Sex Change = Bye Bye to Male Pattern Baldness?

[Guest]

Let me start by saying I do not want a sex change, I have no desire to be a woman or trying to create the illusion that I am female, I just wanted to throw in this crazy question:

If a male suffering from Male Pattern Baldness were to have a sex change and take all the necessary pills/drugs available today to be as close to a female as possible, would this reduce or stop Male Pattern Baldness?

 

[eXVee]

Try and find out!

 

[amsch]

Yes, pretty sure.

Afaik estrogenes are good for your hair, that's why women keep their hair and we lose it.

 

[casperz]

If a male suffering from Male Pattern Baldness were to have a sex change and take all the necessary pills/drugs available today to be as close to a female as possible, would this reduce or stop Male Pattern Baldness?

There is a woman that posts here that used to be a man, I think her
name is Gemini? Anyway she still needed hair transplant but restored a ton of hair by using hormones to change from a man. Considering she was what I would call
bald the results are amazing. So yes it stops it but does not bring it all back. There was a discussion a few weeks ago about oral spironolactone which is used by transsexuals to change sex. Some here have tried low dosing with varied
results. My takes is the results of taking low doses of spironolactone are no better
than finasteride and the added risk of Gyno, etc is not worth it.

 

[cuebald]

Gemini X posts here, she's a pre-op male to female I think?
Her website/gallery is here:

http://www.happyfun.co.uk/gallery

and it shows how he went from what appears to be a NW6 to an NW2 with the use of hormones, just getting the temples touched up with a hair transplant. Pretty amazing stuff really. I don't know if she has extensions in, if not, then the hair appears of good quality too (good enough to grow long).

Taking oestrogen seems a bit drastic for me, it seems like it might grow you a big pair of boobs. I must admit, I've thought about taking low doses of the stuff, but I don't have the bottle to go through with it. Especially if it might render me sterile. Nah, it's not worth it, maybe I'll give it a go after I've had kids.

I am considering oral spironolactone. I will think quite long about it.

 

[Eureka]

Yes, Castration stops the progression of male pattern baldness.

 

[Bryan]

I am considering oral spironolactone. I will think quite long about it.

Here's an interesting short report that was published as a letter to the editor in a medical journal a while back. Four individuals (two men, two women) took 200 mg/day of oral spironolactone for six months for hair loss, and some beneficial effects on trichograms were noted. No significant changes in blood parameters occurred, but nevertheless I'd be very very cautious with oral spironolactone:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/oral_spiro.txt

 

[Eureka]

I am considering oral spironolactone. I will think quite long about it.

Here's an interesting short report that was published as a letter to the editor in a medical journal a while back. Four individuals (two men, two women) took 200 mg/day of oral spironolactone for six months for hair loss, and some beneficial effects on trichograms were noted. No significant changes in blood parameters occurred, but nevertheless I'd be very very cautious with oral spironolactone:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/oral_spiro.txt

What's the worse case scenario for sides?

 

[yvakin]

What about estrogen cream? Is it gonna work on the scalp?

 

[casperz]

What's the worse case scenario for sides?

I believe that the biggest side is significant man boobs. Try some
searching but I think I remember reading a lot of guys stopped becuase
of gyno.

What about estrogen cream? Is it gonna work on the scalp?

There is a French treatment I believe that contains Estrogen or a form
of it. Can't recall the name but I think it works but has some of the
same downsides.

 

[Guest]

Well there you go people, if you want a really successfully treatment, just change your gender :woot:

 

[Bryan]

What about estrogen cream? Is it gonna work on the scalp?

An old study by Kligman found that topical estrogen was absorbed systemically, at least in the form he used (in a standard hydroalcoholic vehicle). Therefore, there would be no real reason to use it topically in the first place, if all it's going to do is go right into the bloodstream and have systemic effects throughout the body. You could simply swallow the estrogen, and get the same putative benefits on scalp hair growth (and put up with the side effects).

Having said that, I should also point out that Kligman and his colleagues didn't experiment with different methods of applying their estrogen topically (like with creams or gels), all they did was apply it in a simple hydroalcoholic vehicle. So I'm saying that we can't necessarily rule out the possibility that topical estrogen might work properly (might have a true "local" effect) if applied in just the right kind of topical vehicle, in much the same way that Sintov claimed to get a "local" effect from topical flutamide because it was applied in that special gel vehicle.

 

[Bryan]

There is a French treatment I believe that contains Estrogen or a form of it. Can't recall the name but I think it works but has some of the same downsides.

You're probably thinking of one of the products whose active ingredient is 17a-estradiol. I don't really consider that to be a true estrogen treatment, because the stuff isn't really an estrogen; more specifically, it doesn't bind to estrogen receptors, except very weakly. Its mechanism of action is probably just to inhibit 5a-reductase, reducing the formation of DHT. So it's not so much a topical estrogen as it is a topical 5a-reductase inhibitor.

Whether or not the stuff has a true "local" effect only where it's applied, I don't know for sure; however, I find that very doubtful. In the case of 17a-estradiol, it doesn't really matter very much, because the stuff is inert (or nearly inert) hormone-wise.