Slowly but surely I am seeing results. I think I'm a bit ahead of schedule actually. I was told it would take 3-5 months to START seeing hair growth, but I definately have hair in places I didn't ever have it before. This kind of confuses me, but hey, I'll take it! You can definitely tell if you look at my pre-HT pics and compare them to the current ones. The receeding part and and the opposite side of my "tuft" are sprouting. I feel that the "tuft" isn't as dense as it was before though, which is sort of strange, but maybe that experienced some shock loss or something? I'm hopeful that it will eventually fill in too along with the rest of my noggin'.

I can now mostly feel the top of my head when I itch it (and it is itching pretty constantly). I don't actually scratch it with my finger-nails though, but more like just put the palm of my hand on it and sort of wiggle it and that satiates the sensation, or if I'm wearing my hat, I use my nails on the outside of the hat. Ironically I actually welcome that itch as it means that my little soldiers are fighters and working their way through my scalp to the surface. Get Some! Ooh Rah! Hurts so good. The back of my head is also mostly back. I still feel that same tightness when laying against something, but it's much much less now. The pink is still there, which is surprising to me as I really thought after 3 months it would be all flesh-colored again.

I went to get a haircut for the first time and the barber was really impressed. He also had a hard time finding the scar. Which by the way, I won't be trying to take any more pictures of because honestly it's just too hard to find and see now. I do notice that the left side scar is a bit more pronounced than the other. I'm not super thrilled with that, but it is pretty hard to see still (but thicker and red-er) and I am optimistic that over time it will fade away more. One thing I noticed that is sort of odd is sometimes there are like little scabs on the back of my head scar. I would think that is all sealed up and wouldn't be excreting anything anymore, but it's happend about three times so far in the past couple of months. Nothing to be alarmed at but still odd all things considered.

My whole head is DEFINITELY thinner than it used to be pre-HT, so I don't care what anyone says about losing 150 hairs per day is normal, even if that were so, then my head should be the same thickness as it was before since I would have been loosing 150 back then too! You can see through my hair to my scalp everywhere (sides, back, top). This is obviously a huge concern for me at the moment.

My barber suggested I use the 3-step Nioxin product and so for $45 I am giving it a go. I THINK I notice my hair-loss slowing down in the shower, but I can't be certain it's from the product or if my shock-loss is just subsiding or maybe I'm just wishful thinking. There are certainly about 10-15 hairs on my hands for each of shampoo, condition, scalp treatment, but previously there were more like 30+ for each of those steps which was freaking-me-the-F-out to be honest. I don't have enough data yet to confirm anything and will report on this more, as it's one of the single most stressful parts of this whole process, watching my existing long hairs fall out every day...

I can tell you that wearing a hat when I go out is REALLY getting old. Like I said before, I wasn't quite prepared for the duration of that. I guess I thought (and feel a bit mislead by every doctor I talked to who basically said the same thing) that my head/hair would look pretty much like it did before the HT after a month or two once the buzzcut part grew back. That is sooooo not the case. The thinner buzzcut part, the pink scalp and of course the new growth all contributes to one jenky-looking head.

I have attached some extra pics that are from today 2013-08-06, which is only two weeks from the 3-month mark, and you can see a pretty significant change I think. I hadn't realized that until I looked at the 3 month pics just now compared to what I see in the mirror. Maybe that can be attributed to length of the same hairs, but to my eye, it looks denser. What do you think? Still nowhere near "styleable" yet however.

NEXT BLOG

PREVIOUS BLOG