Rasputin

Then go ahead and use Regenix to regrow your hair like Matthew McConaghey, it works or it will give you placebo effect anyway considering it worked for him. Explaining all of side effects just with nocebo effect is just showing that YOU don't understand anything about biology. I don't deny neither placebo neither nocebo, but explaining anything based on that is absolute ignorance.

Ah, I meant that if the fact that we were balding was due to having a bigger amount of DHT than men who are not balding, then to me that would make sense to use finasteride to lower DHT. But that's unfortunately not the reason we're balding. It is just our follicle sensitivity to DHT. So, by suppressing it, obviously, it would make the fall slow down, or even stop, but that's not really going to the root cause. The root cause is not DHT, but the follicle sensitivity to it.

Hey, well, I am going to answer in several posts I think, keeping my situation for later when I have more time, I will make a post to update on my 4th procedure. Just to make things clear, I don't want to discourage anyone using fin or minox, everyone's story is different, even though when it comes to our hair restoration stories, we all have similarities and can relate to one other. I don't think you necessary need 3 hair transplant. It could be less, or more. If you look at Dr Zarev or Dr Pittella (but others as well) they can get results in one giga session. But that's more indicated if you're already a solid norwood 6 / 7. Also, it's prudent to see how is your scalp growing transplanted hair and not waste all your grafts in one go. Even though the surgeon is an excellent one, who knows what can happen? So that's just a safe way of restoration, but not necessary your only option. Do you mind sharing which surgeon recommand you the 3000 grafts? You don' t have to. No, for rosemary oil, I wasn't talking about sides, but saying that studies showed that it is as effective as minoxidil, but people's experience says otherwise. So, I wanted to minimize the prevalence of placebo / nocebo effects. But feel free to try and keep us updated on that. My opinion is that it's not really useful. I had great success with essential oils to treat skin infection for exemple, so I'm not saying it is not useful, but for hair loss... I don't know. The drugs will be much more efficient, but that's also why there is much risks of sides. My sides on minox appeared after months of using it (6 or 7, not sure). Actually, it was only one side effect I noticed: watery semen. It went from creamy and healthy to few watery drops. Never ever had this in my whole life. I didn't change anything else, lifestyle, diet etc... So I linked that to minoxidil quite easily. I used it for one year and few months. Results were good on the beard, average for the scalp. Now, I know some might say, well that's not libido issues, not erectile dysfunction, but still, it is quite disturbing to say the least. It's been one year I stopped approximately and I think I'm slowly recovering, I'm not sure, but I hope. It's gonna be really slow anyway, seeing how it goes. This side effect is mostly common with finasteride, I'm really really surprised this happened to me. And that's why also I wanted to minimize this so called nocebo, because never would I thought that minox could give me this. I had 3 fue procedures, the first one aged 22, unfortunately, the yield from all this procedure wasn't good. Although, it could be much worst. I had in total 4000 grafts, and considering I'm a norwood 6, what I have is not that bad. But for exemple, I saw some results from Dr Konior with only 4000 grafts on norwood 6 that are much much better than mine. But at least most of the hair I have are transplanted and still strong (even 10 years after my first surgery) I'm planning to get a 4th one to get a whole coverage, with possibly body hair if need be.

You need to go for several small procedures. First one would be hairline and gulfs temple. Being conservative with it. Second, filling it gently the midscalp and crown. Then, when all of your native hairs are gone, go for one more to give more general density. The most important is to find a surgeon that will give you a proper planning of the future. Finasteride is a gamble to me, at the end of the day, it is how much you care for your hair. I personally do, a lot. But still, no fin for me. I'd definitely do it if non balding guys had no DHT or just less DHT than those with male pattern baldness. But since they have the same amount, and it is just balding men who have genetic hair sensitivity to it, I won't give it a chance. Although I'm sure it's working well for many. I don't really believe in the nocebo effect. There have been studies showing that peppermint oil or rosemary oil are just as effective as minoxidil 5%, however reports of people trying are quite negative. Why no placebo effects then? I could give more exemples. Also, minoxidil gives sexual side effects as well, and most of people who got them (me included) had absolutely no knowledge of this potential sides from minoxidil. You scroll online, you'd find only heart palpitations, hypertrichosis, headache, rash, anxiety etc. (and I got none of it, funnily enough) So, this nocebo effect is mostly people saying that to reassure themselves that nothing will happen to them. One of the other stuff they will say is usually that it is revealing that you have underlying condition etc are you sure you haven't check your hormones, do you have diabete blablabla. They are worried, they don't need other people talking about negative experience cause they care too much for their hair and really need the drug. I absolutely agree that fin and minox can give amazing results, and for some, no sides, and that's amazing for them, but the fact that the ones who have sides have either underlying conditions or nocebo effect is just straight up BS.

It is not really expensive. Dr Konior is 15 dollars a graft if I understood well. Dr Zarev is 4 euros a graft, same goes with Dr Pittella. These are the 3 surgeons I would chose for my case

Good luck, keep us updated on your progression

I saw your journey with Eugenix, you did have some BHT implanted on recipient and even scars. Have you asked about the possibility of Finasteride hindering body hair growth?

The information you find about beard is that usually it can provide 3000 to 5000 grafts. I think it does deplete it quite a bit tough. But this is a general info, and I do think your beard is above average. Not much but still. Many men don't even have beard on their cheeks, some don't even have under the chin, but I know people that have way above average, with beard all over the neck, down Adam's apple, that's crazy.

The beard could probably give 4000 grafts.

Indeed, and I think, as you get past a certain age, it's better as well to have more of a diffuse thinning look than the shaved smp one.

Can't you just implant hairs on it? It is something really common.

@watde It all depends of the type of hairstyle that you want to wear, and if you have body hair. What about your beard and chest? Look at this video below: (I'm not saying to go for this surgeon, but that is enough to show you have possibilities not to be bald, and I'm actually not surprised that Dr Pittella sent you a surgery plan). Whatever you chose, do it with a cool head and talk with your surgeon about the future.

I gotta disagree with that. I personally know people who have nothing to do with this social media stuff (no insta, no snapchat etc) and are bald and others that are constantly posting on it who have full head of hairs. But if we forget about social media and just talk about stress in general (and I strongly believe that most of people's jobs, or even relationships, are causing more stress than social medias), why would stress make your hair fall following the typicals norwood patterns? Stress can aggravate your hair loss, if you're already prone to it. If you're not and have an aggressive hair loss suddenly (due to stress before exams for exemple), there's big chances that you'll recover from it.

@From Brazil Did you have to wait a long time to get a surgery date with Dr Pittella ? Good luck for the growing! It will be awesome I'm sure.

It would be interesting by the way to hear about surgeons who are practising the donor restocking, their opinion about Verteporfin.

Considering you had a lot of BHT in your donor with beard, arm, chest, leg, I'd assume it look better shaved or short. The fact the leg / arm / chest hair is much shorter than beard / scalp hair, that would probably make it look patchy, although much better than patchy because of just scars. Kept short or shaved, wherever the hair comes from, there is (almost) no distinction.

I think that's quite early to tell... But even if it could only regenerate new extractions, that would be a huge game changer. Maybe, as well, you could also extract the newly growing hair and do it all over...

To fill in the previous fue scars that can't be regenerated. If I understand correctly, Verteporfin has to be used rightaway to (possibly) regenerate hair.

So this could be also used to treat BHT extractions?

Unfortunately I don't really know, need to get this info for my next session. But I definitely have less density than SeanToman, his results look good without SMP already so yeah it gives a boost. The wind is mostly a problem for my mid scalp where density is less than the hairline (this is why the wind is not a good thing for me so far)

Hair fiber gives 3D density, it makes your hair itself thicker, SMP doesn't, I guess that's the reason why most people here use hair fibers. I just don't like it. I feel dirty with it, but the results are really good, I tried, and it's better than SMP (at least with the density I have now)

I do have that and it's quite bad, when there's wind for exemple you can see something's off. But my density is also quite low and I wear long hair. Could be maybe better with short hair but I need to have more work done to be able to do that (fue scar repair, a bit more coverage on recipient). Although, I'm hoping that with another session and more density it can enhance my results. (I'm talking about another hair transplant session not SMP touch up) Check this:

By the way, just check this out. This guy is a french singer, and he had his hair transplant more than 20 years ago (I don't know exactly when, could be even more than that, maybe more than 30 years ago). No idea if he's taking finasteride(my guess is no) so you can definitely see (his name is Michel Fugain if you want to check more pictures) that he is supposed to be a norwood 7 or more (I think he even have retrograde alopecia). But notice how his transplanted hairs are still here and quite strong. I don't think he's the only exemple but the "donor dominance" is something quite sure by now. That's why I sometimes don't understand the theory that BHT would became eventually more like scalp hair, that would be "recipient influence". This guy is a full norwood 7, even more. If you're norwood 5, or 6 with good beard, you can have a decent result with no finasteride. I don't even know why bother with it (and the unofficial 30% chance of sides effects) if you have a beard (unless you want to keep your whole beard, or you really want to avoid the progression of balding and several procedures) Beauty is amazing, but health is beauty.

Ah alright, I'm new on the form, thanks letting me know

Of course you can, but it's easier if you're already a norwood 6, stable for years. Now, if you were supposed to be a norwood 3 only and stay this way, then it is possible as well. But we can't know that. Maybe just guessing, looking at your dad's pattern, or other male family members. Wayne Rooney has a decent result. I'm quite sure he doesn't take finasteride, so had to do several procedures but considering is high level of baldness, and his hair that looks really thin, you look at him now (many years after his first HT) and he doesn't look bald at all. His temple points were not reconstructed though so he could even enhance his result. He also most probably never used BHT, and he has a better beard than most men. Different story for Nadal. I think his results for 2 procedures are quite disappointing, but this is "normal". He's mediterranean and got this typical diffuse thinning. The issue is that probably the fue he got "killed" all of his thinning native hairs so he might look as if not much has been done, but in reality, the hair he got now will not fall as it is from the safe zone. He will still need another procedure. I don't know about his beard.