Severin

Thanks for your suggestion - I'm actually about to try my luck w/a super low dose oral Minoxidil, which (fingers crossed) might get me a higher growth yield than topical. If I'm unable to tolerate it, I'll try what you've suggested.

@devnullthank you for offering your experience and advice, as well as simplifying the language a bit for my dumb ass! 

I'd like to keep the tone of this discussion helpful, so it would be a good idea to restate my intention - to find a way of dosing topical Finasteride that keeps the benefits of the drug, while minimizing systemic effects. I believe 0.1% is too high for me - and while thankfully I have had no sexual sides whatsoever on this dose, it is clearly still impacting me in other ways.

I'm going to order an 0.05% concentration now, as serum DHT will hopefully be less affected.

If anyone reading this has been in a similar situation as me, and has found longterm stable success through a smaller dose, I would love to hear from you specifically.

9 hours ago, ciaus said:

 

Noticed you couldn't help drop that web address as you make your denial, confirming my suspicion. If anyone is having issues with depression they should be consulting with medical professionals in all medical things, both mentally and physically. And considering how much garbage and misinformation there is online, even mentally healthy people would be wise to not use the internet for medical advice and recommendations.

There are any number of lifestyle habits, dietary habits, non-hairloss medications, to just plain getting older and the body starting to break down, that can cause the same issues that a small minority of people report having with finasteride. And almost everybody on this forum is just an everyday guy with no medical training, no accountability, and no liability to discourage them from giving out incorrect, unverified, even false information. It might be hard for someone depressed to understand, but they deserve better than that.

  

 I'm a little disappointed to see how you edited your message.

You and I live in the same world, my friend - we share the same condition, and our solution is the same drug. So you know as well as I do that even a cursory google search for Finasteride will inevitably lead a person to that website, as before hairloss advocates like Kevin Mann etc, the online space was dominated by their frightening narrative. 

Anyway. My first intention was to reach out to THANK you for your initially measured response to my message last night. You're absolutely right - once emotions reach a certain intensity, it's a better option to seek professional help. But maybe you can relate to this - in a therapist's office, often I'm met with an otherwise compassionate human being taking a look at me quizzically, before saying "what about (insert middle aged rich Hollywood jock on PEDs)? They're bald and they're successful!"

47 minutes ago, ciaus said:

Nice to see "two", "new" members joining the forum the same day, hours apart, starting and maintaining most of the back and forth in this conversation.

How hard it must be for the fringe anti-finasteride crowd to be patient enough to create convincing scenarios for freaking guys out about taking finasteride.

You may want to reread the content of the exchange, my friend - you're seeing scaremongering where there was nothing but an exchange of advice.

Have no fear - the fringe group I belong to is not propeciahelp.com . It's to the group of hairloss sufferers who stopped dating or going outside. My depression resulting from this condition has inspired the darkest thoughts I have ever heard spoken in my head, and so am extremely, EXTREMELY invested in Finasteride working for me. The brainfog I have experienced is heartbreaking and would do anything to take the damn thing with no side effects.

So ball is in your court now. What do you suggest for a person in my position?

2 hours ago, Gatsby said:

Personally my advice would be to stop finasteride. At least for the time being.

Does it sound crazy that I think I would prefer a few hours of brainfog a day the catatonic depression my hairloss put me in this past year?

Let me answer that. Yes. It's crazy. I can't believe how much this condition has taken from me.

I know you're right. But emotionally, I don't think I'm ready to stop.

1 hour ago, devnull said:

You might also want to get your hormones checked, might be also that you have high estrogen and high testosterone, which gives a lot of discomfort.

 

I am working as a programmer, and FIN triggered this brain fog for me too, like you said: like in cotton UNSTANDABLE. This won't go away bit itself, so you need to do something against it, lowering the dose won't help unfortantly.

That's a depressing dose of reality! I was hoping that 0.05 topical might help, as 0.1 topical totally erased the sexual sides I had with oral fin. 

I'm sorry to hear you experienced it too. As a programmer, that must have been maddening. Hell - anything that requires remembering a sequence of 3 steps or more can become almost insurmountable.

4 hours ago, devnull said:

I'll try 😃

You are using Finasteride, which is an 5 alpha reductase inhibior.

5 alpha reductase, converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT).

 

But 5 alpha reductase, does more than that. You have a hormone in your body which is called Progestrone (typical an important hormone for woman). 

Progesterone will be converted to Dihydroprogesterone and finally to Allopregnanolone, which is a pretty important neurosteroid.

Most people's brain can adjust to the lowered Allopregnanonlone, but some can't.

 

So your option is to increase that Progesterone by adding some bio-indentical (Utrogest 100). So if you have more of that, you'll get the chanche to bind more of it to the 'still-active' 5 alpha reductase enzymes and increase Allopregnanonlone again. 

 

 

Oh wow - okay. Thank you. This is very detailed and gives me a lot to look into.

6 minutes ago, devnull said:

Your only option is to add bio-identical progesterone (utrogest) sublingual.

Problem is 5ar Inhibits P4->DHP4 transformation,  this means a decrease of allopregnanolone (important neusteroid) downstream.

 

Hi devnull - while I do appreciate your quick response, the terms you are using are a bit inaccessable to me - would you mind telling me again with slightly simpler language?

Hey everyone.

This will be my second post on a hairloss forum in 10 years. My first post got me some really awesome feedback, and I thought I'd try again with another pressing topic.

My first attempted hairloss regiment in many years was .25 mg oral Fin M/W/F and topical RU. In less than two weeks my genitals literally felt like cold rubber, and I had horrible heart issues from the RU.

I stopped everything and ordered topical fin and Fluridil. 

I have since dropped the Fluridil and stuck with the topical fin - for almost two months now. There have been no sexual sides this time. However, every day at work I realize I experience a small attack of brainfog and confusion. It feels like wading through cotton. It seemed to be going away for a short while, but it came back yesterday quite strong.

The current concentration I'm using is at 0.1% . Is anyone here using a lower concentration - say, 0.05%, with success? 

I'm reluctant to stop, as my pattern is severe. 

5 hours ago, HappyMan2021 said:

Germans seem to love Hattingen, consult with him. Dr. Bisanga is a great choice as well so you are on a good path there. 

My own personal bias, I would just completely avoid Turkey. Yes there are objectively good doctors there, but when you are working with a very large graft count you really need personalized dedicated attention, and I'm just not sure youll find that at the super busy touristy Turkish clinics - even the good ones. 

And this is GREAT advice, thank you. If it would be Turkey at all, it would only be for dr Bicer - but you raise a very good point.

7 hours ago, devnull said:

I can only recommend you to go to Hattingen and do a max strip. 
My baldness is really bad, with 25 I was much more bald than you. 
 

The 5200 Grafts was really doing wonders for me, but as I really want to have a illusion of density all over my scalp, in addition to my very fine hair, I need likely to double that amount. 
 

I had 7800 Grafts and still 2500 in my scalp donor. 
 

Without FUT this wouldn’t be possible, and I would be stuck

Honestly, thank you so much for this post. You've given me a lot of hope and perspective.

35 minutes ago, devnull said:

5k Grafts was about ~ 15k€ 

Ok wow....that's really not so bad at all.

1 hour ago, Ryan Daniel said:

Dr. Bisanga is a great doctor and not far away from you. 

Show us a photo of your donor area with some hair showing please

So I'm KICKING myself for this now...but going through my phone, these are literally the only pics I have of my donor - although I still have a fade haircut, probably making them useless. 

When I have my consultation w/dr Bisanga, he'll check my donor with a microscope - I'll check in again with what he tells me.

Devnull, if I can ask...what would an FUT megasession like the one you had cost? I've saved several thousand by now and am considering taking out a small loan as well.

39 minutes ago, devnull said:

I also vote for Hattingen in Switzerland to start with a big FUT, as you might need more than 4000 Grafts in the first place. 

According to your future Hair loss, you can go on with FUE after and got a bigger amount of Lifetime-graft.

 

Did the same:

5200 FUT, Hattingen

2600 FUE, HLC

 

Starting with FUT was the best descision I ever made. 

 

As I live in Bavaria, driving to Hattingen and back was comfortable as well

 

Holy crap this is helpful, thank you!!

Sorry the photo is sideways. I'm a boomer at heart.

Also, I forgot to mention that I've scheduled a consultation w/Dr Bisanga in mid May.

16 minutes ago, J.A.C said:

We need to see a pic of your donor area, that would help 👍🏽

Ah okay. As I just recently shaved, I don't know how much use this will be, but here's hoping!

And thank you, I'll look up both those doctors.

Hi everyone,

So at age 35 I finally find myself in a place (and living situation) where hair restoration is financially possible.

However - given the fact that a) this last year of living with a shaved head has been the darkest of my entire life, and b) my adult ADHD makes focused planning EXTREMELY difficult, I worry my emotions could get the better of me, and I could make a quick and bad choice here - which is why I want to put my case forward to people with years of experience.

I noticed hairloss at 22 when I was still living in Canada. At that time, there wasn't so much discussion around microdosing Finasteride or topical versions, and I let my fear get the best of me. It took about 12 years for me to get to the loss you see in the pics here. 

This was my combover. It worked fairly well and I still have a lot of native hair on the sides. 

I am currently on topical Finasteride .1 per cent, and am sourcing low dose oral minoxidil.

The two restoration surgeons that impressed me most so far have been Dr Bisanga in Belgium, and Dr Bicer in Turkey. As I live in Germany at the moment, I am mostly looking at surgeons on or near to this continent.

My question is - as I would need extensive work rebuilding my frontal third, as well as my crown - is there another doctor I haven't found who is better suited to working on my pattern? And am I even a suitable candidate for a procedure?

I am extremely new to all of this again, and am feeling quite naïve and uncomfortable with all this - any and all feedback would be welcomed.