Would minoxidil be overkill for me? Any good alternatives?

[Hoppi]

I'm just wondering because, my hair loss hasn't been going on for long, and it would be great to stimulate the follicles with some kind of vasodilator and maybe potassium channel opener, like Min is, but I can't work out if Min might be a bit much.

I've heard about apple polyphenols and stuff, and I'm also concerned about minoxidil's possible early shedding (even though I understand why), sides, and particularly the apparently slightly unpleasant smell?

Is it really the very best of only choice for this kind of follicle stimulation, in the same way Finasteride seems to be superior to beta-sitosterol? Or is there perhaps a milder, also effective remedy that I could use on my hair?

Additionally, do I have to apply this kind of treatment TWICE a day? If I just applied it once before I went to bed, would this be really bad, or would it still result in an improvement?

Thanks guys,

Hoppi

 

[Liam]

Additionally, do I have to apply this kind of treatment TWICE a day? If I just applied it once before I went to bed, would this be really bad, or would it still result in an improvement?

A lot of users from reading around have had success with one application once a day. Which makes sense as minoxidil has a half life of 22 hours. It works out more practical that way since you can go about your day without waiting for it to dry (scalp can look wet/greasy) and rather apply few hours before going to bed. It's just one of them things are you going to follow the instructions word for word (as studied) or do what suits you best. The same can be said for cutting finasteride to 0.5mg or every other day etc.

However the foam version (more expensive) is meant to absorbed and dry much quicker so if you want to be strict with two applications it be better to go with foam. I think how much you are willing to spend is main issue since Rogaine has patent for it and until it runs out no generic brands.

Personal tips: If your applying to temples I would suggest using high concentrations (5% or above). If you decide do go with minoxidil try sticking with it! As first time round I had a lot of tiny re-growth within two months, but I stopped for a couple of months and they all faded away. Second time round it hasn’t been as effective in the same region although maintaining very well.

 

[Fender89]

hey hoppi man! Ps. I really like your positive attitude to all this. Read through some of your posts and for the most part you keep your chin up! good man! I'm in simmiliar position to you, young and losing hair lol. Well.. i'll tell you waht seems to be working for me.

First, f*** propecia or finasteride. I don't think hair is worth manliness lol. Seriously be a man, not a little whimp who chances his hair over his manhood. *exclaimer: the opinions on this sentence are just that, my opinion*

What i'm doing atm is using:

Spectral DNC 1.5ish every night. apply 0.5 to temples then rub back all over the head. Then apple 0.5 all along hairline whne you part your hair and also on crown if needed. Then use a bit more for any spots you think you missed.

Nizoral 2% every other day. So, on one, off the next.
Revita (same company as spectral DNC) every single day without fail!

I also take apple poly tablets 2x day
Soy isofalvines 1 x day
Green tea extract 1x day
Multivitamin 2 x day

I've been doing this religiously since about.. late november and man seriously i don't think my hair has got any worse. Barely lose any hairs anymore. I don't even think abotu hairloss throughout the day. Though time will tell. I'll keep coming back to say if i'm mantaining. Was using nizoral 2% everyday at one point but got worried it would be damaging in th elong run.

Good luck man, just take a look at Spectral DNC anyway.. see what you think.

 

[jh]

Hoppi,

You just started another thread saying that your hair is coming back... if so, why do you need to add minoxidil?

You already know that there are only a few things proven to work against male pattern baldness. It says in your regimen you are taking propecia. That's one of them. It takes more than 2 weeks to see if any of this is working, more like a year. Give it time. Hang in there. At the end of a year compare your hair to where it is now and you can make an informed decision about minoxidil - another proven treatment.

As for what may work, you can speculate until you're blue in the face. Until you have piles of cash lying around to fund studies, you'll never know for sure. Stick with what does work

In the meantime, go out and enjoy being young. You'll never look back on your life and think "Geesh, I should have spent more time in front of a computer screen listening to a bunch dribbling lunatics spew crazy theories about cholesterol and hairloss."

Remember, this is something you'll be dealing with the rest of your life. It gets easier if you learn to take the ups and downs in stride and refuse to let it run your life.

 

[Hoppi]

@Fender89

Aww cheers man, and even though I may not feel quite as negatively about finasteride as you (I actually personally think it's a wonderful drug, you just have to be VERY careful!! lol) I do appreciate your point of view and it's always good to hear different approaches

The reason I keep my chin up is because... it's so damn normal. You know? My best mate... has male pattern baldness. My only male housemate... hair a little way back and a bald father. Hell even the guy I'm currently chatting to on Skype who is my old mate from primary school has lost most of his hair!!

And look at one of my favourite bands!

http://www.last.fm/music/Ska-P/+images/13113739

I rest my case! lol


But yeah like, basically, the way I see it, if I can control/effectively stop this... then I am doing damn well! hehe

But yeah so, chin up, open mind, and keep fighting!

I don't think I wanna ditch finasteride I mean... I'm only starting on 0.25 anyway! That's not gonna do me any harm! I will be taking Flax and maybe other things to level out my estrogen if it ever gets high (which I doubt). And dude serious like... I would trade some things for a full head of hair! lol

Obviously I don't wanna end up like, impotent or with man boobs or something, but I think the odds of that happening on 0.25 and me not noticing until it's too late... fairly remote!

Spectral DNC looks ok but a little pricey isn't it? And thing is I don't really wash my hair more than about every 2-3 days (even that is more often that I used to before I noticed my mild male pattern baldness!)... I don't think I wanna wash it daily - what if I dry it out? Plus I'm lazy... lol

@jh

Haha well fair point but I'm bloody scared in case I'm wrong! heh

I am taking NO risks - this hair is GOING to stay!

lol and yes I guess you're right... but I find the science, nutrition and biology absolutely fascinating, I have learnt more about my body in the last 3 weeks than in the previous 24 years of my life!

Basically I mean, I just want to get a regimen together that I have complete confidence in and then... done. you know? then I won't have to think about it again for ages, I will just have thick strong hair which I can maintain until the NEXT big cure comes out, when I will switch to it




I am actually considering just giving apple polyphenols a go instead of minoxidil, there's a chance Min is a little strong for me at the moment, and I don't want to risk it being a bit harsh for my head.

Oh well, I'll have a think More opinions would be appreciated though!

 

[jh]

I am taking NO risks - this hair is GOING to stay!....


Basically I mean, I just want to get a regimen together that I have complete confidence in and then... done. you know? then I won't have to think about it again for ages, I will just have thick strong hair which I can maintain until the NEXT big cure comes out, when I will switch to it


I am actually considering just giving apple polyphenols a go .....

Again, you know this: there isn't a whole lot you can have complete confidence in. You can't possibly have loads of confidence that a low fat, zero cholesterol vegan diet will help. You can't be completely confident in apple polyphenols - I challenge you to find all the success stories that credit polyphenols. Given that your hairloss seems to be pretty mild, I don't know why you're worried about growth stimulants in the first place.

On the other hand, you can be confident in finasteride - which you're taking. You've got at least an 83% chance of halting further loss with a full dose. Michael Barry posted on here that some dermatologist or the other said it would take an average responder over 10 years to return to baseline when taking finasteride. An 83% chance that for ten years your hairloss won't progress any further than it has right now. Do that and then..... done, you know?

John

 

[DoctorHouse]

Hoppi, just remember, saving your hair is never going to be cheap. If you are looking to save your money, then stop worrying about saving your hair. However, if you are committed to saving your hair, then you are going to have to face the fact that when it comes to saving your hair, don't be concerned about how much you are going to spend because hair loss is not a "cheap" fight. I have been using Spectral DNC since it seems to have alot of good stuff that MAY help. I also use Proxiphen and take Propecia. The more arsenal you use, the better chance you have at saving your hair. I spend alot of money on my hair because I still think it is one of my biggest assets. I have to admit I think its a little pathetic that I "invest" so much "stock" in such a meaningless superficial asset but its something I value. Right now stick to the basic 3 things that help hair loss, minoxidil, finasteride and nizoral. If your budget allows more arsenal that may or may not help, then try Proctor's products like Nano shampoo, Prox-N, or Proxiphen. They can be additional arsenal but of course very costly. For now, that is all the arsenal you need at this point. And in your future, if you truly want to still maintain that "full head of hair look", you can invest in a hair transplant if your battle with topicals and orals are not saving that hairline. I have been battling this for over 5 year and only recently have I noticed that I am slowly losing the battle. Luckily its slowly. Now my next step is a FUE hair transplant within this year or the next. I have some nice thick hair in the back of my head that would definitely look nice in some of the areas that shed and never came back. That is another thing you gamble, I have areas that have shed full thick hairs and they never came back yet. Now that makes no sense, when I thought in the balding process, the hair grows back smaller and smaller until it becomes a vellus hair. I have these little gaps of missing hair along my hairline that lost perfectly long hairs and so far nothing has come back to replace them. Sometimes I wonder if that can be little small diffuse areas of alopecia areata. That is the problem with all these treatments, you are told they can never make things worse, but how can everyone be so sure that applies to everyone??? Good luck in your fight, but just remember, there will be a high price to pay to keep something "mother nature" is stealing away from you. :whistle: :whistle: :innocent: :innocent:

 

[Hoppi]

I'm a lil tired of these kinda... negative posts ._.

It's like some people online take this great pleasure it bringing other people down and squishing them!

To be honest though when I read it (I'm not really talking about you DoctorHouse, more about jh and MANY people I meet!) I just laugh, because I know it says way more about the other person than it does about me!

But whatever! I'M going to keep my chin up and keep smiling and positive, even if you can't! :hairy:

 

[Hoppi]

Aw and sorry thanks DoctorHouse for the very constructive and useful post You truly live up to your alias! hehe

You're right, I know much of this does cost money. It does seem though that Ketaconazole shampoos are pretty cheap, as is generic finasteride (and as long as I trust the source I mean, I think finasteride is finasteride! ). Minoxidil seems quite cheap, and things like these hair vits/nutrients tablets I'm taking, my improved diet, better shampoo... it's all fairly within a modest budget. Apple polyphenols, yeah they're a bit pricey for me...

Oh erm, ok so, I'm trying to save the little groups of hairs right at the front where my hairline is receding at the edges - do you think Minoxidil would do more damage than good if I used it there (by knocking out a bunch of telogen hairs and making it look worse?)? I also heard that you have to be quite careful as it's effect spreads a bit around the area as well, even if the solution (foam, liquid, whatever) didn't actually touch those follicles specifically?

Basically I really want to just hit those areas very precisely while I'm on systemic and topical 5ar inhibitors (finasteride, Ket etc) to ensure those follicles don't bite the dust for good!

Is it's wider effect likely to do any damage?

 

[jh]

I'm a lil tired of these kinda... negative posts ._.

It's like some people online take this great pleasure it bringing other people down and squishing them!

To be honest though when I read it (I'm not really talking about you DoctorHouse, more about jh and MANY people I meet!) I just laugh, because I know it says way more about the other person than it does about me!

But whatever! I'M going to keep my chin up and keep smiling and positive, even if you can't! :hairy:

I don't know why you think I'm being negative or why you think I take pleasure in bringing you down. I'm certainly not trying. I know it's hard to appreciate, but most of the posters on this board have been dealing with male pattern baldness longer than you have; many have lost more hair than you. Many of us have entertained one loony theory or another - when I started it was SLS in shampoos that was the blamed as the "real male pattern baldness culprit" - and lost hair, money and large bits of our lives we can't go back and relive.

I know I certainly spent way too much time trying to outsmart my hairloss and second guessed every decision I made. I stressed myself out and those around me. The reason I responded to your post is just that it sounds like you're trying to juggle too much, jumping on treatments too soon and forgetting this isn't something that's going to be fixed overnight.

That has been my point: if you stick with propecia - and just propecia - there's better than a 4 in 5 chance you will keep at least the hair you have now for over a decade. You're already doing this so relax.

I don't see any reason to be considering other treatments until you have given finasteride a fair shake: one year. Then, if you need still need regrowth go nuts. But until then, I suggest saving your money, enjoying the finer things in life (like a hamburger or dessert) now and then and having fun.

Best of luck,
John

 

[DoctorHouse]

Hoppi, the hairline is the hardest thing to save. Nothing seems to effective for that area except a hair transplant. You can try and fight it with Spectral DNC which claims to work on the hairline better than plain old minoxidil. However, there is really no proof of that either. If its true minoxidil will not damage your healthy hairs, then its worth a shot but its going to be a longshot. If it would have helped me maintain my hairline I would be very right now. However, my hair is diffusely thinning all over now and its rather depressing. And even more depressing its turning gray faster as well. I color it professionally but still its depressing. I find going gray and balding equally depressing.

 

[Hoppi]

Aw man I'm sorry to hear about that.

I've been considering yeah using either Minoxidil or sulphur soap on it (sulphur is supposed to be very good for hair follicles).

Coupled with finasteride and Nizoral, I think ANY kind of reasonable hair stimulant stands a chance of kicking those follicles back into life! We'll see eh?