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Regaine/Minoxidil


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  • Senior Member

A Sweedish HT clinic (Ilter Clinic) reccomended me to stop using Regaine/Minoxidil. This struck me because almost every other hair loss entity advises one to use Regaine (and finasteride) to hinder (and possibly reverse) hair loss.

Ilter Clinic told me that minoxidil awakens hairs that are meant to be in the dormant phase, but after prolonged use it has a negative effect on the skin/scalp, and recipients of hair transplants react badly to it (i.e. eventually they lose more hairs) if they use it continually.

This is the first and only occassion whereby somebody has denounced minoxidil and urged me not to use it. 

What do people think of this?

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Really, why? This clinic has nothing to gain from advising against it. He reccomended finasteride but not Regaine. If he has absolutely nothing to gain (because the correspondnce was free) why should I steer clear of him?

In this industry there does seem to be different opinions expressed by different doctors. For example I have had one experienced surgeon reccomend FUT when everybody else said FUE, one professional estimate that I'd need 1,800 grafts when another estimated that I could need up to 3,500 grafts, and now one professional suggesting that Regaine might not be a great prodcut while so many other surgeons seem to differ.

There does seem to be some uncertainty here.

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4 minutes ago, Rossybop said:

Really, why? This clinic has nothing to gain from advising against it. He reccomended finasteride but not Regaine. If he has absolutely nothing to gain (because the correspondnce was free) why should I steer clear of him?

 

This has come up before, users coming on here asking about clinics recommending they not bother using minoxidil. I find it interesting that people don't see the obvious potential for conflict of interest on the part of the clinics when it comes to this.

Ethical doctors/clinics will tell you the best results are achieved when you use all three options together -finasteride and minoxidil to stabilize your loss and maximize your coverage with existing hairs where they are currently, and then transplants to achieve the remaining appearance of density that you want.

 

But then there's the more numerous unethical doctors/clinics, who know that Finasteride and Minoxidil work best together to maximize hair fullness results. And the better you respond to them the less hair transplant procedures you are going to need now and/or in the long run. And those procedures that you do have are probably going to be smaller too.

 

And that means the clinic earns less profit from surgical procedures. At least all but the most short sighted and greedy will tell you to not bother with Finasteride too. They know its the more important of the two since it protects the hair from DHT, and if the DHT destroys too much hair, additional hair transplants become pointless because you won't have enough donor hair to get decent coverage.

 

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The guy who advised me against Regaine though is not somebody I have had a HT with, and I may not have a HT with him, this is why I thought it was interesting.

I do have a genuine worry with regards to Regaine, I worry if I stop using it that I'll lose more hair than ever before. The guy who advised me against it does not offer HT's to inapprorpiate patients, and he did actually reccomend finasteride.

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Minoxidil dilates your blood vessels, which means more blood flowing in the areas that the doctor is extracting and placing the grafts. More bleeding can cause the surgery to take longer, effect graft survival, and healing in the immediate days after the procedure esp if you bump your head, etc.

Stopping 1-2 weeks before the procedure and re-starting 1-2 weeks after is the general rule of thumb.
 

And about finding it interesting that the clinic would tell you this before you have reached a final decision on whether to go with them. Thats not surprising. An unethical clinic wants potential patients to accept this advice and stop as soon as possible, or not even start, because if you do ultimately decide to go with them they are going to profit from any additional grafts you'll need on this surgery and others down the road.

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20 hours ago, Rossybop said:

Ok. I see your point. Interesting. So basically anyone that advises against Regaine is unethical?

Unethical or misguided. If you still have some hair in the thinning areas, or the loss has been pretty dramatic over a relatively short period of time, like a few years, those are the optimal scenarios where medications like finasteride and minoxidil can work to stabilize hair loss and possibly even get some re-growth too . That being said, there are some unfortunate individuals who are beyond the help of the meds because their loss has been very aggressive and extensive.

 

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Misguided - interesting. Its worrying that certified surgeons could be "misguided" or totally unethical, very worrying!

My hair loss started about 11 years ago (age 19) but I still have reasonably good coverage on the crown and vertix. The hair has definitely thinned out over the years but thankfully the coverage still isn't too bad. My hairline though is totally receded, mostly at the temples. I only started takong finasteride 3 months ago, and literally just decided to add Regaine in too about 1 - 2 weeks ago, but part of me felt like ditching the Regaine if it might be bad for my hair and/or scalp in the long run. It would be awesome if the finasteride (and Regaine) made my hair thick and full again.

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