TheGreatPretender

It is but you should get checked ASAP by a derm to see if you have AGA or not. If you do you can start Finasteride, and if it isnt enough to regrow you can always jump in to Minoxidil which will stimulate your folicles to regrow. I would still advise you to take action now and not brush this off like I did in my early days. Prevention always beats remediation, especially when it comes to hair loss.

Doesn't seem too bad though. Seems like you still got lots of hairs in there still there.

Consult with a dermatologist, you seem to be receeding from your entrances/temple area. Get on Finasteride ASAP if you get diagnosed with MPB and save yourself the trouble of surgery. Hair Loss is a commitement on the long term and transplants arent the cure. If you get a hair transplant now especially without meds your native hair will continue receeding and you will keep chasing your baldness forever.

First thing is always the results and as long as the doctor delivers it will be worth every second you spent in there but I may be curious enough to go into his mind a bit more. I was told he was a big F1 fan and since he is brazilian maybe he does have a bit of taste for football. Upon checking on his linkedin profile I also noticed he was a surgeon in a Portuguese hairmill a long time ago in which he spent 2 years so he must be familiar enough with my country aswell.

Maybe a mind trick you could do to yourself is just think about the hairs that come out at that stage and avoid measuring thickness. If you think throughout, if hairs are appearing in area X which hasn't been growing in a very long time it means they are transplanted hairs, which in turn means they will thicken over time and mature as time passes. If a good amount of them already popped then it's a good sign that things will improve. Just my two cents.

From my understanding between month 4 and 5 usually you get the hairs coming back wispy but without the maturation, its only when you reach month 8 or 9 that you get the aproximate result that you would after a year.

Good nice up and congratulations for your surgery and taking the steps for a better life. I will there in 3 weeks and its always reassuring to hear people having great experiences at the clinic. In my case I am portuguese so I should have no problem comunicating with the doctor but there is always that pre op anxiety I guess. I hope you get the results you are looking for and a great recovery in the next few months!

Did Couto do Otamendi's aswell? Always fun to know that actually. I followed his progress closely this season since he played for the club I support and he had quite a comeback from his entrances. Whoever did his job did it pretty well.

I thought the same. Some surgeons really have a "type" they prefer to work it I guess so its not a "bad" thing he refused you on that matter, preferable instead of going there and getting botched. I think with the "big three" OP has it can hardly go wrong. Though there are names such as Bruno Ferreira/Pinto that could give him a look as I have seen a couple of cases on the first one from blond patients, some of them actually post here. As someone who will go for De Freitas this month its preferable to chose a surgeon used to treat your hair type and I think there may be better options for you on that regard.

You look great man! Honestly I wouldnt botter with the stress of surgery at this point. Give meds some time as you seem to be a good responder. Reevaluate when you reach 1/2 years on it.

Wow. This is insane! You area hyper responder to oral minoxidil. Makes me hopeful that it can have a similar effect in my crown too after my surgery this month.

Just decide when you want to take the pill, in the morning after breakfast or at night. Then after finishing your meal just take it and thats it. I do the same thing with Minoxidil aswell and it works fine for me, just attach it to a routine instead of making it separate. Because eating is something you do often on a regular basis in a specific schedulle, makes it easier to remember at least for me.

Finasteride is known to have the oposite effect in fact. I just had my local blood tests back for my upcoming surgery and it showned me that I had my testosterone slightly higher then the normal range and I have been on medication for 3 years, this is my fourth. Of course check with a doctor/surgeon but I think you should seriously consider meds because as Archan sayed, they will not just help you to protect your native hair but also enhance your results.

How long have you been on meds?

This. I wish I started taking Finasteride back while I was NW3. I would probably just shrug it off at that point and never get a HT in the proccess. Unfortunately way too many people get sold by the fearmongering we get on the drug and place ourselves on the worst place possible to the point of requiring surgery. People see HTs as a "one and done" and then think that no medication will be required after the surgery, once they realize how much they receed even after they had the surgery they comeback and contemplate on why they didnt start earlier. If OP is reading please, please, please! For your sake, if you really want to keep your hair for ages and go to the easiest route possible, seriously consider Finasteride or on the worst case scenario you could try the topical version if it makes you feel more "safe". Hair Loss is progressive without medicine, the only thing capable of stopping it fully is Finasteride (or in other cases Dutasteride) and transplants shouldnt be seen as a "cure". You will be chasing your hair loss forever and there is no guarantee on how long you will be "stable" without meds. Dont even expect the hair transplant to be the same level of quality as your native hair either, such cases are rare and will heavily depend on the quality of 90% of your donor hairs. I do share the same sentiment as OP when it comes to body dysmorphia, depression alongside anxiety and trust me, having hair loss just makes them all worse.

I get it but you never know. Some people are completly bald and reverse the hair loss completly in that area. I can say that in my 2 years that I have used the drug I found some peach fuzz in that area, some of them seemed to started growing well enough but not that thick, while the rest of hairs stayed that way. Im not saying the same would happen to you but I think you have very little to lose by at least trying. You dont really need to apply it in your entire scalp and if you like to lazy around you can just apply it once a day since the half life is average of 21/22 hours, which is more then enough to make a difference.

I would say take the switch to Dutasteride in that case since Minoxidil is mostly a stimulant. Still, its worth trying the combo (Finasteride + Minoxidil) before undergoing any surgery, this is because they both work synergetically. Minoxidil pushes the hairs to the anagen phase, while Finasteride shields them from further damage by the DHT. So no, the hair doesn't grow "addicted" to the drug, people say that because there are many users that get on it without being on Finasteride and once they stop treatment they find themselves shocked to have lost ground. This isn't because of Minoxidil, rather because over time without a blocking therapy the hairs started to become "dependant" on the stimulation of the minoxidil itself without a 5ARI so your hair reverts to how it would have been without having started any sort of therapy if that makes sense. Wouldn't worry too much if you are still stable on Finasteride, most people are able to maintain for ages (if not forever) while being in the drug.

Actually first statement ain't entirely true if I'm correct the studies reported increase in hair counts from baseline before starting the drug though it may not be directly visible in the images as the patient didn't have much to cover. There is another study by Rossi from 2011 which concludes that 69% of the individuals which had growth in the first year would have continuous improvements over the course of the following 10 years while the 32% who became worse or didn't see improvements were less likely to regrow see improvements on the 10 year mark. Study had 118 subjects so it wasn't small. No one responds the same but if you improve or respond well enough to the drug chances are you are set for life. That's my stance, now I know there are no guarantees and opinions/experiences will always diverge but that's my reading.

We thought the same, problem is that he was actually receding for a couple of years already and we noticed it was getting worse. Considering that my family history is strong in hair loss it was literally the only solution I could think off to keep him safe. He is healthy overall even more then me and has no issues with alimentation or any other thing. Chances that it was MPB are pretty much 99.99% imo. Also, the doctors here in the UK are always adamant to directly prescribe Finasteride so for me was the situation of being better safe then sorry... The bald patch over his head still persists but ain't much noticeable since he has similar caliber as mine (medium,dark,wavy) so he conceals it well. I think he could be a candidate for topical Minoxidil and told him to try if he wanted but as far as now goes he remains stable.

Could have fouled me. Doesn't really look like you're heading towards a NW6. I don't think you should go for a transplant either as your hairline looks quite natural. Stay on meds, you already are on the stronger stack and revaluate.

I actually am "kinda" self medicating on Fin since a local surgeon recommended me. So basically all I do is fill up a form and get the drug delivered to me by post, easy and simple. My brother started balding in the last few years and I knew straight away from the pattern it was MPB. So I gave him a box of my Finasteride and showed him how to order online. So he started doing the same. When I really saw him getting bad I just thought to myself "no you don't, not on my watch" so I made sure at least he could be saved from my troubles. He started with a dose of 3 timed a week, now he's taking it every other day. I told him to keep monitoring the situation and make sure he doesn't bald any further and at least for now he seems to be good with no side effects to report either. I don't obviously advocate anyone to self medicate, but in my case it was just too much to see my brother go thorough the same so I had a moral obligation to help him.

I guess there is also a dice rolling in there for your friend that didn't go his way. But he can still use Dutasteride to fully stop it since it's the most potent drug out there in the market. Just because fin isn't for him doesn't mean he needs to give up. We live in better times then people who were born in the 80s. Can you imagine what would be like to been balding on that era with maybe just Minoxidil as a monotherapy? We'd probably be belder then Vin Disel. 🙃 In a way, we are quite lucky to be alive in this fight...

While it's true that there will still be circulating levels of DHT the reality is that from my understanding there needs to be enough of it to actually kill the hair. And let's not forget that the older you get the less DHT you have do it will all depend on your sensitivity to the hormone itself. This video kind of sheds some light into it. https://youtu.be/LsF9MwIM_AM But like you said, no 100% correct version exists for this. I have been on the drug for 3 years and this is my fourth. My hair is defo thicker then my baseline and when looking back at my old pictures I can clearly see signs of improvement among maintenance. I can't really say I have lost "a hair" while being ok fin tbh. But as always, experiences differ because I am an optimistic by nature when it comes to maintaining on meds and also because I have responded fairly well to medication.

Actually there are 10 year studies demonstrating that hair count goes up while being on the drug so it's very likely that the average patient will be able to stop the hair loss in its tracks on the worst case scenario.

I think point 3 he's right. Most people don't really bald on Finasteride in the long term but him telling there is no benefit in taking Minoxidil is plain wrong.