CaliforniaLiving

Looks great dude! Already a home run for the amount of grafts. Can't wait to see it after a year!

Awesome result, and with only 2600 grafts! Congrats dude, you should be ecstatic. 

Thanks for documenting this Melvin. Excited to see how month 4 looks!

Disagree that this is an acceptable result. For 3500 grafts in the front third you should expect a better result than shown, especially in the part of the hair.

edit: The fact that he is not on finasteride is irrelevant as well. There have been many cases with patients that have worse hair loss and no medication that have gotten decent coverage in the frontal third with 2500-3000 grafts. 

9 hours ago, TorontoMan said:

Current Prevention - 1mg Fin, 2.5mg Oral Min, Topical 5% Minoxidil 1x a day, Needling every 10 days 1.5mm, Nizarol once every two weeks or as needed. 

* Note - I use to use nizarol once a week, and midweek I would use Regenpure's 1% Keto shampoo, but have recently dropped it as its been clearly drying my scalp and hair making it feel weak and look frizzy. I will only use Nizarol now sparingly and mainly when I feel my scalp becomes irritated as it its really great at clearing any dandruff or seb dermatitis.

Adding to Prevention - 

2% (20mg) RU58841 in 1.5 ml PG + ETH.
(experimental chemical, not approved for hair loss) 

- Trialing a topical anti androgen to compete with residual DHT and Testosterone in the scalp. 
- Minimal dose of RU, as I don't believe its necessary to go any higher due to its high binding affinity at first pass. 
- I also have fluridil powder which I intend to trial at >5% dose if I don't comply with RU. 

Excited for the future - 

1. BAY 1159061 - Bayer's prolactin receptor antibody 
If you're not familiar with this then I highly recommend you read up on the product. Bayer struck a licensing agreement with a Chinese company named Hopemed and raised $56 million dollars for this project, it is currently in phase 2 trials and the results will likely be published end of this year or early next year. The prolactin angle to combatting hair loss has been all the rage recently as it it is thought that prolactin made locally in the hair follicle is inhibiting stem cells in the follicle by shutting down their signalling. The antibody being developed is thought to be very selective for the PRL receptor so that it binds and stops PRL from exerting its negative effects on the follicle, which would in turn allow for things like WNT signalling to take place and other stem cell signalling. Androgens and PRL may have a synergistic effect on your hair, so reducing androgens and inhibiting the PRL receptor with BAY could theoretically "reset balding". 

“The PRL receptor antibody is a potent monoclonal antibody, blocking the PRL receptor-mediated pathway in a non-competitive manner. The drug product can be administrated subcutaneously. The antibody was well tolerated in a clinical Ph I study (combined single and multiple dosing).

The antibody was effective in stimulating hair growth in aged stump-tailed macaques, nearly doubling the number of terminal hairs after 6 months even in previously fully bald areas and showing a sustainable impact even after 2 years post treatment. Notably, the stump-tail macaque model is considered one of the rare predictive animal models for male and female pattern hair loss in humans. The study is a result of a close collaboration between Bayer scientists and researchers at IMM.”

https://www.folliclethought.com/bayer-licenses-hair-loss-treatment/

This is a very promising upcoming treatment and in my opinion might even turn out to be a functional cure for most men. It is hopefully only 2-4 years away from market, and in my opinion it is worth holding out any hair transplants until we get more results and information from trials as it could have great potential for regrowth

2. Kintor Pharma's AR antagonist (pyrilutamide) and AR degrader (GT20029)

https://www.hairlosscure2020.com/kintor-pharmaceutical-from-china/

^ Well written write up on the two products and how they're progressing. 

The AR degrader is thought to have potential to reduce the AR sensitivity, this means that your hair folicles will be less prone to the effects of DHT and test. Of course in theory, if this is safe, this will be a major step forward. The AR antogonist will be similar to any topical AA like RU for example, but we will likely have a better understanding of its binding affinity and safety profile for those who are concerned. This is already in phase 2 in China and has entered phase 1 in the US. Its also thought to have a greater binding affinity than CB & FLuridil with similar safety profile

Other compounds being discussed and trialled anecdotally by guys across other forums are:

SMI-6 - mimics the effects of BAY on the PRL receptor

WAY-200070 - ERb antagonist to induce estrogen type effect on hair (estrogen is good for hair) without acting on the ERa which is what would give feminizing side effects from increasing estrogen levels. 

* ^These two are not something I'm trialing myself, but just something for you to take note of and read up on as more info comes in. 

Lastly, topical dutasteride is getting a lot of attention in the last couple of years. H&W clinic are apparently trialing their own formulation currently and are looking to release a small study they've done by the end of this year. More could be found on topical dutasteride online. 

 

There it is, this was a bit manic and it felt like I was writing up a small research paper for uni, but I wanted to do my service to the forum as it really helped me from the beginning. I'm very optimistic that this is an exciting time for hair loss as there are so many things in the pipeline, more than I even mentioned here.  

Dude, amazing breakdown. I know you would like to leave these forums and hair loss in general behind, your research and writing would be a valuable asset to everyone here. I hope you can stick around and give us some more quality posts like this in the future. Cheers!

Looks good! Sorry you had a bad experience at the low quality clinic but thank you for sharing your story.

Looks great for 5 months man. You should be super happy!

Even with the gap this is going to look good. Very nice for 4 months!

Looking great!