calvinmd

Avodart (Dutasteride) is a lot like a super-strong version of Finasteride, at least in the pharmaceutical sense. It's not exactly the same thing but it's very similar. I've heard that the side effects are often more severe than with Fin. --------------------------------------------------

RU in particular is usually said to have remarkably little systemic absorption. Not everyone has gotten the much-hyped great results on their hair from the stuff, however I can't remember ever reading of anyone complaining about systemic effects from it. It seems to have proved a lot safer than Flutamide on this issue. It's a risk, but it's not the worst thing I've heard of people trying for MPB. (I think I'd personally worry more about taking systemic Dutasteride than topical RU, and Dut is already legally prescribed & sold in pills.) I've thought about trying RU myself, and I'd be very curious about what you get out of it if pursue this. I hear that the stuff is very sensitive to storage conditions. That issue may well have kept it off the mass market (impractical). Take great care with it or lose it. There's also the dosage & vehicle issues. You'd need to have it in something that absorbs well. And the dosage is a problem too. Too much is pissing money, and too little negates the gains. There's probably a fine line between the two. Good luck if you pursue this. Keep us posted. Iv'e stumbled onto other MPB message boards where more people have tried this stuff in the past; you might get more informed/experienced advice poking around one of those places. ------------------------------------------------

Temple recession: If you mean to comment that the temples are often left too receded, it's usually because of the need to conserve grafts and keep the patient looking natural. If a guy has hair in front but a thinning crown in back, the temples become very important as to whether or not it looks natural. If the temples are too filled-in, then the crown loss won't look normal in comparison. There are always a few exceptions to everything, but you generally won't ever see a NW#1 hairline with a bald crown. Even the NW#2s with a shiny crown aren't common. The temple areas are usually close to NW#3 territory by the time the crown gets visibly thinned. ------------------------------------------------

No HT is truly "safe," but a HT in a female whose family doesn't show much/any female hair loss is a heck of a lot safer than most male HTs. If you wanna risk it, then go to a good HT doctor and have your scalp looked at for "miniaturization" signs when you get a little closer to the age that you actually wanna pursue this. Other than that, the procedure is pretty similar to male hair loss. The hairs would be removed & implanted in the same ways and would face the same potential complications. -------------------------------------------------

IMHO it's totally related to hair loss. My head is always itching/tingling in exactly the areas where the MPB is hitting hard. And whenever I swallow a dose of Finasteride, this feeling noticeably diminishes within an hour. ---------------------------------------------------

Lemme save Bill some typing for a few of those questions (but he can certainly correct me anywhere that I'm inaccurate) -- FUE work does indeed cause the hairs taken not to grow back again, and therefore it "thins" the donor zones to some extent. But no matter which style of HT you get, your head doesn't get any smaller and the number of grafts on the back/sides does get reduced. So even with strip HTs, there's a certain amount of hair-thinning in the donor zones just from stretching the skin to close the wound. FUE isn't truly a scar-free job, they're just smaller scars that are more spread out. Beware that FUE work is generally more inconsistent than strip HTs even from the best doctors. Strip-style HTs generally have higher graft survival rates and they're certainly cheaper & more reliable. If science ever invents a way to eliminate the strip-scar's appearance, then FUE's popularity would probably take a sharp dive. And BTW: One of the popular FUE docs insists that the "average" patient often has 10,000-15,000 donor grafts available with FUE work. Don't believe this. None of the other docs agree, and this doc in question still hasn't come close to proving it even after several years making that claim. Any doctor could move 15,000 grafts on a patient, but that doesn't mean the patient's donor area will still look normal when he's done. About 6000 grafts is widely seen as the practical limit for an FUE-only patient, and maybe 6-8000 grafts is the limit with a combination of several strips followed by some FUE work. These numbers are debatable, but I'm just ballparking it. -------------------------------------------------

RU can be bought from a Chinese company already if you can pay for it. Users have had mixed results. --------------------------------------------------

Is there a good set of fully-grown-out before & after pics of ANYONE, ANYWHERE that visually looks like they've gotten more than 2000-3000 grafts growing from FUE work? I can't think of a case off the top of my head. And the idea that there just aren't enough grown-out cases to photograph yet is total bull. That excuse held water about 3 years ago but not anymore. ------------------------------------------------

If you're gonna cut your head wide open and spend several months looking bad during recovery, then you might as well get as much as you can out of each pass. I haven't had a strip HT myself, but I get the feeling that it becomes a balance between money versus the severity of the overall surgery/swelling/recovery experience. Getting 1200 probably isn't worth a strip surgery IMHO, but at the same time some of these H&W 5000-graft-jobs seem like they'd be pretty grueling even if you can afford it. And not everyone should have too much hair moved all at once anyway just because of unknown future loss. With lifetime donor hair being a major limitation, some of the HT process usually needs to be spread out over a few years even if the money & surgery wasn't a factor. 3K is decent, but you definitely wouldn't wanna do a 6000-graft session all implanted into the frontal third of your head when you're 26yo. That's a bad risk no matter how much cost & surgery you could theoretically tolerate at the time. ------------------------------------------------

IMHO it was too young. I wouldn't have said he needs to wait until he's 30 or anything, but it seems like putting this off just another 3 years would have already made a big difference in how much of a risk it is. Especially since he's several years into a Finasteride regimen, and there's a lot of anecdotal reports of the drug's benefits fading after a few years in very aggressive balders. Either way he was past legal age, it sounds like he was totally informed & warned about everything this may come to cause in the future, and he obviously wasn't doing it too impulsively if the Finasteride's been there for 4 years already at age 20. Can't ask for much more than that. I agree with everyone that waiting 5-6 years on the next session would be a good idea. -------------------------------------------------

Good thread. I think it can all be boiled down to this: Good habits cannot stop, prevent, or reverse a case of genetically-caused MPB. But very bad habits seem to be able to accelerate it to some extent. As for the "getting worse each decade," I think there's probably some truth in this, but I also think there's probably nothing that we can do about it. If there is indeed something in modern life that is driving up MPB, then I think it's probably most likely to be doing the damage during the developmental stage of our bodies rather than in adulthood. Witness the total lack of anyone reversing their hair loss with better lifestyle. (I said REVERSING it, not merely reducing it.) I'm not saying that better diets aren't valuable or anything, but I'm saying that switching to a better diet once your hair loss begins isn't exactly gonna spare you from the MPB experience. My own theory is that the issue might be related to whatever factor that has been driving down the puberty ages. Puberty changes have hit particularly hard in girls. I imagine male pattern hair loss hitting earlier than in the past might be the male gender's flip-side of the same change that we don't yet understand. They're both deeply linked to hormones & aging/maturity. Even if we figure out what it is and it turns out to be something that we have any realistic hope of changing for future kids (unlikely), we're probably more likely to solve the issue with better hair loss preventions & treatments during adulthood anyway. Society would much rather create an expensive ways to treat a problem than just prevent it with some sort of un-gratifying compromise to our lifestyle. --------------------------------------------------

I agree. Bad hairlines gave away a lot of bad HTs in previous decades. But these days, the hairlines from any of the top docs are good enough to no longer be the giveaway. At this point in the top-doc HT world, IMHO you're better off splurging on the frontal density than the hairline work itself. Strong density and a mediocre hairline seems to usually look a lot better overall than a weak frontal density that's paired with even the best hairline. ------------------------------------------------

Pick anyone you know, brother, friend, GF, whatever. Now, do you think you could correctly pick their hairline out of a lineup of hairlines in similar colors & shapes? No way in hell. Nobody really notices the finer details of hairlines but us. When it comes to the hairline quality, just go to a good doc and make sure to get at least 1/2 original density and single-hair grafts there. The hairline will be undetectable as long as the rest of your head doesn't give the HTs away with a lack of density or something. ------------------------------------------------

Maybe because he's a total jerkwad? And because he's got so much money that he can get better looking women without hair than we'd ever get even with all our hair back? ------------------------------------------------

You've just discovered something ominous. The thinner hairs are thinner because of "miniaturization" caused by male pattern baldness. The areas of your head that you find the individual hairs looking thinner like that are the areas that will be going bald in a few years. The thicker hairs aren't getting hit with MPB, so they are maintaining their shaft thickness and length. ------------------------------------------------

"Why can't I transplant the receded areas since Propecia will stop the future hair loss?" Because unfortunately Propecia WON'T stop the future loss. It will only slow down the future hair loss at best, and in a large number of cases the effects really begin to diminish within 5-8 years. There is often a small amount of regrowth from the drug at first, but make no mistake -- this drug WILL NOT PERMANENTLY STOP HAIR LOSS. Propecia (Finasteride) is basically a method of knocking down a certain male hormone in your body because this is the hormone that happens to cause hair loss. The manufacturer (and most doctors) will say that sexual side effects are extremely rare and will resolve if you quit the drug, but there are users of the drug who have reported otherwise. The sexual side effects seem to be much more common than the "2% of men" that the company reports it to be. The age at which a guy first gets HTs is an issue that has been hotly debated for a long time. But even most of the guys who favor younger ages would tell you that 17/18 is WAY too young. I know you're saying that you're not actually going bald right now, but in terms of HTs the doctor has to basically treat your case the same way. He still has to be concerned with whether you'll have more baldness than you can cover later on. I also had receded temple areas when I was in later high school. It sucks, but it's also not the worst than MPB can be. I guarantee you that you know at least one or two guys right now who will be looking visibly bald (not just receding, but full-blown old-geezer-type BALDING all over their head) before they are 26 years old. Unfortunately there really aren't any realistic options for you to "fix" this situation for at least several years from now. You can probably find an unethical doctor who will do a transplant on you if you look hard enough, but it is NOT in your best interests to do this. There are A LOT of doctors in the transplant industry who have made a career out of ruining guys' lives by preying on their insecurities when they first begin to see some hair loss. (The number of mediocre-to-terrible HT doctors far outweighs the number of decent ones. Don't think it won't happen to you.) I've also been wanting to transplant my temples for more than a decade now. I still haven't done it because I had to wait to find out how bad my eventual hair loss situation will be in the future. This becomes much clearer as you get into your later 20's. In my case, it turned out that I'm in for worse hair loss than any of the men directly related to me. I'm VERY glad I waited now. ------------------------------------------------

Agreed. I'm not betting on hair cloning/multiplication happening right around the corner yet. But it seems very possible that we'll see one or more new MPB prevention drugs hit the market within a decade. In another 10-20 years, taking systemic Finasteride will probably seem like a fairly primitive/clumsy way for us to have been fighting MPB. --------------------------------------------------

I got it too. I reduced the dosage and that got rid of it. I also think it was fading within a few days' time on its own. I don't know what does it. I read at least once somewhere that it was likely due to an overabundance of testosterone in the testes because the testosterone wasn't being converted to DHT#2 like it normally would have been. So once your body's hormone levels have had a few days to adjust, the testosterone in the testes levels out and the pain would be gone. I don't know whether this explanation is true or not, but it's the only specific one that I've heard on the issue so far. ------------------------------------------------

Hey guys. Space Ace, If you aren't 100% familiar with the MPB workings, here's the short gist of things as best I understand them: 1. First DHT#2 bonds to your hair follicles in areas that are genetically-susceptible to it. This is a slow ongoing process that goes on throughout your life. Some of the DHT is being produced "locally" in your scalp skin, and some of it is just circulating in the bloodstream all the time. 2. As the DHT bonds to the hair follicles, your body seems to mistake the follicles for foreign invaders rather than a part of the body. So your immune system begins attacking the follicles, which gradually shrinks the hair shafts until the follicle eventually shuts down entirely after several years of this process. The anti-inflammation drugs (like Minoxidil) work by basically reducing the immune-system damage part of the equation. It basically helps the follicles grow through it. But the DHT itself is continuing to bind to the follicles the whole time, so as soon as you quit the Minoxidil the hair loss is back with a vengeance. You're not only getting the original loss resuming, but there's additional loss from all the additional DHT that continued to bind to the follicles the whole time. The Minoxidil had been shielding the follicles from the immune-response effects of it. No real long-term gains. The anti-DHT drugs (like Propecia) are reducing the amount of DHT#2 throughout your body's bloodstream. So there's actually less DHT damage being inflicted to the follicles while you're on it. And since the total lifetime amount of DHT damage to each follicle is what ultimately governs the immune response that attacks these follicles, it's a long-term gain. -------------------------------------------------

There's a lot of unsettled issues about high doses of Accutane driving up MPB. --------------------------------------------------

That's when you're really golden. --------------------------------------------------

Trump is nuts for that head. He should have gotten that corrected a long time ago. If he can even consistently pull off such an elaborate head-covering combover in the first place, then he probably has plenty of hair left to get at least some type of surgical improvement. Maybe there's remaining donor hair, existing botched-up HTs could be reimplanted, etc. Or why not just wear a hairpiece? It's not like that elaborate combover could possibly be any less inconvenient on a daily basis. It's not like anyone thinks his hair is still normal anyway. I'm not a fan of hairpieces, but in Trump's particular case I don't see how he has anything to lose. ------------------------------------------------

Thanks Bill. Although even if the ICX method can only regrow existing follicles, I'll bet it would probably still be able to sprout up the equvalent of several thousand new grafts for almost anyone. Existing HTs are gonna do some sizable damage for sure, but it's not like EVERYTHING up on top is gonna be transected. Nature's original no-MPB density is so high that we'd probably all see good visible density gains from reviving even 1/4 of those follicles. Not to mention the thickening of existing hairs that this procedure will probably cause, since MPB often causes minor thinning even in the "permanent" zones. So any hair-thickening results of ICX's treatments will be like gaining some grafts for free. I don't think the new vs. revived grafts issue itself is occupying my mind half as much as the fact that they don't seem to have an answer to the question. What is it about hair researchers? They're all so committed to the problem, and yet they always seem to leave huge surprising gaps in the knowledge whenever I read about what they're doing. Seems like no matter what I'm reading about hair research, I always come away at least a little bewildered at the way they're going about it. -------------------------------------------------

The scar issue is something that you NEED to understand before you go under the knife: Either get a HT or shave your head bald, but you can't do both. Any (strip-style) hair transplant will leave you with a long horizontal-line scar on the back of your head. It will be big/visible enough to rule out ever shaving down buzzed again for fear of showing it. You'll always need at least a centimeter of hair length in the back/sides to hide the scar for the rest of your life. So, you CANNOT get a HT and then later decide to shave your head down short. This issue has burned A LOT of men over the years who become unhappy with what they can get out of HTs (or just can't afford more of them) but still can't just shave down short to cope with the balding. They're stuck showing the total "horseshoe" in back for life. --------------------------------------------------

My two cents: -- The strip/FUE issue is bigger than the price of any deposit, even if that deposit is a couple thousand bucks. Choose which of the two procedures you really want to go forward with, and then act accordingly even if that means losing the deposit with Armani. IMHO, Armani's decision to go FUE-only seems like it's purely for financial reasons rather than any technical ones. Dr. A was great with strip jobs when he did them. -- The chief complaints with Armani are basically hairline aggressivenes & the donor estimates. (I agree, you can't trust their donor reserve estimates WHATSOEVER. Their numbers are absolute pipe-dreams for anyone who wants to keep the extractions within the permanent zone while retaining a normal-looking donor area.) But having said that, you never hear any bad things about the results from a technical point of view. Not even from the other docs within the clinic. So if neither of these ethical things stand to affect your own HT decisions, then in your case going to Armani doesn't seem any worse than anyone else. ------------------------------------------------