Incredible recovery from NW5: the power of super aggressive regimens!

[Ventures]

it seems like your face is less faty while are you on HRT. Why is that so. You have straight face, compared to old photos.

I thought estrogen and estradiol should make your face more faty due to fat accumulation in all parts of the body. But it seems opposite.

 

[recedingyt]

My face is slimmer looking because I lost a bunch of weight as a part of my transition. My face is definitely still chubbier than it would have been had I not been on female hormones this past year. My body is definitely very different as well. My new fat pattern is pretty much blatantly female (boobs, butt, thighs) whereas my old one was unquestionably male (almost 100% of my fat stored on my back and belly).

 

[recedingyt]

Why are females more beautiful than males? It's not fair. The last photo says it all.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I often see men who I think are beautiful in a masculine sense. In my case I definitely feel I make a more attractive woman than I ever did as an attractive man, though.

I went from cute boy -> ugly man -> decent looking woman. Weird progression indeed.

- - - Updated - - -

Recedingyt, could you tell me how long were you bald before the start of your ever treatment ?
How many years had you yourself NW5 state, one year, two years, three or maybe longer has lasted your baldness ?

I'm asking because I know that it's possible to recover lost hair even since last 5 years and at least since the last three years, but need to use hardcore regimen.

Well I guess I would say I noticed the first signs of recession at around 14-15 but didn't think much of it until I was about 16 when I noticed my temples had significantly receded and I was definitely balding. It went somewhat slowly over the next 2 years, then at 18 I very rapidly went from NW2-NW4. Sometime over the course of the next 4 years (18-22) I lost enough hair to qualify as a NW5, but that went mostly unbeknownst to me since I was shaving my head by the time I was 18. So, at the time of treatment I'd have been balding for 6-7 years, with most of it happening within the last 4 years leading up to treatment. The areas I'm still struggling to recover are the temples, and some of my crown is still a bit thin, which was the areas where I first started noticing thinning at 14/15. I assume that is playing a part in why it is taking so long to recover in those areas, but I'm still hopeful they will eventually recover whether that be through my current regimen or new advancements. All the hairs I need to recover my hair fully are there, they're just stuck in vellus form or somewhere in between vellus and terminal. I just need something to thicken them up.

As an aside, I wanted to make a note on here that I am considering changing my regimen significantly upon my next doctors visit (assuming he will go for it).

I wanted to drop spironolactone in favor of bicalutamide. Reason being, bicalutamide is known to have significantly less effect on sexual function than something like spironolactone, which is kind of important to me at this stage. I don't know how this will effect my hair, since bicalutamide does not actually technically speaking reduce androgen levels in the body, but rather it blocks it from interacting with the receptors. I'm hopeful this will not mean bad things for my hair but who knows. If it does I will definitely switch back to spironolactone I suppose.

I also wanted to switch from estradiol pills to injections because I hate having to take a million pills per day plus there are anecdotal reports of there being better results from using them. This will mean that my levels will be more consistent, and higher the majority of the time, which I believe should be beneficial to my hair.

I was also going to see about possibly swapping out my medroxyprogesterone pills for a shot version as well, because again I hate pills. Idk if that will matter too much as far as hair goes, I assume not.

And finally, I'm going to be switching from finasteride to dutasteride finally. I don't predict this will do much for me, but who knows. Can't hurt/every little bit helps, right? Could be the thing I need to see a higher terminal hair count.

 

[parisienne]

Recedingyt, have you looked into adenosine to thicken your existing hair ?

 

[recedingyt]

recedingyt,

You look more in your element as a female. That's just my opinion.

Are you changing your hormonal treatments? Just curious. Dropping spironolactone is a
huge change for you (or I think it is, am I correct?).

I'm still going to be following the same basic idea that all HRT regimens go for: antiandrogen + estrogen + optional DHT inhibitor. The only real difference in my current regimen vs the one I want to be on is that I want to be on a different antiandrogen which has less impact on my sexual function, and the method by which I receive my estrogen will be different (IM injections as opposed to a daily set of pills).

 

[Ventures]

And do you have gyno, enlarged breasts and nipples. What about your body, and facial hair?

Your face indeed looks nice, even more than before. Your face is straight and less faty, as I already mentioned. You don't have fat cheeks and your jayline and cheekbones are more visible. I can't even say you are the same person.

 

[recedingyt]

What about bald masculine guys, ha?

Well you look quite beautiful, not just decent. And that is incredible hair recovery hair wise, I'm impressed. Btw. you weren't ugly as a man, just bald.

I've always maintained that baldness isn't always the nail in the coffin like a lot of people think here. Yes pretty much everyone looks better without baldness, but it's still possible to be attractive post-male pattern baldness

Most of the guys I have found myself attracted to are the twinky/femboy type, but I have often found myself attracted to masculine guys with some degree of balding as well. If you're NW2-NW3 you really have nothing to worry about. Higher than that makes things more difficult but not impossible particularly if you have an attractive face to begin with.

Thank you for saying that. I still felt attractive as a man when I was taking care of myself, i.e. shaving my head, working out, tanning, etc. but I had really let myself go due to depression by the time I took my 'before' pics for this thread XD

And do you have gyno, enlarged breasts and nipples. What about your body, and facial hair?

Your face indeed looks nice, even more than before. Your face is straight and less faty, as I already mentioned. You don't have fat cheeks and your jayline and cheekbones are more visible. I can't even say you are the same person.

It's past the point of gyno, lol. I have full 36B breasts at this point. And they're still growing. I'm really hoping I get significantly larger when I switch to injections actually. My body is obviously feminized. Hips have grown, fat has moved around, etc. My facial hair isn't effected by my regimen but I have been lasering it off... not that I ever had much facial hair to begin with, though.

Recedingyt, thanks for your comprehensive answer. Sorry but I read the beginning a long time ago.
I think that the change anti-androgen and method of taking it and taking estrogen - will not to have any negative influence for your hair. But in my opinion MPA is stronger than bicalutamide. Results are depend on dose.

Or maybe do you know how MPA dose is equal to a dose of 200 mg CPA to cause the same power of working ? I'd want to know it because I think sometimes to replace the CPA by the MPA. And tell me if is it true that the using CPA is illegal in US because CPA is hepatotoxic much more than MPA ?

Thanks in advance for your answer

I don't know anything about MPA. I just wanted to try bicalutamide because I know a couple of trans girls who have switched to it that highly praise it. The cool thing about bicalutamide is that it supposedly doesn't effect your sexual function as much as other antiandrogens which is the most appealing part to me since I have a girlfriend and I enjoy doing PIV with her. Thus, I don't think CPA/MPA are appropriate for me as they are both most likely worse than spironolactone in this regard, or at least as bad. I'm also tired of spironolactone making me pee every 30 mins, but that's beside the point.

 

[Swoop]

I would think something like ODM-201 would be interesting for you guys, although the compound is still in clinical trials. Higher affinity and a full antagonist to the androgen receptor. Also doesn't seem to cross the BBB.

 

[Koga]

@redingyt: I'd suggest you go one step at a time. If you switch from finasteride to dutasteride, I'd wait with other changes in your regimen, e.g. dropping the spironolactone. That way you'll know which work and which do not. Also I was wondering whether you ever got the feeling biotin did anything useful?

 

[recedingyt]

@redingyt: I'd suggest you go one step at a time. If you switch from finasteride to dutasteride, I'd wait with other changes in your regimen, e.g. dropping the spironolactone. That way you'll know which work and which do not. Also I was wondering whether you ever got the feeling biotin did anything useful?

Nah biotin is pretty useless imo other than it made my fingernails grow like wildfire and super healthy, which I guess was nice.

I get what you're saying but I'm not worried about switching to dutasteride at the same time as switching my AA. I doubt a small extra bit of DHT inhibition is going to make things suddenly stop working. I may shed but I already knew that getting into any regimen changes.

 

[Koga]

Biotin didn't do anything for my hair. I got the special kind from a pharmacy. It's definitely useless.

Thanks! I guess that's the conclusion for every supplement, right? Been buying and trying waaaay too much of these supplements when still in the denial phase.

 

[Theodolite]

Wow! Amazing results! It gave me some hope.

 

[megatron1234]

Wow! Amazing results! It gave me some hope.

how can this thread give you hope? This should more be a thread about how to transition from male to female. There is no way that someone looking for a regimen should use this tread as a guideline.

 

[infinitepain]

how can this thread give you hope? This should more be a thread about how to transition from male to female. There is no way that someone looking for a regimen should use this tread as a guideline.

All hairloss treatments ruin your hormonal male profile. Obviously not as much as going full blow transgender, but there's little to no hope. And then there's a lot of people out there using finasteride and minoxidil and having 0 results or even losing more hair than ever.

The people that regrow hair and have 0 sides are the minority from what i've seen, and there's no way you will never have sides by lowering your DHT by 70%, everyone will eventually have sides.

 

[Koga]

All hairloss treatments ruin your hormonal male profile. Obviously not as much as going full blow transgender, but there's little to no hope. And then there's a lot of people out there using finasteride and minoxidil and having 0 results or even losing more hair than ever.

The people that regrow hair and have 0 sides are the minority from what i've seen, and there's no way you will never have sides by lowering your DHT by 70%, everyone will eventually have sides.

That's rather unfunded. If anything, finasteride (and even dutasteride) studies show that side effects lessen with prolonged use of the medication. Regrowing hair is never easy, I agree, especially the hairline. But stabilisation has been reached by many, many hair loss sufferers through the use of min and finasteride.

 

[infinitepain]

That's rather unfunded. If anything, finasteride (and even dutasteride) studies show that side effects lessen with prolonged use of the medication. Regrowing hair is never easy, I agree, especially the hairline. But stabilisation has been reached by many, many hair loss sufferers through the use of min and finasteride.

I don't believe for a second that removing 70% of DHT from a male will have no impact on said male. This is defying physics.

 

[transam]

I don't believe for a second that removing 70% of DHT from a male will have no impact on said male. This is defying physics.

The REAL question is;

why are we discussing this?
unless you'd like to be a SLICK NW6, who wouldn't even get a second look from a girl/man, you'd best be on hormonal meds. Period.

 

[Dench57]

I don't believe for a second that removing 70% of DHT from a male will have no impact on said male. This is defying physics.

Physics? You sure?

 

[recedingyt]

Spoke with my doctor... things didn't go as planned. He's hesitant to prescribe me bicalutamide since it's not widely used for the purpose of transitioning. He advised me to reduce my dose of spironolactone to 100mg and see if that helps with the sexual dysfunction/diuretic effect. I tried to tell him I'd already played with my dosage myself and it's still an issue even at 100mg but he's insistent upon me trying it out for 2 weeks. Above all else (side effects be damned) I want my hormone levels in the right ranges so I can transition effectively, so I'm not going to do that. Just gonna go back and tell him it didn't work and hope he prescribes me bicalutamide.

He gave me a v**** script to help with the sexual dysfunction in the mean time and let me just tell you guys buy that **** off of alldaychemist or something. It's like $48 for a month's supply through my (pretty good) insurance... which works out to 6 100mg pills, or 12 doses (for me). I got 40 100mg pills on ADC for that much, so there really is no sense buying it at the pharmacy.

The good news is he did agree to put me on dutasteride after a big, long spiel about how it's not approved to treat male pattern baldness and whatnot. Kind of annoying listening to him since like half the information he gave me was just flat out incorrect, but whatever, at least I got my script.

No go on injections. After hearing him ramble about bicalutamide and dutasteride for ages and his inappropriate behavior during my breast exam I couldn't bare to listen to him anymore. He wouldn't have prescribed them anyway, so whatever.

Gonna work on finding a new doctor soon, I guess... but there's not too many in the area who work with trans patients so it might be a fruitless effort.

 

[transam]

Spoke with my doctor... things didn't go as planned. He's hesitant to prescribe me bicalutamide since it's not widely used for the purpose of transitioning. He advised me to reduce my dose of spironolactone to 100mg and see if that helps with the sexual dysfunction/diuretic effect. I tried to tell him I'd already played with my dosage myself and it's still an issue even at 100mg but he's insistent upon me trying it out for 2 weeks. Above all else (side effects be damned) I want my hormone levels in the right ranges so I can transition effectively, so I'm not going to do that. Just gonna go back and tell him it didn't work and hope he prescribes me bicalutamide.

He gave me a v**** script to help with the sexual dysfunction in the mean time and let me just tell you guys buy that **** off of alldaychemist or something. It's like $48 for a month's supply through my (pretty good) insurance... which works out to 6 100mg pills, or 12 doses (for me). I got 40 100mg pills on ADC for that much, so there really is no sense buying it at the pharmacy.

The good news is he did agree to put me on dutasteride after a big, long spiel about how it's not approved to treat male pattern baldness and whatnot. Kind of annoying listening to him since like half the information he gave me was just flat out incorrect, but whatever, at least I got my script.

No go on injections. After hearing him ramble about bicalutamide and dutasteride for ages and his inappropriate behavior during my breast exam I couldn't bare to listen to him anymore. He wouldn't have prescribed them anyway, so whatever.

Gonna work on finding a new doctor soon, I guess... but there's not too many in the area who work with trans patients so it might be a fruitless effort.

he was being inappropriate while touching your breast?? Lmfao
I'm sorry yt, I just picture this Doctor perving on your chest. It's funny.
on a serious note though; wouldn't Wouldn't v**** mess with your hair growth?