Not sure what to do anymore

[Thinneritgoes!]

hey all. I plan to make a more detailed story in the My Story section, but for now I will write this. I use to go by the name Thinneritgoes! for years, but when the website switched over, I couldn't login anymore. My blog is under that name though.

ANYWAY

I am at a loss. I'm 24, started losing when I was 17ish. My hair is extremely blonde (it sucks, makes me look way older when im balding). I have a huge receding hairline and thinning front/crown. I have the kind of hairloss where the sides/temple points disappear, so I just look awful.

I'm on propecia and nizoral. I was on .5mg but just upped to 1mg. I was on it from 19-21 and saw awesome results (don't even know why I quit). Just got back on last May. Can't really say if it's done much. My front keeps getting worse and worse. I was on minoxidil since 2006. But I was suspecting that it was making my face look awful, so I just recently stopped to see if I look any better. May get back on in the future.

so I use light brown toppik every day. Without the stuff I really don't know what to do. The stuff really saves me. My hairloss is all I think about constantly. It's gotten in the way of everything from family, friends, social life, job etc. The toppik is great and all, but it's a struggle and harder to make it look okay as I thin more. Just looks plain weird some days. and I need light brown because the blonde is way too light.

I am just lost. I can't shave my head because I did it last year and looked HORRIBLE and got lots of negative feedback. I just look old because of my blonde eyebrows, forehead wrinkles, and awful hairline.
I was booked for a hair transplant, but had to cancel. Now as I lose more hair I wonder if I should even do a hair transplant.

So, I just feel trapped. I can barely look at the mirror. It's hard to look people in the eye, and I am just always uncomfortable. All because of this. It doesn't get any easier. I feel worse and worse as time goes on.

Advice would be appreciated and anyone who read all of this, I greatly appreciate it.

 

[uncomfortable man]

You get ready for some bald hugs, thats what you do...Hug Hug welcome to the club!

 

[Hope4hairRedux]

Brick - I really think you need to consider things. Did you really get that much negative feedback from shaving your head? Who from?

Whenever I read a post from people in your situation, it just seems to me that you are torturing yourself. Once hair loss gets to a certian point, you need to adapt. Its not going to change anything, by spending money on all the treatments and whining about it, you just have to begin to accept it. Really. I know people talk about it on here all the time. But its true. You have to try it for yourself. Stand in front of a mirror, and look at yourself, bald or not, and just say to yourself ' I accept myself for who I am, I love myself for who I am.' Something alone those lines.

Just for a minute pop outside of your own mind. Realize that every human being on this planet suffers in one way or another. And that in the big scale of things, hair loss is nothing. There was a famous Zen monk who said 'You should reach the point where you are happy to be born human.' When you look at the way we humans are, so self involved, getting so upset about such trivial matters, it really is amusing. I am just like you - I also get upset by things, but really I look back and think, wow, none of this really matters.

There is another buddhist teacher, a Vietnamese one, whose words I find very inspiring. He said something along the lines that your face is your face, your eyes are your eyes. You are as bueatiful as you are. Im not sure the best way to explain what he said, but you probably understand what he means. it comes back to acceptance.

We suffer because we do not accept what has to be accepted - if we cannot be happy in this moment, we can never be. I hope some of what I have shared can be of help to you.

 

[Route66]

At this point, you have TONS of options!

But you can only think of two, apparently: meds and hair transplant; and he's already said that the meds aren't doing much! :doh:

Brick - My situation is not dissimilar to yours. It sounds as though my male pattern baldness hairloss is less severe, but I have the additional problem of an Alopecia Areata patch on one SIDE of my head. So I've lost the temple point, etc., on that side, and I agree that temple point loss makes someone look odd, as opposed to 'balding but normal'. Likewise, shaving/buzzing isn't an option for me. With hair I'm actually fairly good looking, but I'm one of those people that just looks awful shaved/buzzed. Some of us are just like that, unfortunately. I think it has more to do with face shape than head shape; whatever.

At the same time I can't accept it. I MIGHT be able to accept male pattern baldness without AA, but I can't accept both. The AA loss is just too hideous, and too much hassle to cover up. It would be asking too much of anyone to have to just live with it, I believe (unless you're literally on your last legs, and no longer care)! I'd ignore Hope4Hair's Buddhist mumbo jumbo if I were you. He changes his mind from one day to the next, and he doesn't know what he's talking about (he thinks all hair transplants look like pubes). Besides a lecture on acceptance is difficult to accept when it's delivered by a NW2 (if he's even that)! So I'm definitely not going to tell you to just accept it. You're obviously in a lot of pain.

Couple of points:

1 - If you were going to have a hair transplant you must have had a consultation, yes? So a hair transplant surgeon has told you what you can recover. Why aren't you continuing down the hair transplant path?

2 - I think I remember, when you were Thinneritgoes!, you said you were considering a piece. I haven't worn one myself, but I'm not one of those who dismisses them as an option for anyone. A quality piece, professionally applied, can look VERY good, and aren't even too restrictive. For some men, with no other options, other than being miserable, they can be a godsend. I certainly think some of the men on this forum would be better off with a good piece than living in their current predicament of torture! So, is a piece still an option for you?

Bottom line - you need to do SOMETHING. The problem right now is that you're miserable about your situation, but not doing anything about it, other than taking meds which aren't really helping much. Just doing something positive to tackle your situation will take some of the load off your shoulders.

"for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"

Shakespeare

Hope this helps.

 

[uncomfortable man]

At this point, you have TONS of options!

But you can only think of two, apparently: meds and hair transplant; and he's already said that the meds aren't doing much! :doh:

Brick - My situation is not dissimilar to yours. It sounds as though my male pattern baldness hairloss is less severe, but I have the additional problem of an Alopecia Areata patch on one SIDE of my head. So I've lost the temple point, etc., on that side, and I agree that temple point loss makes someone look odd, as opposed to 'balding but normal'. Likewise, shaving/buzzing isn't an option for me. With hair I'm actually fairly good looking, but I'm one of those people that just looks awful shaved/buzzed. Some of us are just like that, unfortunately. I think it has more to do with face shape than head shape; whatever.

At the same time I can't accept it. I MIGHT be able to accept male pattern baldness without AA, but I can't accept both. The AA loss is just too hideous, and too much hassle to cover up. It would be asking too much of anyone to have to just live with it, I believe (unless you're literally on your last legs, and no longer care)! I'd ignore Hope4Hair's Buddhist mumbo jumbo if I were you. He changes his mind from one day to the next, and he doesn't know what he's talking about (he thinks all hair transplants look like pubes). Besides a lecture on acceptance is difficult to accept when it's delivered by a NW2 (if he's even that)! So I'm definitely not going to tell you to just accept it. You're obviously in a lot of pain.

Couple of points:

1 - If you were going to have a hair transplant you must have had a consultation, yes? So a hair transplant surgeon has told you what you can recover. Why aren't you continuing down the hair transplant path?

2 - I think I remember, when you were Thinneritgoes!, you said you were considering a piece. I haven't worn one myself, but I'm not one of those who dismisses them as an option for anyone. A quality piece, professionally applied, can look VERY good, and aren't even too restrictive. For some men, with no other options, other than being miserable, they can be a godsend. I certainly think some of the men on this forum would be better off with a good piece than living in their current predicament of torture! So, is a piece still an option for you?

Bottom line - you need to do SOMETHING. The problem right now is that you're miserable about your situation, but not doing anything about it, other than taking meds which aren't really helping much. Just doing something positive to tackle your situation will take some of the load off your shoulders.

"for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"

Shakespeare

Hope this helps.

See, now this is the kind of thing a sufferer needs to hear, not just get over it. Thank you Route. I don't know if you were making a reference to me but I know I would be a completely different person if I had a good system, more content to say the least. The difference would be extraordinary!

 

[Thinneritgoes!]

Great memory route. i was thinking of one. AND I wore a front partial for a couple months!

Now let me say. I got a custom partial last year to fill in my receding hairline and a little section of the front. i was too afraid to shave anything down (stupid, I know) and glued/taped over some hairs. It actually looked good and I wore it a lot around friends and no one ever said anything. It was a nice feeling. But, I started a new job right around that time and was getting super stressed out. I wasn't a master at attachments or anything so it was a huge hassle to make it undetectable all the time.
so I ditched it after about 2 months. I just used a ton of concealer to go back to work. I am back to actually considering one for my full front now, and im trying to weigh my options.

Work situation does not permit me to get in to a hair transplant situation right now. It's too hectic and I wouldn't feel comfortable going back to work after getting one (would have to have the frontal 1/3 shaved down for procedure.)

So this leaves me in a huge predicament. My head shaved really is that bad. Believe me. Almost everyone told me I needed to grow my hair back and even got a couple 'cancer patient' remarks. It was so depressing.

I was thinking about giving xandrox a try... but haven't seen to much positive on it.

So I will continue propecia, nizoral, and concealers for sure.

now... hairpiece? try my luck on some new meds (xandrox)? Hold off for hair transplant?

All i know is that I am MISERABLE right now and have been for longer than I care to think about. I need to take action. No way of changing my thinking has worked at all. I feel I have already wasted a lot of my young years away on this bullsh*t.

 

[thetodd]

Have you tried prothik yet?
It's a spray on concealer that has worked very well for me, and I'm sure my hair loss is worse than yours.
The good thing is that you are relatively young and there is a good possibility that truly effective treatments if not an outright cure for baldness will be developed before you're even 40 like I am.

 

[thetodd]

Have you tried prothik yet?
It's a spray on concealer that has worked very well for me, and I'm sure my hair loss is worse than yours.
The good thing is that you are relatively young and there is a good possibility that truly effective treatments if not an outright cure for baldness will be developed before you're even 40 like I am.

Hey Todd, I have heard you talk a lot about, prothik, would you mind posting a pic of what your hair looks like after a prothik application, it would be cool to see actual results from a real person.

Sure.
Before

After

Before

After

I also occasionally use a little hair so real (it's like Toppik) after applying the prothik. Not all the time, though. With my hair shorter right now than it was in those pictures, all I use is prothik.
And no, I'm not trying to pimp prothik. There are other spray on concealers out there that I haven't tried yet, like fullmore and haircubed. For all I know they might be just as good.