Verteporfin HAIR REGENERATION HUMAN TRIAL Dr. Barghouthi *OFFICIAL THREAD

[Jonathan]

On 4/1/2024 at 6:46 AM, Dragonsphere said:

Hamilton's example is just the most popular one that people refer to. In every instance, the introduction of androgens will cause people to reach there genetic pattern within a matter of months. I am not going to list every example but you can Google it.  This is a fact and is indisputable. To give a final example, look at the below graph, the group who were on Propecia for the first year and switched to placebo lost hair at a far faster rate than those who were on placebo to begin with. 

This is why those of us on DHT inhibitors are in such a precarious situation. 

Verteporfin would cause the follicles outside the donor zone to regenerate to how they were, i.e., susceptible to male pattern baldness. 

I am not saying that it wouldn't work, what I am saying is by the very definition it would not be a cure! It would require one to take prevention medication for the rest of their life. 

Most men who have hair transplants don't take Propecia, most men on Propecia would obviously prefer not to be on it. I, myself, take Dutasteride and am concerned regarding the long term effects of the drug. 

If we can regenerate donor hair, all it would take is 1-3 dense pack procedures and one would never have to worry about hair loss again. No Propecia, Dutasteride, Minoxidil, lllt, etc. This is what we could consider a cure to be. 

In regards to MPB being a 'terrible, cruel disease,' that just suggests mental instability. 

 

Couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything you’ve stated. Verteporfin could be the cure not with regenerating follicles outside the donor zone but within, have enough supply and you don’t need medication. Only ultra rare cases wouldn’t be curable. 

[Square1]

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Couldn’t agree more with pretty much everything you’ve stated. Verteporfin could be the cure not with regenerating follicles outside the donor zone but within, have enough supply and you don’t need medication. Only ultra rare cases wouldn’t be curable. 

The upside of just wounding and treating balding zones with verteporfin is that it doesn't require a hair transplant surgeon to perform, it could just be done in a regular beauty clinic where they perform microneedling. Maybe with some instructions on how to apply vp.

I think I agree that the chances of success are not the best, but if somebody wants to fund that, all power to them and I would only lead to more knowledge about the working of this drug, which is good in itself.

 

 

[LandWhale]

Verteporfin + wounding for the win if it actually works. That would actually be the closest thing to a real cure in terms of aesthetic results even if you have to combine it with Dutasteride.

If the sides and back were actually DHT-immune then maybe hair transplants + Verteporfin would be preferable since it would remove the need for medication, but it's not.

So if I need a DHT-blocker anyway, I would prefer to have my hair back with its natural growth pattern and density. 

Edited April 3 by LandWhale

[TV_on_LazerDisk]

On 4/1/2024 at 7:50 PM, TV_on_LazerDisk said:

Off topic but what do you think of the injecting of Dermal Papilla cells as preventure for future hair loss

I was asking because it would mean if it worked

1 that combined with verteporfin could be used for maintenance

2 if verteporfin grew new hair follicles on balding spots due to being dht sensitive they might have shortened lives so this would allow those to be maintained

I could imagine you do a ht, get deep microwounding or extraction of dormant hair follicles for increased density and derma papilla for maintenance 

 

Verteporfin plus dermal papilla would be the cure

Edited April 3 by TV_on_LazerDisk

[hairmonk]

7 hours ago, Square1 said:

The upside of just wounding and treating balding zones with verteporfin is that it doesn't require a hair transplant surgeon to perform, it could just be done in a regular beauty clinic where they perform microneedling. Maybe with some instructions on how to apply vp.

I think I agree that the chances of success are not the best, but if somebody wants to fund that, all power to them and I would only lead to more knowledge about the working of this drug, which is good in itself.

 

 

The downside is so far you need to create enough trauma to lead to scar tissue, so it's a little unethical to run that experiment in recipient areas under controlled conditions. And recipient areas are highly visible, that's why we want to move hair there in the first place.

It's why some scar healing trials in the past have used less visible areas like behind the knee to create wounds.

Most doctors won't risk this type of experiment until there are more successful cases, and maybe the acne trials can answer this safety question.

The advantage using hair transplant donor areas is that the surgeries were already happening, scars in the donor region are the default outcome and Verteporfin on extraction wounds is unlikely to make them worse.

[mr_peanutbutter]

7 hours ago, LandWhale said:

Verteporfin + wounding for the win if it actually works. That would actually be the closest thing to a real cure in terms of aesthetic results even if you have to combine it with Dutasteride.

If the sides and back were actually DHT-immune then maybe hair transplants + Verteporfin would be preferable since it would remove the need for medication, but it's not.

So if I need a DHT-blocker anyway, I would prefer to have my hair back with its natural growth pattern and density. 

the donor isnt dht immune but resistent and even though some transplant can thin out with time, especially without medication, most of the transplanted hair will stay. 

 

so no, we wouldnt need dht blocker anyways

[Dragonsphere]

7 hours ago, hairmonk said:

The downside is so far you need to create enough trauma to lead to scar tissue, so it's a little unethical to run that experiment in recipient areas under controlled conditions. And recipient areas are highly visible, that's why we want to move hair there in the first place.

It's why some scar healing trials in the past have used less visible areas like behind the knee to create wounds.

Most doctors won't risk this type of experiment until there are more successful cases, and maybe the acne trials can answer this safety question.

The advantage using hair transplant donor areas is that the surgeries were already happening, scars in the donor region are the default outcome and Verteporfin on extraction wounds is unlikely to make them worse.

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. 

Edited April 4 by Dragonsphere

[bigmistake]

It feels like only the general public debates on this sub and there is very little doctor participation other than Dr Barghouthi.

[TV_on_LazerDisk]

19 hours ago, Dragonsphere said:

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. 

Zarevs punch method might work for this 

[LandWhale]

I would like to throw out that a laser burn + verteporfin could possibly work. You could target a square bald area, give it a burn deep enough to destroy the miniaturized follicles and then inject Verteporfin. This won't cause any bleeding either (as far as I know).

Edited April 4 by LandWhale

[takuma]

Also verteporfin plus wounding the recipient area if it works would be better than verteporfin + hair transplant because it would allow u to grow back your original hairline. A hair transplant hairline is not the same as the natural one you are born with 

[hairmonk]

3 hours ago, bigmistake said:

It feels like only the general public debates on this sub and there is very little doctor participation other than Dr Barghouthi.

Additional evidence needs to keep trickling in to get more doctors interested, there's really nothing for them to say publicly unless they want to be early like the doctors trying it now.

The Qazi acne trials will help, the original researchers publishing more will help, donating the equipment for objective hair counts in newer hair transplants will help. Increased conviction in the doctors using it now will help.

Until then this probably just looks like another ACell, backed only by subjective case reports and animal studies.

The best thing the thread could do is stay focused on the promise of Verteporfin without bringing up premature alternate experiments like microneedling and lasers in recipient areas.

[CureSeeker]

The whole idea of verteporfin is that it prevents fibrotic scar tissue from forming, so the notion of causing too much scar tissue doesn't make much sense. We don't really know for sure either way (haven't tested it), but it seems to go against the basic idea.

I don't know why anyone would claim that you need to remove miniaturized follicles before new follicles could be created. Again, that's just presuming you know how verteporfin works or how the body and follicles react to it. It might simply create new follicles, regardless of any miniaturized ones still present.

More doctors exploring this would be great. Luckily there are many doctors in the world. I think most just aren't aware of this. We should consider reaching out to doctors in the US and asking if they'd be interested in running some informal experiments, and even offering ourselves as test subjects. Perhaps even some doctors would be willing to write a prescription for us to run experiments ourselves at home.

[Dragonsphere]

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.  

[hairmonk]

1 hour ago, CureSeeker said:

The whole idea of verteporfin is that it prevents fibrotic scar tissue from forming, so the notion of causing too much scar tissue doesn't make much sense.

There's a world of difference between:

1. testing verteporfin in a low visibility area of the skin where a scar would have formed anyway to see if it can reduce scarring in that patient or narrow down a protocol that may do so for others in the future

2. deliberately creating large wounds in more visible areas of the skin that will likely result in scarring, even if verteporfin works to some degree

One is pure harm reduction where you can freely experiment with the protocol, the other introduces harm.

1 hour ago, CureSeeker said:

More doctors exploring this would be great. Luckily there are many doctors in the world. I think most just aren't aware of this. We should consider reaching out to doctors in the US and asking if they'd be interested in running some informal experiments, and even offering ourselves as test subjects. Perhaps even some doctors would be willing to write a prescription for us to run experiments ourselves at home.

One of my takeaways from this thread is that there's very little doctor or patient interest in the useful version of this experiment until the evidence gets better.

Even the Qazi acne trial seems to be having trouble recruiting which should be a slam dunk.

More people trying it at home probably won't change this, but they're welcome to try. We should all be very grateful to the doctors who have taken on bootstrapping it

[CureSeeker]

6 minutes ago, hairmonk said:

2. deliberately creating large wounds in more visible areas of the skin that will likely result in scarring, even if verteporfin works to some degree

This seems a bit misleading... why would you create large wounds? You would start out with a small area, and these would be tiny wounds, as in deep microneedling, which many men already do to themselves on a regular basis.

6 minutes ago, hairmonk said:

One is pure harm reduction where you can freely experiment with the protocol, the other introduces harm.

Even if there was a significant risk of creating visible scars, you could find many balding men in the world (certainly at least one) who would be willing to take that risk if it has the potential to reveal a new effective hair loss treatment.

That said, I don't think there would be a significant risk of visible scarring.

25 minutes ago, hairmonk said:

We should all be very grateful to the doctors who have taken on bootstrapping it

Yes of course we should be, and are, very grateful. Nothing about this discussion would suggest otherwise.

[Der3k7]

Im talking to Dr Wong now about potentially running a trial on me for my touch up procedure using verteporfin. He asked me if Dr Barghouthi has seen positive results so I mentioned the trial just began with the surgery a couple weeks ago or something and we will be waiting to see preliminary regeneration around 3-6 months post op.

i believe there were other trials that were mentioned in this thread where doctors showed positive regeneration? 
is anyone able to refer me to those links so I can share with Dr Wong? 
 

It would be great if we could get him interested in performing a trial on me as well 

[Jonathan]

2 hours ago, Der3k7 said:

Im talking to Dr Wong now about potentially running a trial on me for my touch up procedure using verteporfin. He asked me if Dr Barghouthi has seen positive results so I mentioned the trial just began with the surgery a couple weeks ago or something and we will be waiting to see preliminary regeneration around 3-6 months post op.

i believe there were other trials that were mentioned in this thread where doctors showed positive regeneration? 
is anyone able to refer me to those links so I can share with Dr Wong? 
 

It would be great if we could get him interested in performing a trial on me as well 

Go back a couple of pages, it’s revealed that the areas with verteporfin regrew a percentage of hair back. It’s hard to know the exact amount since that was the first study and the follicles weren’t counted beforehand.

[Der3k7]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

Go back a couple of pages, it’s revealed that the areas with verteporfin regrew a percentage of hair back. It’s hard to know the exact amount since that was the first study and the follicles weren’t counted beforehand.

Are you talking about the video with Dr visage where they discussed the photo? Based on that it seems he was suggesting there’s too much noise in the signal to noise to really attribute that picture to verterporfin and then the trial by Stanford was done on mice 

[takuma]

17 minutes ago, Der3k7 said:

Are you talking about the video with Dr visage where they discussed the photo? Based on that it seems he was suggesting there’s too much noise in the signal to noise to really attribute that picture to verterporfin and then the trial by Stanford was done on mice 

Dr Bargouthi's original experiment had regrowth... that's what got the community so hyped up in the first place... its at the very beginning of this thread 

[Der3k7]

Ok just scrolled through all 90 pages

I got these screenshots to show wong since he asked about what Dr Barghouthi results were so far. From what I read it appears the second trial happened about 6 months ago so we are still waiting on updates for that one over the next 6 months and the third just began. Hopefully this is enough to perk wongs interest and we can do another trial from Wong on me this December. I’m getting lower on donor so I would want it injected everywhere. Haha 

 

Edited April 5 by Der3k7

[Eli_Avdikian]

8 hours ago, Der3k7 said:

Are you talking about the video with Dr visage where they discussed the photo? Based on that it seems he was suggesting there’s too much noise in the signal to noise to really attribute that picture to verterporfin and then the trial by Stanford was done on mice 

Who's Dr face ?

[Melvin- Admin]

I have a group chat with @DrTBarghouthi Dr. Bisanga and Dr. Ted Miln. I hope they all work together to build a great protocol.

[mr_peanutbutter]

7 hours ago, Der3k7 said:

Ok just scrolled through all 90 pages

I got these screenshots to show wong since he asked about what Dr Barghouthi results were so far. From what I read it appears the second trial happened about 6 months ago so we are still waiting on updates for that one over the next 6 months and the third just began. Hopefully this is enough to perk wongs interest and we can do another trial from Wong on me this December. I’m getting lower on donor so I would want it injected everywhere. Haha 

 

you have a good summary here tbh

 

https://verteporfin.org/latest-update/

[hairmonk]

18 hours ago, CureSeeker said:

This seems a bit misleading... why would you create large wounds? You would start out with a small area, and these would be tiny wounds, as in deep microneedling, which many men already do to themselves on a regular basis.

It's not misleading, we just disagree. I don't think your small wound model aligns well with how verteporfin seems to work in the animal or in vitro mechanism studies.

Verteporfin suppresses the signalling caused by tension in large wounds, reducing scar tissue formation and leading to healthy tissue regeneration instead.

So without creating the large wounds that causes this tension in the first place, what's verteporfin supposed to be doing that regenerates tissue in a way that already can't happen with microneedling alone?

18 hours ago, CureSeeker said:

Even if there was a significant risk of creating visible scars, you could find many balding men in the world (certainly at least one) who would be willing to take that risk if it has the potential to reveal a new effective hair loss treatment.

Nobody's laughing, run your experiment with smaller wounds or keep trying to convince others. Changing your experiment to use microcoring would be more interesting.

The risk I brought up was more about what doctors are comfortable with in a medical setting. If your fix for this is to reduce the invasiveness of the wound being created or to change venue to somewhere less strict, you're already losing a lot of what makes verteporfin exciting.

People microneedling and applying it at home wouldn't have gotten us to this point.

Edited April 5 by hairmonk