combforward
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Hello all, first time post but I've been perusing the boards for over a year. I'm 27 now and started losing my hair since I was 20. I've got thin hair up top, i.e. difused hairloss along the crown and vertex. Here's what I'm on as of Dec 26, 2004: just over 1 year 5% minoxidil + 1.5 months on 1/5 Proscar + 1% nizoral once or twice a week. My routine has been minoxidil in the morning after my shower and then again at night an hour or so before I go to sleep. I also take my finasteride around then.
Here's my problem: 90% of the time that I wake up in the morning I wake up with dandruff and lots of hair on my pillow. This has happened ever since I started minoxidil over a year ago. I'm convinced that while asleep, I'm scratching my scalp because of the irritation/itchiness caused by minoxidil. The sad thing is that I can't control it since I'm doing this while unconscious! On some days, it gets so bad that when I wash my hair the next morning, my scalp hurts because I've scratched hard enought to cause abrasions/bleeding. I've tried altering my final application of minoxidil by several hours (>4 hours) to minutes before I go to sleep, but to no avail. I've even tried wearing a stretchy head rag type of thing to deter the scratching, but that usually doesn't work. I've also experimented with limiting minoxidil to once a day, shampooing my hair before and after my final application, but that doesn't seem to help either. The only thing I haven't tried is literally tying my arms to my body at night so I can't scratch my friggin scalp! I've considered increasing the nizoral and/or anti dandruff OTC shampoo but I've notice a strange correlation between using that stuff and losing more hair!! In fact I'm reluctant to continue with nizoral... I swear each time I use it the next few days I'm shedding like crazy... with barely noticable regrowth. Also, lately my shedding has increased (hopefully due to finasteride) but I do notice a substantial amount of the shedding is of the really thin and short type of hair... like the kind minoxidil/finasteride are supposed to grow. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing..
Ugh... Sorry for the longwinded post. Anyone have any suggestions?
Here's my problem: 90% of the time that I wake up in the morning I wake up with dandruff and lots of hair on my pillow. This has happened ever since I started minoxidil over a year ago. I'm convinced that while asleep, I'm scratching my scalp because of the irritation/itchiness caused by minoxidil. The sad thing is that I can't control it since I'm doing this while unconscious! On some days, it gets so bad that when I wash my hair the next morning, my scalp hurts because I've scratched hard enought to cause abrasions/bleeding. I've tried altering my final application of minoxidil by several hours (>4 hours) to minutes before I go to sleep, but to no avail. I've even tried wearing a stretchy head rag type of thing to deter the scratching, but that usually doesn't work. I've also experimented with limiting minoxidil to once a day, shampooing my hair before and after my final application, but that doesn't seem to help either. The only thing I haven't tried is literally tying my arms to my body at night so I can't scratch my friggin scalp! I've considered increasing the nizoral and/or anti dandruff OTC shampoo but I've notice a strange correlation between using that stuff and losing more hair!! In fact I'm reluctant to continue with nizoral... I swear each time I use it the next few days I'm shedding like crazy... with barely noticable regrowth. Also, lately my shedding has increased (hopefully due to finasteride) but I do notice a substantial amount of the shedding is of the really thin and short type of hair... like the kind minoxidil/finasteride are supposed to grow. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing..
Ugh... Sorry for the longwinded post. Anyone have any suggestions?
