that it looked like Telogen Effluvium. Are there any tell-tale signs of this? Would she be able to tell just by looking at my hair/scalp? I think I've heard that finasteride can initiate Telogen Effluvium. Is this true?

THANKS!

 

[wastingpenguins]

Hm.

...anyone? Please, I'd really like some input here.

 

[Youngin]

bump

 

[Turbo]

I posted an answer to this on another forum :-

jikslee they were the same symptoms i had first off, the curling is due to the hair shaft getting gradually weaker and finer.

I started to lose my hair when i was 20, after hearing about Minoxidil i decided to give that a try and found that it slowed the rate of my hairloss down considerably. All was well for about 2 years untill my success seemed to run out, i had the same problems as you, intense itching and an overall thinning of the hair. I decided to give Finasteride a try but unfortunatley had very bad side effects and had no choice but to quit after 4 months.

I carried on with the minoxidil as my only treatment right up until the start of last year. My hair was now worse than ever with areas of scalp visably showing through my hair, i found myself trawling through the support forums 4-5 times a day and it was becoming quite depressing. The hairloss wasn't my own problem though i had also developed severe dermatitis all over my scalp and THE worst case of dandruff ive ever had. Everytime i itched my head clumps of hair fell out and had lumps all over my scalp.

I tried every single anti-dandruff shampoo on the market, Head and shouldes, T-Gel, Polytar (which made it worse) oilatum, e.t.c. and nothing worked. I decided enough was enough and went to my doctors who prescribed me nizoral 2%. Although it cleared up some of the dermatitis in the grand scheme of things it was really no better than T-gel and the itching persisted.

It was now mid July last year i was on holiday and seriousley depressed, my hair was falling out faster than ever and my scalp was a mess. When i think back now (exactley a year ago) i honestly thought that by now i would be bald, thats how severe it was. All these people moaning that a few hairs fell out in the shower 10-15 maybe, i was losing that in hour with the itching.

Now this maybe different in other peoples cases and i know Lizard has already posted his findings with this product, but in MY CASE Folligen was my fooking saviour. This is the only thing ive tried on the market out of tons of products that will stop the itching associated with male pattern baldness. My scalp is the best its been for years. I can not recommend this product enough.

Hope this helps