Should I quit minoxidil??

[taimishu]

Hi everyone,

 

i've decided that a HT is for me. I am a NW2 mostly at the front hairline with some mild diffuse thinning.

 

Currently titrating up on fin 1mg MWFS to daily.

 

I was originally planning to quit minoxidil 3 months before transplant, to let the minox hairs fall out so that the surgeon can place more grafts where is needed. 

 

Has anyone else been in this dilemma? I haven't heard of this topic too much and wanted some opinions. I despise putting on minoxidil and the way it makes my hairline wispy. However, I am uncertain how much hairfall I will have and dictate my final density from the HT.

 

TIA

[Melvin- Admin]

Why would you want to quit minoxidil to go balder? I don’t understand the rationale.

[taimishu]

8 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Why would you want to quit minoxidil to go balder? I don’t understand the rationale.

did you see my attempt at the rationale above? 

 

I understand it may be a confusing one, but I want to quit minox so that the dependent hairs may fall out and I can place grafts where they are instead. I am trying to gain knowledge and opinions on the matter to hear what may happen with my density though. I may just go down to nightly minoxidil instead.

[taimishu]

It's damn near impossible to see how well minoxidil is doing for me. I really want to stop stressing about my hair and adding minoxidil twice daily definitely does that to me. I would like density, though.

 

[ciaus]

The question is whether the convenience of not using min is worth the additional grafts to maintain acceptable hair coverage -additional grafts you may not ultimately have in the long term war against your hairloss. Some guys ultimately loose so much hair that they run out of donor hair to transplant into the thinning areas. So in the words of dirty harry, "Do you feel lucky..

 

Some factors in this  -like how old you are, how long you've been losing, how well you've responded to the meds -did you start fin and min at the same time? or did you start fin first then later min, or the other way around, so that you have some idea how well you respond to each.

They work best together of course, fin protecting the hair from dht and min extending the growth cycles so you have more hair growing at the same time and helping to thicken them up.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by ciaus

[taimishu]

7 minutes ago, ciaus said:

The question is whether the convenience of not using min is worth the additional grafts to maintain acceptable hair coverage -additional grafts you may not ultimately have in the long term war against your hairloss. Some guys ultimately loose so much hair that they run out of donor hair to transplant into the thinning areas. So in the words of dirty harry, "Do you feel lucky..

 

Some factors in this  -like how old you are, how long you've been losing, how well you've responded to the meds -did you start fin and min at the same time? or did you start fin first then later min, or the other way around, so that you have some idea how well you respond to each.

They work best together of course, fin protecting the hair from dht and min extending the growth cycles so you have more hair growing at the same time and helping to thicken them up.

 

 

 

 

Exactly. The areas that I am most concerned about are my hairline, the only place I apply minox to. So i'm torn..In an ideal world, I would rather just place grafts and let fin do its thing..I don't mind taking a pill daily.

 

I'm 28, and started with minoxidil first. I've only been on finasteride for about 5 weeks now so excited to see what it will do for me.

[ciaus]

If you're only applying it to your hairline currently, that's the most dht vulnerable and even if the meds help you hold on to them for now, in the long run you are likely to lose alot of them anyway.

But you say you have some mild diffuse thinning in addition to your front hairline. That's where I'd be more concerned about not using minoxidil, the hair in your mid scalp and crown areas are more resilient than your front, so they are more worth the long term protection and enhancement that fin+min provides. Especially the crown, a very difficult area to rebuild with transplanted hairs, can use up ALOT of grafts in the long run.

[Future Hair Doc]

I would recommend against quitting minoxidil

[Melvin- Admin]

That rationale still doesn’t hold. In that case, why not wait until you’re fully bald so all your hair is transplanted?

[taimishu]

2 hours ago, Dr. Suhail Khokhar said:

I would recommend against quitting minoxidil

Is there any further explanation of why you recommend this?

 

If I have applied minoxidil only to the areas that I will receive grafts in (which is true), what would be the point of continuing (other than maybe having more density in those specific areas since I will have the minox-dependent native hairs.

 

It almost seems wiser to me to quit minoxidil, see its shedding effects, and get grafts placed in those locations. Conversely, if I were to continue minoxidil and perhaps quit AFTER the HT, them I will have holes where grafts COULD have been placed.

 

1 hour ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

That rationale still doesn’t hold. In that case, why not wait until you’re fully bald so all your hair is transplanted?

Melvin, I think you are taking my thought process to the extreme and using it against me. I'm not really sure how else to explain myself to you without receiving rhetorical remarks and not constructive or thoughtful feedback. Did you really want me to answer your question, or did you know that I am a NW2 who just started finasteride 1mo ago? 

[Enhancer]

I see the rationale.

-He may just eventually stop committing to the minoxidil after the surgery seeing as he's already tired of it

-Hairs grown by minoxidil holding on by a thread might just be permanently shocked out by surgery

-The gains by Minoxidil just might stop working, common as minoxidil is considered a very short term solution for a lot of people who finds it wears off in a year or two

In those cases, may as well rip the minoxidil bandaid off now and let the surgeon take care of it properly.

However this only applies if surgery was going to happen regardless. I would only do surgery if I was generally unhappy about the way I look, I wouldn't do it just because I don't want to apply minoxidil anymore.

[Melvin- Admin]

14 minutes ago, taimishu said:

Is there any further explanation of why you recommend this?

 

If I have applied minoxidil only to the areas that I will receive grafts in (which is true), what would be the point of continuing (other than maybe having more density in those specific areas since I will have the minox-dependent native hairs.

 

It almost seems wiser to me to quit minoxidil, see its shedding effects, and get grafts placed in those locations. Conversely, if I were to continue minoxidil and perhaps quit AFTER the HT, them I will have holes where grafts COULD have been placed.

 

Melvin, I think you are taking my thought process to the extreme and using it against me. I'm not really sure how else to explain myself to you without receiving rhetorical remarks and not constructive or thoughtful feedback. Did you really want me to answer your question, or did you know that I am a NW2 who just started finasteride 1mo ago? 

Finasteride and minoxidil work synergistically, you get better results combining them both. They work differently, so finasteride is not an exchange for minoxidil and vice versa. 

Hair loss stabilization and preservation will ensure that you don’t need to keep chasing hair loss with surgery. Minoxidil helps with this. Therefore, not a good idea to quit. That said, you’re free to do whatever you like. 

[taimishu]

24 minutes ago, Enhancer said:

I see the rationale.

-He may just eventually stop committing to the minoxidil after the surgery seeing as he's already tired of it

-Hairs grown by minoxidil holding on by a thread might just be permanently shocked out by surgery

-The gains by Minoxidil just might stop working, common as minoxidil is considered a very short term solution for a lot of people who finds it wears off in a year or two

In those cases, may as well rip the minoxidil bandaid off now and let the surgeon take care of it properly.

However this only applies if surgery was going to happen regardless. I would only do surgery if I was generally unhappy about the way I look, I wouldn't do it just because I don't want to apply minoxidil anymore.

Thanks for clarifying for me, I'm not sure why I receive two-worded comments from none other than the moderator on this forum. I think it would be better if he just didn't reply at all.

 

Yes, that's my thought process. I am unsure how bad the shed will be. Do you think 3 months is enough time for my shedding to stabilize before surgery? and yes, of course I am planning to have surgery in about 11 months. 

[DenverBuff1989]

@taimishu I've thought a bunch about stopping Rogaine numerous times for reasons similar to what you've described. My crown loss is significant but all in all not terrible. There aren't many bald spots in the crown, its more thinning. Since its thinning, many doctors have refused to operate on my crown for fear of damaging these thinning hair. Ironically, if my crown loss was worse and was more bald, many doctors would be more willing to work on it. I've thought about quitting putting Rogaine there so thee thinning hairs would fall off. 

I honestly don't have an answer. No doctor or anyone following any best practice would ever tell a hairloss sufferer to stop taking Rogaine, even tho in certain situations it does make sense. But be careful what you wish for. You can "hope" for a more bald area for a surgeon to work on, but then you can get a poor job and have non dense coverage, and these new grafts might look worse than your native thinning hair in the area. 

[taimishu]

3 hours ago, DenverBuff1989 said:

@taimishu I've thought a bunch about stopping Rogaine numerous times for reasons similar to what you've described. My crown loss is significant but all in all not terrible. There aren't many bald spots in the crown, its more thinning. Since its thinning, many doctors have refused to operate on my crown for fear of damaging these thinning hair. Ironically, if my crown loss was worse and was more bald, many doctors would be more willing to work on it. I've thought about quitting putting Rogaine there so thee thinning hairs would fall off. 

I honestly don't have an answer. No doctor or anyone following any best practice would ever tell a hairloss sufferer to stop taking Rogaine, even tho in certain situations it does make sense. But be careful what you wish for. You can "hope" for a more bald area for a surgeon to work on, but then you can get a poor job and have non dense coverage, and these new grafts might look worse than your native thinning hair in the area. 

Thank you for your reply. 

 

I agree, the fact that new grafts will never be native density does scare me. I am really hoping i won't get a poor job though since I'll likely be considering top surgeons.. but you never know. 

 

I am leaning towards slowly titrating down to once nightly dosing of minoxidil. twice daily is incredibly time consuming and not really sure how much it does for me. 

[ciaus]

16 hours ago, DenverBuff1989 said:

But be careful what you wish for. You can "hope" for a more bald area for a surgeon to work on, but then you can get a poor job and have non dense coverage, and these new grafts might look worse than your native thinning hair in the area.

Agree here, you can never count your eggs until they've hatched. The doctor/staff skills and mistakes, this being your first HT, etc aside, there may be some unknown physiology/medical condition factors unique to you that end up causing a high(er) percentage of the transplanted hairs to not root successfully.

Ultimately it comes down to your personal risk tolerance because nobody can guarantee

-how much shedding and additional loss will happen when you stop minoxidil

-how much you are going to lose down the road

-how successful any hair transplants you have will actually end up being

 

[deitel130]

Just my 2 cents but if you find minoxidil a burden applying twice a day you can try just once a day. Prior to my first HT 10 years ago I was on both Finasteride and Minoxidil since I was advised to stop minoxidil for surgery I never ended up re-starting. I felt Finasteride helped slow down loss but would keeping minoxidil in the mix helped further? Possibly but I can never know now. What's your family history of hair loss? How old are you? You may want to factor in all of this prior to making a decision. If family history of hair loss is norwood 2 maybe you are comfortable with stopping minoxidil but I would not stop both. You want to be on one of them to stabilize the loss.

[anotherhairlosssufferer]

I understand the rationale but there is no way of knowing which hairs is Minoxidil helping with and if you stop and those fall out that they'll grow back once you restart Minoxidil. So probably safer to stick to it until the surgery and resume after it's safe to use it again.