New Dermaroller Study; Thoughts, comments?

[benjt]

Yes, a diffuse thinner all over the top is certainly much better off than most NWs above 2.0. princessRambo, from reading the studies you know yourself that there is a lot of interdependence on neighboring follicles. This is shown by regworth only being possible 95% of the time very close to the hairline, and shown by the "wave" in one of squeegee's latest posts. Stem cells, growth factors (for signalling) and the like are recruited from among neighboring follicles. As long as you still have some in an area, it's easy to regrow.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your photos. This should show pretty well how well this treatment works.

In terms of tracing back the chain of events here, this is the relevant passage stating that PGD2 is elevation is mediated through androgens:

Intriguingly, Ptgds is a highly testosterone-responsive transcript (30, 31), which further suggests its importance in Androgenetic Alopecia. PGD[SUB]2[/SUB] is thought to play a central role in male gonadal sex determination (32) and is highly expressed in male genitalia (32, 33). Similarly, Ptgds expression in the heart is regulated by estrogen (34). Estrogen leads to increases in 15-dPGJ[SUB]2[/SUB] levels in the uropygial gland (35). Recent evidence also suggests that prostaglandins induce virilization of the mouse brain through estrogen (36). Given the androgens are aromatized into estrogens, these results may be relevant to hair growth and alopecia in both men and women. Thus, these or similar pathways might be conserved in the skin and suggest that sex hormone regulation of Ptgds may contribute to the pathogenesis of Androgenetic Alopecia.

Now, next questions going further up stream:
1. What can lead to follicles producing too much DHT locally? (resulting in high PGD2)
2. What can lead to not enough aromatase around follicles? (resulting in low PGE2)

 

[princessRambo]

totally!!





Diffuse thinner are lucky SOB. They mostly have the best success.. because everything is weakened, not lost.

this is a true NW7..

View attachment 21714

Yeah, that's why I said it was close to norwood 7, I only had peach fuzz on top, bear in my mind, my hairloss was untreated for 14 years+ (thinning probably started sooner than I noticed). The remaining peach fuzz on top wasn't far from vanishing. Here is a somewhat chronological order

Balding:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/smhlvh3k3hns8oa/beforeBalding2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/70xg5skn3pnyli3/afroBeforeBalding.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lzic6e56p6juikk/BaldingGettingObvious2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqbie9ghsoz78j5/BaldingMoreShowingSidesLongerThanTop2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/emu2uox5ong6kxj/baldingShowingMore.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/re3zkpcata3e4dp/bald_TopNotGrowingAnymore.jpg

Recovering:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15olt9ga542apyb/another.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ep88a1s7ht70h5l/top2.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jl61we456eh0sro/last.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/28smibu8rx3eqvc/grownedSlightly.jpg

 

[CursedMen]

Any one have some input on what size roller is best for absorption? Sorry if already discussed.

 

[princessRambo]

Any one have some input on what size roller is best for absorption? Sorry if already discussed.

less than 0.25mm, if absorption is all you want.

 

[cthulhu2.0]

Alright, I am going to document with different pictures my hair loss journey.

First, my genetic makeup, I am bi-racial african-american/white, so my hair phenotype is the crazy afro a la beyonce or lenny kravitz, kind of like that when it used to grow crazy:

As far as hairline goes, it is very similar to Kobe Bryant's, in fact, it is almost identical, very high, never receded, just thinned out of nowhere (like kobe did as well):

Brothers, dad and my son all have the same high hairline. So that gives you a little picture of how my hair and hairline looked pre-balding.

Here is my hairline in my high teens:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/smhlvh3k3hns8oa/beforeBalding2.jpg



Here is my crazy afro all growned out (note, these photos are very old, so quality may not be the best, and some of them are actually scans of printouts as fancy digital cams weren't a commodity back in the days .

View attachment 21705

https://www.dropbox.com/s/70xg5skn3pnyli3/afroBeforeBalding.jpg


The above is the last afro I could successfully pull, with every subsequent hair cycle, the top kept getting thinner and thinner. You can clearly see in the picture below that the top is noticeably thinner, and it kept going.

View attachment 21706
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lzic6e56p6juikk/BaldingGettingObvious2.jpg

Below, I cut my hair because the afro wasn't fooling anyone anymore ;(. You can see the sides already thicker and growing way faster than the top.

View attachment 21707
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fqbie9ghsoz78j5/BaldingMoreShowingSidesLongerThanTop2.jpg

Below, as a kept shaving my head, bald patches can be seen getting obvious, the top is growing as a snails pace. Look at dat shiny reflection on top :woot:

View attachment 21708
https://www.dropbox.com/s/emu2uox5ong6kxj/baldingShowingMore.jpg

In the picture below, I am totally fcked!! the top will simply not grow past half an inch, even waiting a whole year, most hair are thin an vellus like with no dark pigment at all, the hair on top will simply not grow, period.

View attachment 21713


ALL IMAGES BELOW ARE are between august and september, I started treating my hair exactly feb15, never used finasteride, started minoxidil the first week of august after the dermaroller thing started, so my regrowth can't be due to minoxidil either (though the compounding effect with dermarolling is showing good things so far).

Before I started treatment, I only had to trim the sides every week or so to get rid of the annoying horseshoe pattern, the top not growing no matter what, I didn't need to shave it.

Around the end of June the top kept growing darker, terminal looking hair slowly, so I had to start trimming both sides and top to have something cosmetically decent.


This is after I started dermarolling, minoxidil can clearly be seen dried around the hairline, it also makes my scalp and hair look whitish.

View attachment 21710
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15olt9ga542apyb/another.jpg

Below is grown slightly, you see the top is still composed of non-fully pigmented terminal hair, but it is definitely semi-terminal and grows at a little faster rate, nowhere near how fast the sides grow though

View attachment 21711
https://www.dropbox.com/s/28smibu8rx3eqvc/grownedSlightly.jpg

Below is a clearer view of the top directly under light, close up look with hair cut very short, you can see the sides still way thicker than the top, semi terminal and few patches of terminal hair can be seen all over, what you can't see is the thousands of thin/vellus looking peach fuzz all over. What is also happening is that the scalp is getting thicker and tiny black hair follicles ready to sprout are all over seems to be spreading all over the top and that is changing the texture of the scalp

View attachment 21712


Below is the longest I have grown it so far, lighting isn't the best though, top still look thin compared to the sides, but I came from literally nothing, so I can't be complaining, darn it, the forum only allows attaching 8 picture per post, so I am attaching this a different way:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/28smibu8rx3eqvc/grownedSlightly.jpg

Scalp can still be seen through the top because of not having fully terminal hair all over. I wasn't going to post anything till around the january timeframe because I wanted to assess how effective the derma rolling works (started early august). Time will tell but I am happy so far. I came from nearly a norwood 7, I say nearly because random peach fuzz would still grow half an inch but the growth was stunted. Am I happy? heck yes, but I think I can improve to the point of full recovery with time. What I noticed so far is that my balding is going away exactly in reverse order. What I attribute most my success also is consistency.

This is the major problem with most people in my opinion. They will try every single treatment in the world as soon as they hear something good about it. They jump from topical to topical every month or so and never consistent with anything. They will quickly abandon an existing treatment that maybe doing incredible things (not yet noticeable) as soon as they read a post from some random dude on the internet claiming they have been on the same treatment since they were in their mother's womb and it didn't do $hit for them.

I think a lot of things work given adequate consistency, heck, I think even vigorously scratching your head with your nail might give you some results if you are consistent enough (I think odabalk or someone else mentioned that is what a friend of theirs does, this was months back early in this thread). My point is, treat your hair or do nothing, don't be wishy washy in what you are doing, pick something smart and be consistent:

Revelation 3:15-16

dude, those are amazing results. Congrats!
Are you following the study or kind of doing your own thing with experimentation?

 

[Manoko]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to these forum, and I'll start by apologizing for my english since it is not my native language, i'll try to do my best.

Anyway, my question is simple. Derma-rolling seems to be a reset switch which activates growth factors leading to hair regeneration, and break fibrosis, and Minoxidil seem to speed up this process as well from what I understood.
But, the new hair are still growing in an area full of the bad proteins and inflammations that will ultimately lead the new hair to fall prematurely like the previous ones too.

So, my question is: which topical would you recommend to maintain this newly "non-fibrotic" skin, so that the hair won't grow in a "soon-to-bald" area if the reset switch isn't always pushed ?

Thanks a lot.

PS: By the way, PrincessRambo, benjt, and others: your posts are so informative and clear. And Princess, I am glad that you came back to this thread. I value your input a lot. So thank you.

 

[squeegee]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to these forum, and I'll start by apologizing for my english since it is not my native language, i'll try to do my best.

Anyway, my question is simple. Derma-rolling seems to be a reset switch which activates growth factors leading to hair regeneration, and break fibrosis, and Minoxidil seem to speed up this process as well from what I understood.
But, the new hair are still growing in an area full of the bad proteins and inflammations that will ultimately lead the new hair to fall prematurely like the previous ones too.

So, my question is: which topical would you recommend to maintain this newly "non-fibrotic" skin, so that the hair won't grow in a "soon-to-bald" area if the reset switch isn't always pushed ?

Thanks a lot.

PS: By the way, PrincessRambo, benjt, and others: your posts are so informative and clear. And Princess, I am glad that you came back to this thread. I value your input a lot. So thank you.

Keep on rollin! this is the best way to go. Maintenance is the key. It is just like going to the gym.

- - - Updated - - -

[video=youtube;Cf0y-oVyoco]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0y-oVyoco[/video]

 

[Manoko]

Keep on rollin! this is the best way to go. Maintenance is the key. It is just like going to the gym.

Thanks for the reply.

So you say that the time-frame between two rolling sessions is so small that the inflammation and other negative things for our purpose do not have enough time to kick in ?

 

[benjt]

The graph was posted some time earlier in this thread. I think that wound healing goes on for up to two weeks, provided damage was deeper than only epidermis. I recently also can't roll once a week anymore, more like once every 10 days.


As my last post was lost in between the currently very frequent other postings, I'll just c&p it again:

Yes, a diffuse thinner all over the top is certainly much better off than most NWs above 2.0. princessRambo, from reading the studies you know yourself that there is a lot of interdependence on neighboring follicles. This is shown by regworth only being possible 95% of the time very close to the hairline, and shown by the "wave" in one of squeegee's latest posts. Stem cells, growth factors (for signalling) and the like are recruited from among neighboring follicles. As long as you still have some in an area, it's easy to regrow.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your photos. This should show pretty well how well this treatment works.

In terms of tracing back the chain of events here, this is the relevant passage stating that PGD2 is elevation is mediated through androgens:

Intriguingly, Ptgds is a highly testosterone-responsive transcript (30, 31), which further suggests its importance in Androgenetic Alopecia. PGD[SUB]2[/SUB] is thought to play a central role in male gonadal sex determination (32) and is highly expressed in male genitalia (32, 33). Similarly, Ptgds expression in the heart is regulated by estrogen (34). Estrogen leads to increases in 15-dPGJ[SUB]2[/SUB] levels in the uropygial gland (35). Recent evidence also suggests that prostaglandins induce virilization of the mouse brain through estrogen (36). Given the androgens are aromatized into estrogens, these results may be relevant to hair growth and alopecia in both men and women. Thus, these or similar pathways might be conserved in the skin and suggest that sex hormone regulation of Ptgds may contribute to the pathogenesis of Androgenetic Alopecia.

Now, next questions going further up stream:
1. What can lead to follicles producing too much DHT locally? (resulting in high PGD2)
2. What can lead to not enough aromatase around follicles? (resulting in low PGE2)

 

[princessRambo]

- - - Updated - - -

[video=youtube;Cf0y-oVyoco]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0y-oVyoco[/video]

Hahaha, yeah I have been told many times in the past that I looked very much like lenny kravitz, but the bastard never went bald

dude, those are amazing results. Congrats!
Are you following the study or kind of doing your own thing with experimentation?

No I am not following the study, I do more damage and wait longer (my last rolling cycle lasted 3 weeks). Also I do not attribute my result to dermarolling alone, it helped a lot and is turning thinner hair into more terminal looking strands, but I only started rolling since the beginning of august, so time will tell, if I can pull the 'fro off again to match my son's 'fro, I will be in heaven nfire:

 

[squeegee]

Thanks for the reply.

So you say that the time-frame between two rolling sessions is so small that the inflammation and other negative things for our purpose do not have enough time to kick in ?

That is correct! DHT need to settle in .. but having your skin in continual repairing state, androgen don't stand a chance to induce fibrosis.

 

[Manoko]

That is correct! DHT need to settle in .. but having your skin in continual repairing state, androgen don't stand a chance to induce fibrosis.

I am glad I understood it clearly then.
Thank you Squeegee for answering my questions.

 

[squeegee]

I am glad I understood it clearly then.
Thank you Squeegee for answering my questions.

It is all good Mano! Vive la France!

 

[princessRambo]

The graph was posted some time earlier in this thread. I think that wound healing goes on for up to two weeks, provided damage was deeper than only epidermis. I recently also can't roll once a week anymore, more like once every 10 days.


As my last post was lost in between the currently very frequent other postings, I'll just c&p it again:

Yes, a diffuse thinner all over the top is certainly much better off than most NWs above 2.0. princessRambo, from reading the studies you know yourself that there is a lot of interdependence on neighboring follicles. This is shown by regworth only being possible 95% of the time very close to the hairline, and shown by the "wave" in one of squeegee's latest posts. Stem cells, growth factors (for signalling) and the like are recruited from among neighboring follicles. As long as you still have some in an area, it's easy to regrow.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your photos. This should show pretty well how well this treatment works.

This is right on, the wounding theory shows that b catenin isn't expressed within the wound bed itself but directly in hair follicle adjacent to the wound, so as long as you don't have dormant follicles, the theory should work more in favor of diffused areas. This is all theory of course

 

[benjt]

The reason why I c&p'ed my last post was more this part

In terms of tracing back the chain of events here, this is the relevant passage stating that PGD2 is elevation is mediated through androgens:

Intriguingly, Ptgds is a highly testosterone-responsive transcript (30, 31), which further suggests its importance in Androgenetic Alopecia. PGD[SUB]2[/SUB] is thought to play a central role in male gonadal sex determination (32) and is highly expressed in male genitalia (32, 33). Similarly, Ptgds expression in the heart is regulated by estrogen (34). Estrogen leads to increases in 15-dPGJ[SUB]2[/SUB] levels in the uropygial gland (35). Recent evidence also suggests that prostaglandins induce virilization of the mouse brain through estrogen (36). Given the androgens are aromatized into estrogens, these results may be relevant to hair growth and alopecia in both men and women. Thus, these or similar pathways might be conserved in the skin and suggest that sex hormone regulation of Ptgds may contribute to the pathogenesis of Androgenetic Alopecia.

Now, next questions going further up stream:
1. What can lead to follicles producing too much DHT locally? (resulting in high PGD2)
2. What can lead to not enough aromatase around follicles? (resulting in low PGE2)



I'm trying to do some backtracking towards the initial culprit.

 

[squeegee]

The reason why I c&p'ed my last post was more this part

In terms of tracing back the chain of events here, this is the relevant passage stating that PGD2 is elevation is mediated through androgens:


Now, next questions going further up stream:
1. What can lead to follicles producing too much DHT locally? (resulting in high PGD2)
2. What can lead to not enough aromatase around follicles? (resulting in low PGE2)



I'm trying to do some backtracking towards the initial culprit.

Low endogenous antioxidant? Glutathione.. Over-active androgen receptor?

Androgens have been reported to stimulate free radical damage and deplete glutathione in human prostate cancer cells (4). Given the natural decline of glutathione levels with aging, it is suggested that androgens induce pro-oxidative stress, which, unopposed by a weakened glutathione system, contributes to the development of prostate cancer.

4. Ripple MO, Henry WF, Randall P et al. Pro-oxidant-antioxidant shift induced by androgen treatment of human prostate carcinoma cells. J Natl Cancer Inst 89:40-48,1997.

 

[DesperateOne]

Rambo, you need to make a quick blogspot on your exact regime please. I know you put bits and peices here and there, heck just give me the text and I will set it up myself. I think many people will benefit from It, I truely do. It is just too difficult to follow this thread now.

 

[bhobho]

wow congrats rambo, really impressive! I have a question, what size roller do you use?
thx a lot for your photo and for your answer!

 

[benjt]

The amount of bullsh*t coming out of Fred is unbelievable.

Actually, the diffuse thinners have the most aggressive hair loss.

Complete bullsh*t, as explained by many others before.

I'm not convinced by replies like PrincessRambo's, maybe had he chosen another name, and maybe had he not had a weird obsession with Game of Thrones, I would have taken it seriously

Yeah, that's like, the most valid reason ever!!!11 But hey, people are used to you not making any sense and not having a clue.

The problem seems to be that you first declared "hey, look at my long dong... I mean registration time, I know this cant work!!!11". Now someone shows it works, and you cant have it.

 

[squeegee]

Actually, the diffuse thinners have the most aggressive hair loss. The lucky ones who recede can almost wait 10 years before they arrive at their last stage, sometimes more. It took 5 for me who is a pure diffuse thinner to reach NW5.

I'm not convinced by replies like PrincessRambo's, maybe had he chosen another name, and maybe had he not had a weird obsession with Game of Thrones, I would have taken it seriously, but I'm sorry. This is my last post in those dermaroller threads for the moment, I will come back in 3 months when there will still be no convincing results at all.

Being pessimistic and negative about everything won't help. I respect guy like PR that did something instead of bitching about it. Change your stupid attitude, you are stuck in neutral. Proactive people always succeed.