Dragonsphere

Regardless of what I think the end result will be, I commend you for taking the initiative. Are you on any hairloss prevention medication? Also, do you have a control area? The amount inflammation and growth factors that will come about due to that level of wounding will likely cause some level of hair growth. So even if it works in some capacity, one will be left wondering if it is due to the VT or the wounding itself.

This is what I have been emphasising on all this time. The ability to regenerate hair in scar tissue is more pertinent than the actual regeneration %. If it works on FUE scarring then we will have unlimited donor hair. The hair that doesn't successfully regenerate during a procedure can just undergo another round of VT injections (and another if need be) We do actually have some evidence that it works on scar tissue to regenerate follicles. 1. The man who has it injected into the 1 year old wound on his beard that was then exercised (see page 8 or 9) 2. In Dr Bloxham's trial, the most promising result was on a revised FUT scar. In both these instances the scar tissue was much larger than a small FUE scar. So why would it not work in FUE revision?! Also take into account that FUE scars are smaller than the punch size (they contract) so an even smaller FUE instrument can be used in the second round. Smaller wound = More likelihood of regeneration. Essentially, it is entirely plausible that a 2nd round of revision would yield a greater regeneration % than the first round. Thanks @DrTBarghouthi. Three years ago follicular regeneration was a fantasy, now thanks to your efforts, it is a real possibility. Onwards and upwards!

About the current trial, something else or both? 😁

Verteporfin works as a Yap inhibitor, so we do have fairly good understanding of how it works. What we can all agree on is that there will be a sweet spot in terms of trauma. If you cut off your leg and inject verteporfin it is not going to grow back. Equally if you scratch balding areas of your head and then inject verteporfin that is not going to work either. There must be enough trauma to invoke regeneration but not to an extent that it disfigures the area, limiting the healing capability which results in fibrotic tissue. FUE does appear to fit into that sweet spot, maybe not so much FUT. Wounding into the recipient sites will probably work. Afterall, hairs are organs and DHT is damaging them. Essentially we need to find an equilibrium. An FUE instrument that minimise scarring (think what they use to extract beard grafts) done by a skilled surgeon is the way to go. Additionally, we need to have an understanding of the best dose to use, coupled with the regeneration rate. This can only be found out with the upcoming experiments. This does have it's place and can possible can be combined with FUE to enhance the results. Lets say if Verteporfin doubles the donor area, you could turn a Noorwood 7 into a Noorwood 2 with a thinned out crown. Wounding into that crown could then improve the density. Of course you will be required to take medication to prevent loosing this hair. Finding out the best dosage and what the regeneration rate is can be considered paramount before anything else. Good luck with your experiment. Although you said it didn't work for you before, it might be sagacious to have a control site. Many things can prevent dermarolling from being successful, e.g., inflammation of the scalp which can come and go.

This is what you would call an appeal to authority fallacy, coupled with a strawman. My second to last post on this forum talked about dermarolling, the depth of miniaturized follicles and why I don't recommend it. I have never said it doesn't damage follicles. However as the average miniaturised follicle is only 0.65mm deep and most people derma roll around 1 -1.5mm, trauma to the follicle is caused. Almost certainly this trauma is very mild as we have yet to receive reports of permeant damage. The trauma will not be enough, however, to cause any appreciable improvement with Verteporfin. Please point me to the post on Realself proving me wrong. In regards to Dr Bargouthi, please could you kindly show me this posts and where he states that it will result in the 'the original hairline and density back' are you so enthusiastically believe.

Microneedling doesn't cause scarring. You would need to either remove the hair entirely or a significant portion of it for hair to grow back. Thinking that you can inject verteporfin, dermaroll and go from a noorwood 7 to a juvenile hair it utterly assign. Potentially, if you create a significant amount of trauma to the scalp and then inject verteporfin I suppose in that scenario it could work. However as @ijustbethinkin said this will almost likely cause some degree fibrosis making hair transplantation in that area impossible in the future. Open forums are always good for discourse as people can share theories and speculations. A downside is as they are open, anyone can join. This results in many desperate people, ignorant in regards to the basics of hairloss and verteporfin's mechanisms making these suggestions. As you have said it is an easy experiment to do and I hope someone eventually does do it and when the results are mediocre as best, it finally will be put to an end. Of course they will never contribute anything financially towards this endeavour or put their own scalps on the line. That is the non-arbitrary line they will not cross.

Finasteride has a very flat dose response curve in respect to serum DHT. Of course it is follicular levels of DHT we are interested in but serum DHT levels should be a good proxy to estimate this. Looking at the graph below, you can see than the dose response curve begins to plateau around 0.2mg. So if 1mg of finasteride would be enough to stop your hair loss then it is incredibly likely that 0.5mg will suffice. There are other things that you can do to tackle your hairloss such as LLT. It's not especially effective, but it does work and its action is entirely different to that of DHT inhibitors. Another thing you can do which never gets talked about is to wash your hair daily. There are three major components in regards to male pattern baldness, androgens, scalp microbiome and inflammation. Washing your hair daily will reduce scalp erythema and sebum levels which helps both with inflammation and maintaining a healthy scalp microbiome. I would only use Nizoral 1-2 times a week as a deep cleansing shampoo and use a regular shampoo for the other days. There are several supplements I would recommend Marine Collagen - Helps to maintain WNT pathway and general hair health Turmeric - Anti oxidant properties Perilla leaf extract - TNF downregulation I personally don't recommend microneedling. People always say don't microneedle more than 1-1.5mm as you will damage hair. However with MPB, the scalp begins to thin and the miniaturised hairs come closer to the surface resulting in an average depth of 0.65mm. Could weekly or even bi weekly sessions cause long term damage to these hairs? Possibly.

Hi Dr Barghouthi as a point of interest, it will very valuable to make note of any growth in the early stages. In the initial experiment, the most promising dose (0.4) showed the best early growth followed by lower doses in sequential order. We could within 2 months from now have a good indication as to which dose is most effective.

This would be the most pertinent experiment as it would confirm it Verteporfin would result in unlimited donor hair. Lets be extremely pessimistic for a minute and say the 0.4 dose patient was an extremely good responder and the average regeneration rate is around 20%. If you could do revision in the the areas void of growth and that 20% regeneration rate is consistent, this would still result in a unlimited donor area. It would likely mean multiple rounds of revision spread across several years but still, unlimited grafts.

Without Dr Barghouthi's initial experiment the surrounding hype would not exist. There would be no upcoming trials, no existing trials and we would all likely be awaiting news on whatever the next Topical AA is. There is a very possible chance that we are on the verge of a cure and it's down to the the efforts of several people on this forum, primarily the aforementioned Doctor. Unless you were one of the original backers who donated a substantial amount to fund this trial, then you can hardly complain if feedback isn't as expeditious as you would like it to be. If Dr Barghouthi wants to be assiduous to ensure this test is done in the best possible way and mitigate any chance of failure, that is entirely his prerogative. It also makes complete sense and we should prefer it so.

Hi Melvin, thanks again for your continued effort with this endeavour. It was interesting how he mentioned using grants. Is there no way the community could help with this? I am more then willing to donate a sizeable amount for another trial. Verteporfin has picked up far more attention since the initial fundraiser. I am sure if we could raise $5k we could initiate a new trial. Perhaps something that hasn't been done before like wounding into previous FUE scars. On a side note Dr Miln's FUE results are spectacular.

If people are so infatuated with Microneedling, I would advise them to conduct these experiment themselves. Miniaturised follicles are only around 0.7mm deep which is shallower than the average dermarolling session. If it turns out by injuring miniaturised follicles and injecting VT will cause the DNA to mutate and make the hairs DHT resistant and terminal they can report back. (They won't) Histopathology of aging of the hair follicle - Fernandez‐Flores - 2019 - Journal of Cutaneous Pathology - Wiley Online Library It would be good to set up a Discord group for networking purposes and general discussion. Many people here are in liaison with various HT surgeons hoping to include VT in their own experiments and the dialogue would certainly flow better than on a forum.

Has anyone heard anything regarding Dr Bloxham? Obviously we have no entitlement to an update but hopefully as it has been over two months since the last one, we should hear something soon. As he is now 9 months into his trial it should be fairly evident if it is working or not.

This x100. When hair miniaturises it doesn't truly die until many years later(sometimes never). Rather the hairs go to sleep. This is why if you use a microscope on a bald head you will see many small white vellus hairs. Or when people who are undergoing gender transition take estrogen, terminal hairs grows that was lost many years ago. For regeneration you would need to remove these hairs entirely via punch method for new follicles to grow. Doing this all in one go would probably require a blood transfusion! And before someone says 'We could just FUE the bald area in multiple sittings',.. Then why not just take it from the donor area and move on with your life! Another thing to consider is scarring. We can only speculate as to how much scarring there would be from this procedure as we haven't conducted enough trials but if there is any and with multiple procedures/touch ups, (which will inevitable happen if people choose to mass wound into the bald areas) will create a layering effect with progressively more damaged to recipient zone over time. This is why with FUTs people tend to only do 2 maximum 3 strips as the scars worsens each time. Even Dr Bloxham one of the biggest proponents of FUT acknowledges this. It is harder to grow hair in scar tissue, so eventually you would end up with a situation where even if we could achieved 100% regeneration you will have damaged the recipient area over time to such an extent you wont even be able to implant any hair into it.

Actually, what I have shown you is exactly how biology works in respect to hair loss. The hair on the back and sides of our head has a completely different genetic make-up to the top. To think that follicles regenerated would poses the characterises of the back and sides, we might as well consider the possibility they will look like hair on your balls and I am not being facetious when I say that. At best it is wishful thinking. It is not an extrapolation as we have a pretty good understanding of how the drug works combined with basic understanding of hairloss we can make a fairly good assumption as to what will happen. The hair follicles WILL be DHT sensitive. As you have articulated it will require long term medication otherwise you will quickly 'uncure' yourself. It took less than 6 months for castrates to loose their hair; likely the newly formed hair will go before it even reaches a terminal stage. From an empirical standpoint, again, most people who have transplants do not take medication. Using donor hair is a long term solution for everybody, it would become gold standard. You could have a Noorwood 1 hairline and not have to apply a greasy topical every morning. You don't have to take a endocrine altering medication with unforeseen consequences. I am not saying this test would be a waste of time. I am saying with the limited number of tests we should try and prove the best possible outcome which is unlimited donor hair. Everything else is secondary. I am not going to argue this case anymore as this thread should move on with healthy discourse.