HairlossTalk said:
tpeter said:
First - What do you mean by baseline? Do you mean i will be where i would be had i never taken propecia once? Or do you mean anything new grew will be lost putting me back to the way i looked 5 years ago?
Want the honest response? I have no idea! They say baseline, which implies "return to where you were when you started"... But they also say that hairs "protected" by Proepcia need Propecia to remain protected... which implies that you may have protected an increasing number of hairs over the 5 years. In that scenario, baseline will be worse than 5 years ago. There really is no way to tell. I am really sorry.
Anyhow after about 3 more years i started becoming more paranoid and was thinking my hair was thinning more but never was quite so sure.
My new mantra is to take pictures, pictures pictures. They are invaluable for this very reason.
[quote:8c801] I know that my frontal recession was not any worse because i have a freckle about a half inch from the top of my resession and that has never changed.
Ah yes... Ye ole photo backup plan. The facial permenant facial feature. I have a scar just inside my hairline which I use as my "sanity" pill every time I get concerned. I know once that scar is showing, im toast. Until then, no matter what my brain tells me, Im still doing ok.
What do you think HairLossTalk.com "or anyone"? Do you think perhaps i should do .5 a day or will this not help any?
Given this new information, here is my advice: You're going to see some shedding. Expect it. Lets say though, for example, that you never really were losing your hair in the first place. You go on finasteride for 5 years. Even in this scenario if you quit finasteride, you're going to knock some stuff out of whack for awhile. Your hair is going to respond a little. This is the evil of hair. Even if you don't have male pattern baldness, i would expect a shed after quitting 5 yrs of finasteride. So thats going to send you wild and you're going to freak out, and say "OMG i havent ever shed like this, even before I went on finasteride this didn't happen!" but it very well could be just that you now have a surge in DHT in your system (which you do) and your hair is gonna get a little wacko for a few months because of it. You could chill and let it settle down ... ride out whatever happens in the next 3 months and see how your shedding is doing at month 6 ... i have a feeling by then things will be hunky dory ... if you're not really experiencing male pattern baldness. If you are ... things will gradually continue to thin out as you reach month 6 and 8 and 10.
So id say you can not make an educated and informed decision until at least 6 months has passed (for the reason mentioned above). A shed in 3 months could mean resuming of male pattern baldness or it could mean just response to current DHT surge. Simply put, there is absolutely no way to know for sure.
The good news? Lets say you have balls of steel and you can ride out the impending shed ... because you are *determined* to find out if its just a temporary thing or part of that whole 12 month downard spiral due to lack of finasteride. If you're able to do that, you may just find that things level out and you're fine as month 6 and 10 and 12 come and go... and you dont even need to go back on finasteride at all ...
To further compound this whole mess is the reality that guys hairlines change in their mid to late 20's even if they dont have male pattern baldness! Many guys have mature hairlines form, and never have to deal with excessive hair loss. It sure looks like it when it first forms though right? Ugh.
If you want, you can try 0.5mg finasteride ... i honestly tried that and it didnt do anything for my hair at all. When it was time to drop the stuff, I dropped it. Period. I was done feeling like crap and I was done with the side effects. I didnt want any in my system.
I know you hate topicals, but I really think if you get a dish of topical spironolactone and just apply it after a shower (its really REALLY easy to do it, even if you have a decent amount of hair) ... you will be doing yourself a favor. Then again, one dish is like $35 and it lasts about 3 weeks, so ... there's that whole money issue again.
HairLossTalk.com[/quote:8c801]
Once again thanks for the great reply,
I guess i will ride it out a few and see what happens. I know i have male pattern baldness but what boggles me is how i had that recession at the age of 19 and then not much of anything else after that for 5 years, perhaps some diffused thinning all over but without pictures its to hard to tell.
Also lets say the shed gets too bad and i jump back on Propecia after 6 months, will i regrow what i just lost and get back to where i a now, or will i just start maintaining again what my current state is.
thanks for the help.
