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Alcohol thins your blood which can effect your blood clotting capacity, leading to excessive bleeding during the surgery and in the immediate days after when healing. My doctor said no alcohol the week before and at least 3 days after. Different people with different doctors will be told different times, depends on how cautious the doctor is in terms of having faith in his patients following instructions. Sometimes they will give an extra long period of time because they assume some of their patients will try to shortcut or slightly ignore an instruction. The reality is no drinking a few days before and after should be fine, unless you are having some unusual healing or infection problems.

Yea the topical formulas are mostly under the radar. I remember checking out the minoxdilmax website a while back when it was first posted on, had some sections that looks suspect, less than professional. And the one you posted doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, even though it has a big HIPPA compliant seal at the bottom. lol Wouldn't surprise me if these were basement home chemistry operations. I've seen @mustang post about getting topical, think he's doing the dutasteride one currently from his HT Dr. Mwamba. He has offices in Brussels and Atlanta according to his site link below. Until it goes mainstream retail, I'd feel more comfortable getting it from a Dr like that, or getting a recommendation from a reputable HT doctor. Maybe reach out to Dr Bisanga or his rep @Raphael84 . I've seen them recommend oral minoxidil so they are open to the un-orthodox delivery of FDA approved meds, maybe they can recommend someone. https://fueclinic.com/services/treatments/minoxidil-7/

@Dr. Glenn Charles mentioned he doesn't tell his patients to stop finasteride, but the original poster @rj. doesn't mention finasteride. He only has three posts, seeing in one his older ones just now where he says he refuses to take finasteride. So to the OP disregard my previous recommendation about the finasteride, but you'd be smart to regard my recommendation on that Eucapil nonsense.

Never heard of "Eucapil," looked online a little and sounds like a waste of money. Their website looks suspicious, especially the 'how it works' hair loss tab. Save yourself some money, this looks like an overpriced formulation that probably sneaks in some minoxidil so that the people taking it will see enough results to keep buying it. Your time between stopping and restarting the minoxidil was un-necessarily too long, that's the most likely reason you are shedding. Drop the eucapil and look into getting on finasteride, its the only other approved studied drug than minoxidil that is proven to help with hairloss. And this link here is from a US doctor's reply from someone asking about Eucapil in... 2006! That's 15 years ago and according to the company website making it today its still only offered as a "cosmetic" in some eastern European countries, no approval in any country to medically treat hair loss. https://baldingblog.com/eucapil/ Eucapil is stated to be a cosmetic and is available only in the Czech and Slovak countries. By stating that is a cosmetic, that means that no medical claim will have any value whatsoever. Products like these may do good things for the appearance of hair, but there is no suggestion or proof that it will grow hair or reverse hair loss. It is well known that herbal and natural supplements have wide variability in their manufactured ingredients and the owners of these product seem to push claims that may not be valid far too often. As I have stated many times on this site, it is a buyer beware market. That is my medical opinion. There are medical solutions available, which are finasteride 1mg (Propecia) taken orally, minoxidil (Rogaine) applied topically, or a hair transplant procedure — all of which require a medical examination by a qualified doctor.

Come on now, if we're talking 90s its gotta be the VIPer Vanilla Ice. Look at all these FUT scars on the sides to get that top so thick! The man's scalp laxity is legendary! For anybody that remembers In Living Color from the early 90s, Jim Carey did a great spoof on him. Other versions on youtube have pretty bad video quality, this was the best one I could find, starts about 5 seconds in.

Steps 1, 2 -Get on the finasteride and minoxidil ASAP, you want to strengthen all your hairs as much as possible to minimize the chances and severity of shockloss. Initial results for those medications can be seen as early as a few months and take up to a year for full results. And if you start these shortly after the transplant its going to be harder to accurately evaluate how successful your hair transplant was. Around the 3-5 month period when your transplanted hair starts coming is also when you'll start to see any hairs re-growing from the minoxidil and finasteride - if you do get some regrowth, some guys just maintain and strengthen their existing visible hairs. Minoxidil does increase your blood flow by expanding the size of your blood vessels so your doctor will have you stop taking it 1 or 2 weeks before and after the procedure to minimize the chances for excessive bleeding. Anybody telling you to stop taking minoxidil for longer than 2 weeks before or after the procedure has no supporting studies/evidence on that, and it will only make it more likely that you experience a temporary shed. Stopping a week before and after is sufficient, unless you have some unusual healing issues after the procedure. With finasteride there's no need to stop taking it to get a hair transplant. You probably already get enough Biotin in your diet unless you have pretty bad eating habits. If you do want to do some supplementation, I was initially advised to take this by my doctor for other scalp skin conditions and it is targeted towards skin, hair and nails. It does make my nails and hair grow faster: https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Biotin-Forte-Zinc-Packaging/dp/B000NYG7JG/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=biotin+forte&qid=1613845538&sr=8-5 And I wouldn't put much stock in the massaging and PRP, can't hurt anything, except your wallet a bit with the PRP. But as long as you have the extra money to throw around and keep your expectations low. Like Melvin said, unfortunately there's no surefire FF button for this process. Just be patient and try to keep yourself distracted with the everyday and miraculous things that make life worth living. Time always passes slower while you are looking at the clock.

Yes, maybe he did try the rug for a little bit and then got the HT. If you look at this screencap, its more visible on the right, that looks like the shadow from hair under the skin. The only other process that could produce that effect would be SMP.

This is also an example of how looking at yourself and styling your hair in the mirror, thinking it looks ok or even good, VS. how you actually look to other people/cameras! I've had occasions looking at pictures of myself and thinking, hey I didn't think I was having a bad hair day that day. Agree he is an inspiration to head shavers everywhere, should have done it from the start.

I agree, most of us are fine most of the time doing that. Its just that I've already overthought this in case something like a crazy shed the OP is having were to start out of nowhere on me!

Those are some nice results, resizing and comparing side by side, especially for the front. Stick with it. There's a link below with a little more about telegon effluvium, like if this is just a shock from covid, and how it progresses and is usually temporary. Stay positive! https://donovanmedical.com/hair-blog/te-resolution

First and foremost, cost. Merck did lower the prices a bit after their patent expired, but Propecia is still alot more expensive than the equivelant 1mg generic brands. The other major factor is the quality and specialization of their manufacturing facilities, standards, etc. Merck is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world so they can afford the best. A lot of the facilities that are used to make generic versions of medications operate on lower profit margins, so they are going to be cutting corners where they can, using the same equipment to make different kinds of medicines, operating in jurisdictions with less regulatory oversight that can lead to more quality issues. I posted this link a few posts up, putting it here again because it goes into alot of details about those kinds of factors alot of us don't think about. https://www.wolfhair.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Brand-Name-vs-Generic-Finasteride-Jan-Feb-2016.pdf

Ok, so for the 5mg pills the standard practice is to cut them into quarters, so that you have four 1.25mg pieces, and then you take a piece a day. Thats what I do. I wouldn't go higher dosage than that to keep side effect chances low. So a 90 pill supply will last you about a year. I do that instead of the 1mg generics and it ends up saving alot of $$ Look at these price comparisons for the 90 5mg pills at pharmacies around me with goodrx, even the more expensive places are still alot cheaper. And you can print out as many of those free coupons as you want down the road, or get one of their free discount cards.

No, that's just a stock picture of the cutter with some big generic pill. I just added an annotation to the picture to clarify that.

This may seem to some like we've hijacked the thread a bit, but I believe making sure that the finasteride has been manufactured/transported/stored correctly is also crucial when unusual shedding like this occurs. After medical causes have been ruled out, or even while they are being ruled out, switching brands to another generic or even to the Propecia brand for 6-12 months can help to verify its not a finasteride sourcing issue too. Merck's patent on finasteride was still active back when I started, wasn't aware of pill cutting so I did use the Propecia brand for a few years. They were 90 pill bottles and while the bottle had a seal you needed to break, the pills weren't individually wrapped. The only individually wrapped Propecia pills I've seen are the sample packs my HT doctor would give out and that was back in the day. Each pill was in a little bubble mounted on a card and you pushed the bubble to pop the pill out. Have you seen 30/60/90 supplies that have individually wrapped pills? On the degradation that the pill pieces can undergo, I always cut one pill at a time for that reason. And since each quarter is 1.25mg, that extra 25% of the recommended dose means even with a little degradation you are still getting a full dose. This is a pic of the pill cutter I use, it has a little cover so you can store the pieces until you finish them too. You should be fine quartering 5mg generic finasteride from US pharmacies, one pill at a time. I'm going to continue doing that unless I get a weird shed like the OP. While the pill is eliminated from your body within a day or so, its effect on your DHT is much longer, see the chart below, it takes your DHT levels over a week to fully recover. And again, with that quartering you have the extra .25mg padding to help offset any air exposure degradation, which is probably not that much if you are cutting one pill at a time.

Also about your dosage, cutting a 5mg pill 8 ways. You are getting about half the recommended dosage. This can also effect when you see results and how much, if any. Are you doing this because you initially had side effects? do you plan on increasing your dose at some point? Some guys on here start with a lower dose to minimize the chances of getting side effects by giving the body time to adjust, then gradually increase up to the recommended dose over a period of weeks. I can't say whether there's any actual science behind that thinking, but there are some guys that swear by it based on their personal experience. Side effects and finasteride is a muddy subject, of the small minority of guys that do report getting side effects some of them are just being paranoid about the possibility and psych themselves out into actually having sexual performance issues.

Hold on, this is putting the horse before the carriage, you get the girlfriend so SHE hangs the towels properly for you!

I cut generic 5mg finasteride that I get from my local pharmacy in the US, not sure who they source from and what substitute suppliers they may employ from time to time if necessary. That would definitely be something I would start doing homework on if I noticed a sudden dramatic shed though. Companies like Keeps.com, who have a business model that is basically just selling monthly home delivery subscriptions of generic finasteride and minoxidil would probably be a better place to purchase than the pharmacies, because they have more to lose in terms of complaints and profit loss, and so probably keep a closer eye on who they source from. But for the highest manufacturing standards the gold standard is still Merck, but your going to pay for it if you go with their 1mg Propecia. The 5mg Proscar is actually a bit cheaper than the 1mg generic finasteride after you factor in cutting them into quarters. I priced it out one time and it came to about $20 a month, but you pay more up front to get that 90 day supply, think I remember it being about $220, maybe more or less now. There's an interesting read in the first link that goes over alot of factors that go into making quality medications that alot of us don't think about. Below that are links to those online companies that specialize in dispensing the generics and will probably keep a better eye on their manufacturers because of their business model specialization. You won't get 5mg finasteride from them though, just the 1mg and the cheapest among them is about $20 for a month's supply. https://www.wolfhair.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Brand-Name-vs-Generic-Finasteride-Jan-Feb-2016.pdf https://www.keeps.com/our-offering https://www.forhims.com/hair-loss https://www.getroman.com/hair-loss/

Echoing the thanks on this often overlooked and avoided important area, great video. That part where he says they do about 4-5 procedures a week that involve temple work, would love to see a steady stream of those results here! Does Eugenix have some proprietary tools they've developed that are crucial to achieving consistent results here?

Interesting read, pasting the important parts here: It's a condition called telogen effluvium where essentially what happens is a major illness stressor or event just shocks the body to the point where the hair follicles are off cycle, " she said. Put simply, it's when more hairs than normal enter the shedding phase of the growth cycle at the same time. Most people start to see their hair fall out in clumps 2 to 3 months after being very sick, especially if they had a fever. "We are seeing a record number of cases than we usually see during this time," Dr. Oyetakin said. However, COVID-19 isn't the only root of the problem, add stress to the list. "I think we can all agree that stress levels are a little bit elevated in this pandemic and stress leads to TF," she said. ... In some cases, it can take up to 9 months before the hair shedding stops, but most people we talked to said theirs stopped after a few months.

Along with stress or some other undiagnosed medical issue, are you getting the finasteride from the same place you always have, and from a trusted source? And are they 1mg pills or are you cutting 5mg pills? A 90 day bottle of 1mg pills or even less 5mg pills from a bad batch could have the same effect as you stopping the medication if it was damaged during manufacture or at some point in the supply chain before it got to you. Beyond that make sure if your bottle does have an expiration date its valid and you are storing it correctly (like not in a hot room, no direct exposure to moisture, cap securely fastened etc). If none of the above is the issue, it could just be that the extra time the finasteride has been buying some of your vulnerable hairs is coming to pass. Unfortunately finasteride doesn't work perfectly, it lowers your DHT by up to about 70% so there's still some flowing around to do damage. Depending on how genetically sensitive different hairs on your head are, that can give them a few extra years or hopefully decades of extra time. If this is the case don't lose hope like some guys and stop taking it altogether, because it is still providing some protection for your other remaining hairs, preventing them from being bombarded with your full normal DHT levels. You never really 'maintain' in the perfect sense, its about putting brakes on hairloss as much as possible.

Hi, there's a search bar in the top right of the page, used it to find these quickly. @Shifty big 3++ thread is a great place to start below if you want to delay or try to never have to get a HT. And @CosmoKramer below that is a microneedling devotee.

Hi welcome to the forum. Its great that you are having success with your regimen, but you still can't put transplantable-level confidence in those frontal hairs and move them farther forward. In the long term most guys, even those doing the right things like you are, will still lose considerable amounts of frontal hair because its usually the most DHT sensitive. Finasteride does considerably lower your DHT but it doesn't eliminate it, so over the years it is still having a reduced effect. For those finer hairs that make the frontal hairline look natural the doctor has better options, taking from areas like the nape of your neck in the back.

Nicotine does cause your blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow with nutrients, oxygen from/to your organs and other destinations like your hair follicles. But there's no evidence it can be a dominate factor in hair loss. So many people have smoked over the decades, stopping/starting again and again. If it was even a noteworthy contributor enough of those people (and the people around them) would have noticed the corresponding changes in their hair, and it would be in the common knowledge, like how we all know that smoking can cause lung cancer. Worse case nicotine may make your hair loss a little worse at the margins. If you are just on finasteride you may want to consider adding minoxidil, it may partially or completely offset the blood vessel constriction factor since one of its key effects is to expand the blood vessels.

Can you post pictures that show your corner hairlines, something like in this diagram from the side, or diagonally facing from the overhead? Its important to compare where the sides of your hair come up and meet your hairline too. You may be losing more hair on one side of your head than the other. So maybe these are the most natural hairline closure angles he could do without transplanting hair down into your temple side areas too. Also agree with others about naturalness of asymmetry and your hairline looks fine to me just being limited to seeing it from your pics looking straight forward.

I just can't get over the surname Slaughter. Great if you are going to be an MMA fighter, infantryman, action movie star, IRS collections agent, etc. BUT if you want to be a doctor, nurse, pastor, politician... you got to march down to your local social security office on your 18th birthday and change your last name! This calls into question his judgment capabilities and shows a complete lack of appreciation for superstitious patients everywhere!