ALittelTeal

@HappyMan2021 I would say my goal is to have a NW 2.5/3 hairline that's at least thick and can be worn in a style that exposes my hairline. How advanced was your hairloss and what about your second and third procedures still needed fixing?

Yeah, I am aware of the fact that it's going to progress and why I referred to it as a "chase". My initial thought was that I could really pack the front with a proper FUE, and then as the thinning progresses behind it I would do another procedure when fibers no long do the trick. My hairline is so thin now that fibers don't work. If and when my crown goes, my thought was I could either 1) live with that 2) hair system or 3) Maybe have a few hundred hairs left to transplant. I can grow very, very thick facial hair.

My fear is that as my hair loss progresses, the few transplanted hairs that did take and are difficult to style will standout much more and it will be obvious that I had a crappy FUE done. The below photo is from July 2022, 7 months post FUE The next two from November 2022 show how thin the hairline is a little more clearly

Would love an update!

I made the mistake of getting a 1275 graft FUE "dense pack" done in December 2021. I regret not having done more research and finding this community prior, but hindsight is 20/20. The procedure was a botch job while my hair loss accelerated. (Honestly, it felt like my hair loss had stabilized when I went in for the FUE, but the procedure trauma must have kick started it again). For context, I am 29 years old, on oral minoxidil, LLLT, ketocanozole 2%, and started microneedling once a week or every other week. I started Xyon Dutasteride and worked my way up to every other day, but decided to discontinue as I had blood labs done that showed my serum DHT had dropped 50%. I was def experiencing some mental sides, and as someone who had prior finasteride sides, decided to immediately discontinue. Unfortunately, I had to end in the midst of a VERY bad shed caused by the dut and my hair has never been worse lol. I think the sparsity is exacerbated by 1.5mm microneedling that I was doing with a Dr. Pen that had far too many blades and I went over the same areas way too many times. Recognizing that 5ARs are not for me, I am torn on what to do from here. My hairline is a disaster courtesy of the prior doc. I would not like to rehash that terrible decision and instead focus on next steps. I initially had a repair lined up with Mwamba for over the summer, but put that on hold after an in-person consultation I had with Bisanga. Bisanga told me that I had thick donor supply (75-90 FU/cm2 around the sides and back), but that there was >30% miniaturization going on in the upper back donor region which gave him pause. He said to continue with medication and see if that worked before opting for another procedure. As I said, I will no longer be continuing. My choices as I see them are 1) Buzz my hair short, and just shave down the mis-angled, pluggy transplanted hairs to the skin when they are around the hairline/once they become unruly. Problem is that there is still some cobblestoning along the hairline. Or 2) Go for another transplant with a reputable surgeon for a repair and start the "chase". I had consultations with Nadimi, Bisanga, Mwamba, H&W, Konior, and Shapiro among others and they all landed on 1800-2250 grafts for the frontal zone. Since this dutasteride shed has done a number to my existing hair, as you can see from my pictures below, that estimate has likely only gone up by 500-1000 if none grow back. I am resigning myself to the fact that if I go the surgical route again, I am basically a guarantee for needing another 1-2 more procedures after that. There is baldness on my mother's side of the family, and my older brothers seem to have stopped at NW4s. Even if I have continued miniaturization, I still probably have 5-6k solid grafts to pull from. In a perfect world, I will opt for Option 1 and just give up on chasing this hair dream. I look forward to a day of not thinking about it constantly, and I believe that I have more than enough other things going for me in life that I should be fine without hair. On the flip side, I won't be able to shave completely bald because of the prior FUE, and I don't quite know how bad the hairline is going to look if I run a 6-8 guard over it. Maybe it's such a disaster that going the surgical route is the logical next step. Either way, would love to hear the input from the community. First two pictures are from a doc visit 13 months after my FUE (Jan 2023). Last pictures are me today....you can see how badly things have deteriorated lol. For the purposes of this conversation, and my mental health, I kindly request that we keep the topic of conversation as forward looking as possible and not get wrapped up in just how bad the first FUE went. I will happily address that in private messages or perhaps another thread. In none of my consults did the docs say that my scalp was damaged, no signs of scaring alopecia, and couldn't think of a clear reason why the first FUE failed but just that it had.

Would love to hear an update on this!

Very curious on this front as well, and unfortunately it's because I am someone who didn't do their research and got a "dense-packing" of my hairline that was a huge mistake. Luckily only 1250 grafts were taken for FUE and I know that I can buzz down to a 1 or 2 guard without it being noticeable in the back. What I am concerned about is the continued recession on my frontal third which is leaving the transplanted hairs a bit isolated. The angle themselves aren't great, and there are some multi's used in the hairline. As I am turned off from the idea of another transplant in the near term, I am hoping that I can buzz the top while leaving it a little longer than the back/sides, and then just shave down the crappy transplanted areas. But the fear of how it will look definitely makes me indecisive here.

Damn that’s awesome dude, it’s really starting to come in

I use Xyon Dut every other day, and am able to make one pump spread evenly about my crown and frontal third and hairline area. I’d say 75% goes to the frontal third area as my crown isn't too thin yet. Do you think that should be sufficient in the long run?

For whatever it’s worth, I was someone who was scared to death of trying any topical and swore them off until you started posting about your early success with Xyon Fin. So I made the leap shortly after that. Maybe there are other lurkers on here and we can get a larger sample size to judge from. But until then, fingers crossed that it keeps working for me (using it every other day for now)

Outside of Melvin and myself, I feel like I’ve seen a handful of others but not many. Maybe 3-4 on these forums. Xyon Dut is still in its early innings though right?

I had rather immediate sides from oral fin and have had none so far with Xyon Dut after 5+ weeks. Will take follow up labs in a few weeks.

I followed up with them recently and shared my frustrations. They were a little defensive, but also acknowledged the disappointing results. They said there was still a chance of late growth, but I don’t believe it and don’t believe he does either. Are you a patient of this same doc?

Would love to see an update! Truly impressive how quickly this total shave looked undetectable

Following up - not only has the shed stopped, the amount of hairs I see falling out in the shower must be 40% of what it was before going on oral minoxidil. It’s been that way for almost a week now. Some extra facial hair too

I’m one dose in to Xyon Dutasteride. So the shedding has all been from oral minoxidil. In the last two days, the shedding seems to have slowed down, but still too early to get my hopes up. Mentally preparing for it to get worse before it gets better.

I’d say pretty bad. At days 7-10 it was more hair in the shower, but now it’s progressed to a rather concerning amount as my scalp has progressed to a borderline diffuse thinning look. I’m holding out hope that this is evidence that it is in fact working better than the topical was, so I will be sticking with the treatment and hopefully will turn a corner in the coming weeks/months.

I just switched to 2.5mg oral once a day from topical two weeks ago. This weekend I’ve began a very profound period of shedding. Haven’t experienced any side effects yet and haven’t noticed any differences in body hair at this point. I’m hoping that my current shed is a sign of efficacy that will eventually come around, but who knows

My apologies for not picking up on that 🤦‍♂️. Excited to see your progress!

Hey, hope all is well. Any update on your progress?

Just had my bloodwork done and waiting for it back before starting on Xyon. Is there any real argument for starting with Xyon Finasteride instead of Xyon Dutasteride?

I'm someone who experienced sides on oral fin and quickly stopped. They resolved, but I would still like to halt further hair loss and preserve my donor hair. What are the specific labs that I should get taken to get a sense of my baseline before starting down this path?

Best of luck! Following along.

Would love to hear if anyone that got sides on oral fin has switched to one of these topical formulations and found a dosage for them to be tolerable. Feel free to share links to other threads if I'm missing them.

It’s incredibly embarrassing in hindsight. I really wish that I had found this community prior to going forward with it, but nothing I can do about it now. I’m hoping that maybe they took so few grafts that I’ll still be able to shave my head when my hair loss progresses haha