TorontoMan

Thank you 🙏🏻. Lots of growth to come for both of us. And yeah high density was important to match the native hair & hopefully it becomes a hairline king trademark

That’s right

Also consider Microneedling 1x a week at 1.5mm in length. Some research out there suggests it helps increase the efficacy of minoxidil and other topicals. If you do incorporate it, don't apply minoxidil on the day (24 hours) you do your microneedling session. As an example, I apply minoxidil monday to saturday, Sunday morning I microneedle, and won't apply minoxidil again until monday.

Hey mate I'm thinking of doing the same thing you are. Use the faster drying drop form in the mornings so it doesnt leave your hair feeling clumpy and greasy and use the foam version at night.. because who cares while you sleep and wash it out in the am. In terms of the application itself, if your hair is short it shouldn't be a problem. If you do have some length try to part it as much as you can before applying it. Of course its meant to be absorbed by your scalp not your hair. I typically do it in three parts, I always start with my crown and move forward. I have little hair clips that hold my hair in place after I part it, and then apply the minoxidil to my scalp and rub it in well but not aggressively. Hope that helps

Yeah truly the hardest stages are 2-5 months I’d say. Just stay present every day, and good things are coming.

I would say I’m still in that noticing growth stage. The hairs you see have probably started growing between month 3 and 4. I see more hairs sprouting slowly and hopefully there will be more coming. Right now the hair is thin and whispy and it will take the full year for them to mature and thicken. Atm I keep my native hair forward and it covers the thinner recipient area well enough

Thank you John. I’m trusting the process and staying optimistic 🙏🏻

Month 4:

Background: 28 years old with a NW2 type recession and very mild thinning in the crown. Family history: Mother’s side has great hair genetics (her father and brother had a full head of hair well into their late years), MPB present with my father and his late father, however, slow and gradual loss, my father is 65 and has more so thinned throughout the top rather than lost hair. I don’t have siblings, and my first cousin who I share my grandfather with from dad’s side, is 36 years old and shows no signs of thinning. * Important to note - I believe that looking at family history could be relevant to some extent, but should not be relied on. If you have experienced hair loss, 95% chance it is from MPB. It's due to genetic variations, your genetics are complex and unique, and MPB is progressive. It is wishful and naive thinking to believe you may “stabilize” one day or try to determine your final form so to say. Prevention: Propecia - Currently 1mg/ED (every day) - Started January 1, 2020 at low dosages, and worked up to 1mg a day. Experimented with 0.25mg EOD (every other day) and gradually increased the dose as I felt comfortable. - More time is necessary to judge entirely how efficacious finasteride has been for me, but I believe it is maintaining my hair. My hope and goal at the core is prevention, any added density or regrowth would be a blessing. Minoxidil - Rogaine 5% Foam 1x per night ED - Started about 1.5 years ago - Love/hate relationship, does occasionally irritate my scalp and other times its fine. The application itself is not a hassle as it takes a couple of minutes to apply, however, I'm not a fan of how it leaves my hair feeling clumped and greasy. - Hoping for the minoxidil sulfate test to come out asap to determine whether or not topical minoxidil is ultimately effective for me. (Might switch to oral) Microneedling - 1.5mm 1x a week, no topicals for 24 hours after session. - I use Dr. Pen microneedling device - Apply it all over my scalp other than my recipient area for the time being. - Takes me around 10 minutes, and I rather enjoy it oddly enough its therapeutic for me Shampoos - Nizarol 2% ketoconazole, Regenpure DR 1% Ketoconazole, Selsun Blue 2.5% (extra strength). - I alternate the use of these. I aim to use nizarol only once a week at most as it drys my scalp, Might use Regenpure once a week on a different day, and will only use Selsun Blue when my scalp feels irritated/itchy, I find this shampoo to be the best at clearing up dandruff and dermatitis. - Otherwise I use some mild organic shampoo without sulfates, that includes all the fancy ingredients like biotin, nettle, tea tree, etc etc & currently using Herbal Glo EOD. Hair Mask - - Occasionally I put on a hair mask, not for prevention towards MPB (will not do anything to address androgenetic activity), but to moisturize my dry scalp. - I use coconut oil, castor oil, pumpkin seed oil, peppermint oil, tea tree oil & I use 1 egg yolk that helps bind all the ingredients together so it's not dripping all over the place. Supplements - - Not super important in my opinion, as I have tested my blood levels for deficiencies for many years even before I realized I had hair loss. My Iron, B12, folate etc levels have always been intact. - Still I recommend anyone to test for any deficiencies as they could be hindering healthy hair growth. - I take Vitamin D, MSM, a collagen powder that contains biotin ED. - Cleaned up the diet and started exercising more consistently Considering: Oral Minoxidil - 1 - 2.5mg ED - Still searching for a doctor willing to prescribe it to me Dutasteride - Topical or Oral - 1x a week added to my finasteride regimine CB-03-01 - Topical Anti-Androgen to address remaining androgens in the scalp including testosterone & DHT Restoration - 2,401 FUE with Dr. Rahal on September 9, 2020 My search for a surgeon was narrowed down to Dr. Hasson, Dr. Bisanga & Dr. Rahal. I told myself I would be comfortable going to any of the three as each were very capable doctors for dense hairline work and had over 25+ years of specialization in the industry. Ultimately I made a decision to go with Dr. Rahal as the pandemic offered a unique opportunity for me in terms of timing to get my hair transplant. Being in lockdown meant that I would have the luxury to recover at home for at least the first 4 months, and likely further to 6 or 7 months as well. Dr. Rahal’s clinic offered a date in September that really worked for me, and being the first surgery after a long holiday period that meant 5 days of rest for him and his staff, while also being the only patient they operated on that day were big bonuses for me. Day of Procedure - The surgery went better than I could have hoped for, we started at 6:00 am and finished around 1pm, time seemed to fly by with some conversation with Dr. Rahal and his staff who were all friendly, and I felt little to no pain. Initially I was booked for 2,500 grafts, after drawing up a hairline and doing measurements, they determined they would aim closer to 2,200 grafts. They extracted 2,200 grafts and during the incision process, Dr. Rahal determined I would benefit with 200 more grafts added in for density, they flipped me over and extracted again; to total 2,401 grafts. I was returned the difference as I originally paid for 2,500. Dr. Rahal had two main techs who extracted and implanted the grafts, and I believe I counted 4 other female techs who were under microscopes sorting and analyzing the grafts. The team worked very efficiently and one of the women came over to tell me that “my grafts looked very good”, which was nice for me to hear at that moment and hopefully it wasn’t just something she was saying to make me happy. Dr. Rahal checked into the room once in between extraction and placement, and it seemed he had a lot of trust in his staff. Dr. Rahal’s demeanour is calm and soft spoken, and also gets straight to business. I spent the night at their guesthouse, and my family and I expected to find accommodation at a hotel in Ottawa the following day as I didn’t know what to expect in terms of recovery, however, to my surprise I felt nearly no pain and we left immediately after the post-op the following day (4.5 hour drive back to Toronto from Ottawa). Fun fact, their clinic in Toronto is a total 7 min drive from my home, but the date they had available in Ottawa that week worked much better so we made the trip instead, which we rather enjoyed anyway. Everything considered, I was very happy with my experience on the merits of the work and attention I felt I was getting, minimal pain & swelling, and overall the immediate recipient area looked clean and dense and the donor looked good and healed quickly. My recovery was standard, I took a high level of precaution for the first two weeks, followed their instructions to the T and the post-op rep was always available to answer my questions. Why I chose FUE - For a few reasons. Every doctor I consulted with, including Diep, Zarev, H&W (consultant), Pradeep Sethi, Bisanga and of course Rahal told me I was a great candidate for FUE. I was told my donor had a fairly high capacity that I could tap into in case there was some more recession even on medication. The extracting tech ended up telling me he suspected I could achieve approximately up to another 6k, so in total 8k grafts. The other reason is that ever since I started getting haircuts as a kid on my own, I always kept my sides very short, I’ve always faded my hair and there may not have been a time since I was like 13 that my sides were longer than a 3 or 4 guard. So it was important to me to have this option. Lastly, I felt that FUE may offer a greater exit strategy if down the road things didn’t go according to plan and the Norwood Reaper wins the battle. It might be easier to shave down having done an FUE vs FUT, however, I don’t believe it would be easy with either. Surgery Details: Total grafts: 2,401 Total hairs: 5,458 Average hair per graft: 2.27 Graft break down: Singles - 407 Twos - 1,034 Threes - 857 Fours - 103 Recipient area size: 43cm^2 Recipient graft density: 55.8cm^2 Photo Dump: Clinic Photos: Day 3: Day 10 Day 14 1 Month 2 Months Month 3 This forum helped me get through this process and I'm grateful for it & I wanted to play it forward. I'll try to update month to month, any feedback is appreciated and welcomed. Special thank you to @Melvin-Moderator & @Raphael84 who were very helpful answering the many questions I had.

Early stage of very slow progressing MPB imo. Definitely go to a dermatologist or hairtransplant surgeon to look at your scalp under a microscope and do a real assessment. You're in really good shape anyway, but best you know early if it is.

You could buy a microneedling pen for 100-200bucks, and it’ll last you a long time. Don’t think thats expensive at all

Here’s a photo of Lewis Howe’s, you could look him up, pretty successful and works to inspire others. his hairline is rather thin and receded. & here he is with his fiancé I rest my case

What this guy told you was excellent. In the future you could choose to throw in 3-400 grafts or something like that to add some density, but otherwise you had no hair there at all, and now you do. Enjoy

Minoxidil has a half life of around 22 hours, the reason why it is recommended twice is thats just how they tested it during their trials. The patients were using it twice a day and they had to recommend it like that. I was only suggesting once a day, because as you'll see when you start, applying this stuff twice a day is a bit of a bitch. In the beginning you're keen you could do it, and later it does become slightly redundant. However, if you don't have a problem with it, and realistically if you care for your hair then doing it twice a day shouldn't be a problem at all anyway, then by all means do it twice a day to increase your chance of results. As for microneedling, there has been a lot of rumble in the community about guys finding it effective. Simply, you create small punctures in your scalp so that your body will send more blood to the areas for healing. More blood = more nutrient supply for the health of your foliciles. I would read into it on your own, but its a fairly low risk treatment with some good potential for maintenance and it will help your scalp absorb any topicals like minoxidil. Also its easy compliance, you would not do it more than once a week, and each session should take you like 10-15 minutes. For me its rather therapeutic.

yeah thats great. add min to your routine and 1x a day is fine. Also I made the mistake of thinking putting more into my scalp is better, more is not necessarily better at all, and when I apply more thats when I feel my scalp get irritated. Take the time that 1x a day to just make sure you apply it will and cover your scalp effectively. I would eventually add in microneedling to your routine too to help achieve greater results. 1x a week, 1 - 1.5mm and don't apply any topicals 24 hours after a microneedling session. I believe you just recently had a hair transplant so I wouln't microneedle anywhere near your recipient area as your grafts are likelty still too fragile and sensitive for it. In fact, speak to your doctor about when it would be appropriate starting that if you choose to.

Well its not nonesense I shouldnt have said that, not everyone will get an effect from minoxidil either, some men don't have enough minxodil sulfate for it to be effective, and we currently don't have a test for that.

Plenty of data that shows that in conjunction finasteride and minoxidil work better. It makes sense to me as minoxidil is a vasodilator thats works to promote more blood flow to your folicles, which is great, but if your blood contains all the DHT that works to fuck your shit up, then minoxidil without finasteride's reduction in dht may just be a temporary effort. I think what people mean is to not start both at the same time, cuz I guess you'd want to see how any treatment is working for you. But I think all that is nonesense, at the core you need to reduce your scalp dht.

No one but the doctor should be doing the incisions !

Start with finasteride, as it addresses the underlying issue. I would go on finasteride for 1 to 1.5 years before doing any surgery, and take that time to research surgeons. Your hairline is Not likely to come back with meds, but there is some possibility. Hair loss is progressive, so you need to begin combatting it with fin. ^ as per the comment above, I believe minoxidil doesn’t make all hairs dependant on it, rather the ones you are saving with it become dependant on the use to keep them alive. Hopefully someone could correct me here if I’m wrong. there is a list of doctors on this forum that are generally good. To know if you’re a great candidate we need to see Photos of your donor. I would also seek consultations from dermatologists and good surgeons to inspect your hair, and see if you are experience thinning elsewhere.

How do you use the apple cider vinegar?

Is the redness only limited to the front there? Or does it show in other parts of your scalp

Lol absolutely normal timing mate

No he was just being sarcastic.

Lol I was just randomly watching some stupid podcast with Andrew Schulz in it, hes I believe 36 years old and seemingly not losing any hair on his head, he turned around and I spotted a swirl right after making my earlier comment.

Either a natural swirl which almost everyone has, or you rested your head right at that spot and it was parting your hair. If you can, get the opinion of at least two other dermas, just to have a great sample of opinions. Looks to me like you have solid hair