Relax, I'm hilarious's story

[Relax Im hilarious]

I gotta say, based on what you said happened last time, i think you can be cautiously optimistic, hopefully this time the changes will stick
NW1 hairline, but unfortunately NW2.5 diffuse pattern with miniaturization. The hairs are there, they just need to thicken up, hence the idea that hair dye might give me a bit of a boost....

 

[Man in Space]

What about your loss? I seem to remember you stating before that we had a similar type of loss at the front, how have you been doing with the meds?

Yes my loss is similar to yours although Im a little more receded than you, it is frontal diffusion as much as the recession that is the problem. I am doing well on meds, the front is slow progress but my hair is undoubtedly thicker than its been for a good few years and at the moment it seems to only be getting better. I have regrown lots of hair at the front but a lot of it has not gone terminal, im hoping that the continued use of the big 3 will strengthen these hairs up over the next year or two and then going into my 30's if it progresses i will probably get it touched up with a hair transplant. If these other treatments in the pipeline came through before that would be amasing, Im not holding my breathe but boy would that be sweet!

 

[London Mike]

Hi Relax, thanks for a great thread, it inspired me to FINALLY start on Finasteride, something that I have been meaning to do for years as I watched my hair gradually thin, buy somehow never got around to starting, something that I am going to regret in the future I suspect. Anyway, I’m 53 and have always had good hair but male pattern baldness finally kicked in about 10 years ago and has followed the normal path, with my Father’s bald head there to remind me what I have to look forward to when I got to 60 if I didn’t act. My hair is brushed forward now, a style that I hate as I have always had it brushed back, and although it’s pretty bad now when wet with significant thinning at the temples, overall when it is dry it still looks ok-ish

Anyway, there was another reason for posting as my experience seems to be slightly different from the norm. I only started on Finpecia a month ago today and the first thing to say is that I have no side effects at all, to the extent that I wondered if I was taking a fake drug, if I wasn’t physically putting the pill in my mouth every morning then I would have no idea I was taking anything. But the strange thing is that although I have experienced zero shedding, I can already feel a fine fuzz of new baby hair growth on each of my bald temple areas, and I think (it’s hard to feel as there is normal hair) also on my crown area. My hair also feels thicker and a different consistency all over. Now to me this sounds ridiculous after such a short time, I’ve done quite a bit of reading up on this, but I’m not paranoid about it, I’m not checking it every 5 minutes for new growth, my attitude is that at my age I’ve always had good hair and if I gradually start to lose it then so be it as most of my friends are bald or balding already so I’m not so desperate for results that I am deluding myself. I definitely have new growth. I would hesitate to call it ‘hair’ as I can barely see it but when it is dry I can gently move my fingers back and forward over it and feel it move under my touch

So at this rate I am assuming that I will be indistinguishable from a Silverback in 6 months :mrgreen:

Does this sound weird to you???

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey Mike, that does sound weird but i gotta say weird in a great way! The traditional school of thought is that whilst finasteride starts working from the minute you pop the first pill, like all hormonal changes it takes a few months before your body adapts to the change and it really starts to kick in, hence why most people say that they see a shed after 3-4 months with finasteride. However.... no one has actually done any research into this and to be honest if you are seeing hair regrowth that wasn't happening before finasteride you can assume that finasteride is probably the cause, which is a great thing.
Just taking a personal case of myself and my brother who both take finasteride (assuming we are genetically similar therefore would have similar responses) he didn't notice any change until 9-12 months, i noticed a difference around 5 months in, so you can see how variable the response rates are. The stories on this board also vary widely, some state regrowth soon on in the treatment (under 6 months) others say they didn't notice anything until 14-15 months in.
I've also seen a lot of new hairs spring up around my hairline yet many of them are still just small and colourless so until they grow i would hesitate to call them new hairs, again the school of through is that it takes a few rounds of shedding before hairs become strong and long again, hence why people say that it can take 2-3 years to notice real change. If you look at one of the graphs i posted a few pages ago whilst maximum new hair growth was noticed after a year, maximum thickening actually took three years, so hopefully the new hairs that popped up on your head will be on their road (albeit a slow one) to getting stronger and thicker over time. Fingers crossed your a super responder and on your way to being a silverback If this is the case keep us posted, i'd be really interested to see what happens over the next few months.

Hey monty, i did use toppix for a bit but to be honest, you just can't really see the loss on my head when its dry and therefore i can never be bothered to put it on! I've attached two pics to this post so you can see what i mean about my loss. Again, the hair is wet and brushed back and i'm standing under a halogen light so you can see it properly, i've taken it at two different angles so you can see the difference light makes, with the light shined right on the front you can see that fact that i am thinning in a NW2A class even though my hairline itself almost touches the top of the highest crease on the forehead which would technically put me near a NW1 hairline. As i was saying before, i hope i've caught this early enough to make a difference and even if i just maintain that should leave me fine and maybe i'll get a little hair transplant in five years or so. However it's agony waiting for the small hairs to thicken up, i know all the research and everyone says it takes over a year to thicken up but i wish it would hurry up!

 

[2020]

maximum thickening three years??? Link

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

2020 - the graph comes from the official merck propecia study (although i took it from this site - http://www.stophairlossnow.co.uk/produc ... reults.htm)
The official merck publication is a gold mine of graphs and fanstastic pictures if you read through the whole thing, the way i did it was to ask a drug rep for it in hard copy.
The three year thing was a bit inaccurate - according to merck at 132 weeks there was the greatest increase in scalp hair mass/weight from baseline (25-33% increase) and at 192 weeks the difference between those who took propecia and those who didn't was 46%
The only problem with this is that whilst the evidence for suggesting an increase in the amount of hair growth is substantial (679 men on propecia vs 672 on placebo), the numbers used for the hair weight/mass graph is much smaller (15 on propecia vs 7 on placebo). As everyone knows smaller sample groups means greater variation and therefore less accurate results, hence why the actual difference in hair mass/weight could either be much higher or lower.

 

[2020]

oh, you're talking about this:

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Yep That's the one

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

So I haven't posted or been on the forums for almost a month and its seems that a load of things are happening in the old hairloss world. Firstly i'll update a bit on what's happening for me. It's now about 8 and a half months on finasteride and everything still seems to be going well, seems to be thickening up a bit more but no big difference from now and the last pictures. Some of the little hairs on the hairline are now starting to thicken up, again nothing too significant but every little helps.... I also switched to using finasteride in the evenings instead of the mornings because it's easier for me to take it at the same time that way and it hasn't caused any problems which is good. Still no sides as of yet but as always, keeping a close eye on those. Also i've started using nizoral again, i started to use it when i first took finasteride but it made my hair really bad, this time round it seems to be ok so i'm using 2% nizoral, twice a week at the moment and it seems to be fine, this time i've learnt that if your using nizoral you need to use a very good conditioner as well to stop it getting to dry and also don't overuse nizoral because it can really dry out the hair.

As for the other news, replicel released their results, to be honest it's really too early to tell whether they are going to be a success or not in my opinion. This was only a phase 1 trial and it will be interesting to see the results of their phase 2 before making a more definitive judgement. The encouraging news is that at least it seems to work at least which gives hope for the phase 2 trial. Personally i'm still more interested in histogen who are apparently going to be releasing some of their mid-way phase 2 results in the next few months:
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/ ... gen&rank=1

I'm going to post some pics in a couple of months because it will be my 9 month mark on finasteride but i'm right in the middle of finals at the minute so i'm not doing any research on finasteride etc... like i've done before, i'll get back on that during june when my exams are over.

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey all, just a quick post, came across this picture when i was revising which is a great way of showing all the adrenal hormones. It gives a great overview on where DHT and Testosterone are in the whole cycle.
Enjoy!

 

[wannabgeek]

Hi 1st post here. Mike i am also in the UK and in a very similar situation to yourself. Can you ps tell me if your dr perscribed finasteride for you via NHS?

 

[London Mike]

Hi 1st post here. Mike i am also in the UK and in a very similar situation to yourself. Can you ps tell me if your dr perscribed finasteride for you via NHS?

Hello Mr Geek

Nope, I order generic finasteride (you actually get Finpecia) via http://www.rxpillsmd.net/en/GenericProp ... de-p5.html

Totally reliable, takes about 4 weeks to get here and you won't beat the prices

Good luck :woot:

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey all. Once again sorry for the lack of updates, still going through the process of finals, got a big update now though so here goes....
Been 9 months now on propecia, still no sides and good progress i think. I've posted up some pics, i've recently had my hair cut much shorter and also its getting more difficult to get the same picture angles, lighting etc... now that its summer and so it's lighter all the time. However as always i've made sure my hair is soaking wet and i've put a halogen bulb above it to show it at its worst, but now there is also the added inclusion of sunshine into the pictures as well. I've also included two pictures of my hair dry, one with it combed back and the other with it normal. It is fine when dry and not brushed back, looks like a wall of hair but the wet pictures tell a different story.
I personally think it's going better looking at these pictures, there are loads of new little hairs at the hairline, the rest of the hair seems thicker and better than ever and actually my hairline has moved down about 2-3mm, not much but it's now only about 0.5cm from the top forehead crease in the corners now and the central peak touches the top of the top forehead crease which is great news. Juvenile hairline here I come...!
Not all good news though, i'm going through a bit of a big shed at the moment although I think this may be due to three things, exam stress, starting nizoral again and switching taking my propecia to the night and not the day.
As always take a look and any feedback is appreciated.
On another note really exciting news about histogen, after the rather disappointing replicel results, to see histogens results really was encouraging and it looks as though 2015 could be a realistic timeline as well. I think this highlights the importance of maintenance to everyone though as the histogen HSC complex seems to work by restoring miniaturized hairs from what they say, so it's kinda like minoxidil on steroids, therefore it seems having as many hairs as possible whilst waiting for that is a good idea... This makes propecia even more of a necessity...

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey Monty! Good to hear from you
If i don't straighten my hair it does make a nice afro.... but i'm lucky that i can still pull off a NW1 hairline. Curly hair is kinda a blessing and a curse, it makes the hair look thinner when wet because it all clumps together but when dry it makes the hair look thicker, it's also a nightmare to style.
I suppose it's the front that worries me more than the vertex, i know the vertex isn't as thick as perfect hair but it has been like that since i can remember and it never seems to change, however the front sort of has, but considering the fact that propecia seems to making everything better, fingers crossed it'll sort out the vertex and top as well as the front.
Yeah sorry about the histogen thing.... It could be even closer than we think, in asia you don't need phase 3 trials just phase 2 so they might even release in 2014 which would be great.
How are you anyway? Did you start on the clomiphene regime in the end? Also you on any other stuff for your hair?

 

[Shuggy]

Hi Relax. Just wanted to say thank you very much for sharing your in depth researching regarding finasteride. I've just started a regime myself and since caught your story which I can relate to. I have been getting a heavy heartbeat and ache since starting regaine. As well as a feeling of shedding instantly.

Your research and story has pulled me off the fence and into the garden of finasteride (helped by the regaine problems)

I'm going to see my doctor but in advance where are you getting your finasteride from and for how much for if you don't mind me asking? I initially saw boots have 3 month supply with prescription for £120!! Now I know I don't need to go near that price.

Thanks again and keep keeping us posted.

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hi Shuggy, not a prob with sharing, it helps me to do the research and as soon as my finals are over i'll be back on the research for finasteride and also for loads of new stuff aswell.
I totally understand your problems with regaine, that's the problems with using a blood pressure medication for hair growth, i got really bad migrane type headaches from it and so had to stop but c'est la vie... hence me only using finasteride, although i seem to be having success so i can't complain.
In regards to regaine, if your getting a heavy heartbeat and chest ache it might not be for you, i would consider that quite a serious side effect, if your on the 5% try the 2% instead and see if that makes a difference, hopefully that should help with the ache, i've seen some people on this board use the 5% foam in the morning and then the 2% liquid at night (or vica-verse) and this seems to work for them, that might also help relieve the sides.
I was always at a bit of a loss as to how quickly people jump on regaine and other drugs. I totally understand the reservation for jumping on finasteride, it does change your hormones but minoxdil was developed as a blood pressure drug and can have some pretty nasty side effects and spironlactone, one of the other common drugs for hairloss is an aldosterone antagonist diuretic (used because it's potassium conserving in patients which have hypokalaemia) so using it for hair loss should not be done lightly in my opinion. Also don't even get me started on saw palmetto, it works by blocking 5-alpha-reductase and decrease both isoenzymes of DHT, 1 and 2 therefore it is akin to dutasteride and comes with all the side effects that does, making it pretty dangerous in my opinion. Just because it's natural it doesn't mean it's good! But anyway rant over....
I'm probably going to get an earful for saying this but i get my propecia from lloyds pharmacy, the most expensive of the lot at £285 for 6 months but i have my reasons which are quite long and complicated to go into here. However, they offer no better service than anywhere else and some of the cheaper online pharmacies will offer significant savings. (If anyone reading this can chime in and help out on where they get finasteride in the UK cheaply it would be much appreciated).
I'm also not sure where i stand on generic vs branded finasteride, i tend to trust branded medication more because it is usually subject to much stricter regulation than some generic medication but there are plenty of guys who use non-branded (finpecia i think it's called) who have great success with it at a fraction of the cost.
Hope this helps and good luck with starting the regime, i know how scary it is to begin with but stay strong, it does get better and with the new developments on the horizons hopefully just 2-3 years away the future is looking a little brighter.

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey all
I found something interesting whilst browsing yesterday, a histogen investor release from a few years ago. This is before the HSC went into phase 1 trials and was intended for investors so has an interesting slant on it. I've attached it to this post so check it out but i'll summarize below:

*Histogen describe this as their 'home run' product
*Interested parties included P&G (this was 5 years ago though so not sure if they still are)
*They list their release date as Q4 2015
*They suggest a price of treatment at $5000
*If they get 70% of the market in the US they estimate it could net them $49 billion gross!!!
*They state that they will actively seek a corporate partner after phase 1 trials

All in all, it's a very interesting document and although it should be taken at face value as it is from 2007/8 it still will hold some truth, most importantly the costing estimate will have been based on how much raw materials and production would cost, which is great if this figure is still true.

From my point of view i have the following thoughts about histogen, these are just my thoughts BTW, they don't have any proof it's just me rambling and just some food for thought:

*Surely if histogen thickens and creates new hair then repeated injections can compound results, say getting histogen every 2 years may means more hair each time which could mean a NW0 for anyone in enough time
*It will be interesting to see if they are thickening miniaturized hair or actually creating new follicles, if they are creating new follicles this is truly the game changer everyone is looking for, if they are just thickening vellus and miniaturized hair then it's a brilliant new weapon in the treatment arsenal
*If it is just about strengthening existing hair (no matter how miniaturized), it would stand to reason that diffuse thinners would stand to benefit the most, rather than slick bald. This one is a big IF though because no one fully knows the extend of new hair growth vs strengthening miniaturized hair with this product, everyone is just guessing until histogen tell us
*Lets say they release in asia in 2014 and the US and Europe in 2015, would there be a waiting list for this product?
*If results are compoundable and the newly grown hair lasts even a few years then surely this would replace all other treatments including things like finasteride because the minute your saw new miniaturization you could just have another histogen injection, essentially the only thing that would stop you is money and one would presume that as time goes on the cost would drop as production becomes cheaper... right?
*It will be very interesting to see the long term effects (or potential side effects) of this product over some extended time, right now at two years in its seems brilliant, it will be interesting to see in 2015 what happened to the original lot at 5 years, then at 10.
*Will cost be based on area done or will there be a flat price? Surely a person who is NW3 will need comparatively less injections than a diffuse NW7 thinner who would want it all over their heads and not just the frontal recession parts.

Seriously exciting times ahead, can't wait to see how this pans out over the next few years and i've got my fingers crossed!

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hello all! Well i've been absent for a couple of months and gotta say new website looks pretty ace! If anyone has been following what i've been saying, my apologies for not posting recently, i've had a whole world of stuff going on, i finished my finals and graduated so i'm a fully fledged medical doctor now, ready to be set loose on the public, which is great news. However, both myself and my girlfriend have both had some problems with illnesses with family members so i haven't had anytime for anything else recently and have been under a super amount of stress. If there's one thing i can says it's that serious stress makes you shed hair...lots of hair. Can't say that my hair has got much worse but i was definitely shedding a lot over the past month.
Anyway....It's coming up to 10 months for me on propecia now and it all seems to be good, i actually get complements by people now saying that my hair looks thicker, i'm not saying it's all come back but it does look a little better (excluding recent shed) and as an extra piece of good news, still no side effects as of yet, so i'll keep on with the finasteride and continue to see what happens. With all the cool things that are on the way (histogen, replicel, aderans, bitmoprost etc....) i think maintenance is the name of the game and finasteride seems to be doing that for me.

On to something interesting now, i'm going to tackle the lovely prospect of finasteride and sexual problems, bear with me because i need to set the scene first. About six months ago myself and my girlfriend had a long talk and to cut a long story short we both decided that we would like to start a family sometime soon. Naturally being on finasteride i wanted to know if this was going to affect my chances of conceiving etc.... There was an interesting paper written in the journal of urology that stated that finasteride does not affect spermatogenesis or semen production in young guys. You can see this paper here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10492183
Well there's a catch, whilst in a healthy guy finasteride doesn't affect fertility if you have an underlying fertility problem then the effect finasteride can have on your sperm can actually push you into dangerous territory and make you sub-fertile (however this clears up when finasteride is stopped). I had mumps when i was in my late teens, if anybody knows anything about mumps as an adult you'll know it can cause orchitis, this can seriously affect fertility to the point of making you infertile. Well this made me slightly worried as the only proof i had of my fertility was a couple of pregnancy scares with ex-girlfriends over the years. Being in the medical field i decided to get a full semen analysis and also a testicular ultrasound. Fortunately for me, everything checked out fine (i'm super fertile apparently and everything feel within normal parameters, but enough about me...) but anyone else who is thinking about starting a family i fully suggest getting yourself down to the fertility clinic and getting a test, just for piece of mind, in fact i would go as far as saying to everyone that is thinking of starting finasteride to go down and get a fertility test, i wish i had done it so i had something to compare my results with from pre-finasteride to now but considering i'm super-fertile i'm not too worried.

Also i wanted to get into another point as well and for this i'm not citing any science but just anecdotal evidence so take what i say here with a pinch of salt. When i first started on finasteride i read all the forums, include the dreaded propecia help and was scared ****less by the side effects that i could potentially get. I've stated a number of times on this forum that not only do i believe finasteride causes side effects i also believe that we should all pay attention to those who report them and give them the support they need. I have been very luck in not getting any side effects and i've also been particularly meticulous with my record keeping so here's what i've noted so far (i'm going to get pretty graphic so get ready):

Libido: Still as horny as i think i should be, waxes and wanes, some days i can spend the whole day going with the lady and other days i can't think of anything i want to do less. My libido seems largely unchanged and i think it's pretty average for a guy of my age (almost 27)
Erection quality: I don't think my erections have changed, still wake up with morning wood sometimes, no problems getting hard, all seems the same as pre-finasteride, penis has same amount of sensitivity, again seems normal for a guy of my age
Semen quality: In retrospect i think my semen was a bit more watery in the early days of propecia, seems to be fine now and as i mentioned earlier, the fertility tests i had proved that everything, sperm count, motility, morphology etc... were fine
*Ahem* Size: As weird as this is going to make me sound, one of the side effects someone reported on another website was that since taking propecia their penis and balls had shrunk, well i measured both each month, had a testicular ultrasound and have been using an orchidometer and there has been no change in the size of anything over the 10 months i've been on finasteride
Mood changes: Mood is really subjective and again i don't think that i've changed, no one has mentioned that i'm any different except being a bit insufferable to live with during finals but no depression or anything, i've always been pretty happy go lucky and that hasn't changed
Brain fog: Again difficult to judge although i passed my medical degree with a merit whilst on finasteride so if it did affect me it wasn't noticeable.
Exercise and body fat: To be honest i think i've got stronger since taking finasteride, as i've mentioned before i'm a proper fitness freak and since being on finasteride i've benched the most i've every done in my life (120kg ORM) and shoulder pressed a personal best also (100kg ORM) as well as hitting my fastest ever mile time (4mins 18sec, desperately trying to break a four minute mile!). I've also maintained a very low body fat percentage so finasteride hasn't affected this side of my life, although i should mention i keep a rigorous diet, don't drink, don't smoke and take no other meds but finasteride.

Well that's my update for now, hopefully will post a little more often now, until then peace out y'all!

 

[Going2beBald?]

I was more than happy to read about your exercising because I did bulk for 8 months ( I know that was stupid ) then started finasteride and I spent 6 months for cutting. Now I'm in quite good shape and from now on I'm going to cycle my bulks and cuts like 6 weeks and 2 weeks and my most concern have been does finasteride affect about that how I can gain lean muscle mass. I know finasteride is really androgenic and dht is basically the base what makes the muscles to grow... Anyway, I've been on finasteride about 6.5 months now without any sides and got some nice results hairwise but for last couple of days I've been playing with the idea to give up finasteride and continue working out as I've been doing so far. My biggest problem is that I would like to get gains on gym but on the other hand I would like to keep my hair also.

 

[Relax Im hilarious]

Hey G2BB
I really don't think finasteride has affected my gains (both strength and aerobic) and as i stated before i've continued to make good progress since taking finasteride, however it is impossible for me to say whether i would have made better gains if i was not on finasteride. I would recommend staying on it as i've found you can continue to progress in weight training and cardio exercise whilst on it, one thing that i've been trialling is taking my finasteride in the evenings, this is mostly because i workout after i get home from work and figure that after my workouts my T will be at it's highest and therefore hopefully the tablet will stop the conversion of that T to DHT not just boosting my weight gains but also helping my hair. It could be rubbish and make no difference but that's what i've been doing for the last 4 months and i've been seeing good gains. Also i know DHT is good for muscle growth but so is T! DHT works also by reducing estrogen levels and stimulating IGF-1 levels so if you are worried about that you can stack products to reduce peripheral aromatization and reduce E levels, the bodybuilding forums go into this in detail but personally i think once your adding that many products your asking for trouble!
Because i used to box, i have always kept a pretty low body fat % and therefore it's pretty easy for me to judge if i am making lean muscle gains, over the past 6 months i've been bulking with a weight gainer called maxiraw mass blitz and it has worked great. It's complex carbs and protein rather than sugar so it seems to be great for increasing my energy, putting on weight and increasing my strength without the usual fat increase you see with maltodextrin bulking powders. I've seen an increase of roughly 3kg of muscle mass which has been pretty great for me over the past year.