So I'm a longtime lurker who has rarely ever posted, I think the only reason I did was for the Brotzu discord, but I won't get into that s*** show.
I have followed this thread and the development of microneedling/dermarolling closely and I have no doubt that this has substantially assisted some people with regrowth and its awesome that these people have benefited. Due to these great results we've been seeing I decided to include this in my regimen and was hoping for similar affects, unfortunately this has not been the case. I don't want to rain on the parade, especially after another example of the benefits just being posted, but what I've experienced is the opposite of others and believe it is important to include this in the overall picture so people are aware it is possible to have negative outcomes. Here's some background:
- Starting noticing very very slight recession/thinning around age 30
- Age 30-31 tried the misc natural options, to no avail (obviously)
- Age 32-33 starting experimenting with various forms of minoxidil. Never had results or regrowth, continued to lose at a very slow rate
- Age 34 started to include finasteride. Started with Morr F for 6 months, then switched to oral. Got really weird sides with oral like vertigo and multiple inner ear infections so stopped and went back to Morr F. Again, no real results but was losing so slowly I figured I prob would be a Norwood 2-2.5 by the time I was 50+. No one ever knew I had any hairloss issues besides my wife and even she couldn't really tell unless I took hi-res pics and showed her what I was seeing. I could always style it and there was never any indication visually.
- Age 35 (Now) stumbled across this and other threads last November. Got the Dr Pen, 12-point needles and started going at it once a week at 1.5 depth, no topicals for 24 hrs after. Up into January things were looking good, could def tell a difference in thickness/scalp health and thought I finally found something that works, man was I in for a surprise. Fast forward to February and March, I have lost an absolute S*** TON of hair. My entire hairline has been decimated, and I now have diffuse thinning all over the front of my scalp, which is where I have been focusing the rolling on.
This is all irrelevant without pics so I have included one from last August/Sept basically right before I started rolling. Which everyone can see it looks like a normal head of hair styled. I'm sure most would be like wtf are you even doing on here but I cut my own hair weekly and could def tell I was heading for a Norwood 2 at some point. My hairline used to be so low it was actually a little weird looking so for me it was apparent I was losing ground. The second one is from last night. Yes the length is much shorter but I had to cut it this short cause the density got so poor it looked terrible all thin and whispy. So after 5 months straight of keeping the same routine, and only adding in the rolling, I have gone from basically a full head of hair to the fast track to a Norwood 3+ at this rate, and in a matter of about 2 months.
I guess the point of posting this is one, to at least raise the topic of this not only being a treatment that may not work for everyone, but it is a possibility it makes things worse. And two, I'd like to hear opinions on where to go from here. Not to try and jack the thread but I'm at a loss of what to do now. I feel I got greedy and should've just left things alone and now I'm paying for it. Should I stop rolling if it honestly just looks worse each week after I roll. Or should I continue for a year and hope this was a massive shed from the treatments finally taking having an impact? I've never even experienced a shed from years of minoxidil and a good 18 months worth of top/oral finasteride use so that's confusing as well. It's a hard decision from this standpoint due to the possibility I keep accelerating loss by rolling. I know there's one or two instances of it taking almost a year to see results but I don't remember it getting much worse at 5-6months, but correct me if I'm wrong. Any help or advise is greatly appreciated.
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