Apply Rogaine to Full Hair of Head?

[baldboy]

I was just lying around thinking to myself... if an 18 year old with a full head of hair were to apply Rogaine Foam as directed in the instructions before male pattern baldness set in and his DHT went out of wack, would he be able to keep all of his hair as he progressed to say... age 50?

Note: this 18 year old...lets say if he didn't take any preventitive action, he would be bald by 30

 

[Silverfox]

I was just lying around thinking to myself... if an 18 year old with a full head of hair were to apply Rogaine Foam as directed in the instructions before male pattern baldness set in and his DHT went out of wack, would he be able to keep all of his hair as he progressed to say... age 50?

Note: this 18 year old...lets say if he didn't take any preventitive action, he would be bald by 30

I would reckon that he would be bald by 35 instead of 30. If he dealt with the dht before it wrecked the hair then things would be better.

 

[Thom]

From my experience though, the areas I apply minoxidil to don't get the itch. I have been putting it all over where the 'horseshoe pattern' appears, just so I can protect from the itch that much more. I use Nizoral, but I still get a bit of an itch now and then...except in the areas I apply minoxidil too.

 

[Beingbaldsucks]

If it's only starting he can use only dht blocking shampoos, and nizoral, better to keep the hair short while doing it

 

[Aks20]

Here are my hard won lessons regarding minoxidil.

- It is EXTREMELY powerful. Its not as powerful as propecia but it does prevent male pattern baldness. Instead of going bald say NW5 at 30, you may hold it off till 40. Thats a big deal. Basically, if you see minoxidil literature, it points out that it actually reversed male pattern baldness for a bunch of users and then started declining in effectiveness a few years thence.

- The poster above - THOM - is 100% right. I used minoxidil 5% and then 2% for the past few months recently, and let me tell you my hair thickened up massively. I was a clear NW4 with a very thin see through scalp at the vertex, which went to ok coverage - in 2 months despite heavy shedding (40+ hairs a day). It thickened up the rest of the hairs to compensate. And yes, wherever I applied it, the male pattern baldness itch just vanished.

- So tired of the shed, I moved to 2% and guess what, it maintained the thickness and the shed just stopped. But here is the bad part, I over applied one day, and minoxidil kicked back with chest pains and two days of lousy under the weather feeling.

- Now thanks to this, I quit minoxidil again, and am worse off than before. Its a hard choice. But I can tell you, hair wise, it works.

-The male pattern baldness itch is back

- Point is if you are 18, minoxidil is NOT good in terms of massive application. Its going to affect your cardiovascular health. Its a vasodilator - which means your heart has to pump harder for same results before you used minoxidil, which means heart muscle gets over muscled, there are mass changes. This is not a good thing. Second, minoxidil has been researched to have a bad effect on cardiac valves. Think of these as gateways to push the blood through, if they don't work, you get heart flutter. The valves minoxidil effects are the Left Ventricle.

- So if you MUST use minoxidil, use it at 2% and apply it only the balding areas. It will affect everywhere else as well. The rest of your hairs are getting on minoxidil because it is going systemic, if you apply to those areas in the beginning itself, you will get them more dependent on the drug.

- When I first used minoxidil (and stopped), this is what happened. In the consequent shed, I pretty much lost a lot of the hair I then had.

- minoxidil can and does delay the overall progression of male pattern baldness. But side effects - apart from the more dangerous heart stuff:

- You look like crap, skin wise. Unless you live a very healthy lifestyle, minoxidil will enlarge your pores and make your skin look aged.

- Dark circles under the eyes. I have them from minoxidil. Makes me look like a raccoon or always overworked. I wear glasses so they are somewhat covered up but let me tell you, they are very visible even so.

My suggestions - I am not a doctor - but somebody who has done all sorts of tests with these topicals - use minoxidil but at lower quantities if you must. Only at the severely balding areas, at lower concentration.

Do NOT slather your whole hair with the stuff unless your male pattern baldness is very aggressive and you are going bald overnight.

If you must "hold on", then you can also use FLuridil. That works but is very weak. Expect a heavy hit to your wallet since you'll have to use it heavily. In my limited experience:

- Cannot use it with minoxidil. The water degrades it.
- Have to use at least 3 ampoules a day.

I tried finasteride but it gave me immediate sides. So I cant use it.

Hope this helps.

PS: If you are 18, then life's biggest lessons. One day you'll understand what I meant.

- Eat healthy - don't need crap vitamin supplements later on in life
- Sleep well - less toxins, less stress
- Exercise and build a good body. Several body builders may be bald but don't lack confidence at all. I have seen this personally. Their self image is very high and hence losing hair is part of the overall matrix, not the full deal
- Plan out your life. Decide where you will be by a certain age and think of how to achieve it. This means that when you are at that age, your stress levels are much lower, and stress is very much linked to the onset of male pattern baldness and how aggressive it is.
In my case, I miniaturized my hair overnight - literally @ 27 when I was under severe stress. And within 5-6 years went to NW3-4 from NW1.
-Do not smoke. Its linked to hair loss. Many smokers who are blessed with bad genetics end up spoiling their hair as well.
- If you must drink - drink in moderation. Don't overstress your body. Overdrinking hurts your liver and also causes cardiovascular stress.

Thats all I can say, all hard lessons, and if I could turn the clock back & implement all this in my own life. I would.

Best of luck!

 

[WarLord]

Since minoxidil does not block DHT then I dont think it would make much difference since minoxidil is a growth stimulator. If theres already a full head of hair theres no room for growth stimulation.

It may delay the onset of visible hairloss but not for more than a couple of years.

Is this actually a hairloss forum? I am shocked by the level of ignorance here. I have been on minoxidil for 15,5 years (and I use "only" 5-6% minoxidil; 10-15% minoxidil is apparently too strong for my follicles and it does more harm than good) and I know two guys, who have been using it successfuly for 20 years! No apparent loss of effectiveness. Or do you read the wisdom spread in the internet by certain senile narcisse called "Bryan"?

If you actually look at the studies of minoxidil, you will see that there are good responders and bad responders. Good responders can improve their hair count even after 5 years. It is the bad responders (or those, who simply don't use it regularly), who are responsible for the declining curve of hair counts. In one study, 80% patients (22 out of 27, who continued in the treatment) showed continuous improvement even after 4 years. And take into consideration that we speak about the increase of hair counts, not about the preservation of existing hair!

You can find studies of finasteride with a similar result, by the way. Hence some "wise guys" started to spread a mythology that finasteride stops working after 5 years. Yet, fortunately, we have the 10-years follow-up of Rossi et al. 2011, who finally demolished this rubbish. 65% men preserved their hair after the 1 year of use, 21% further improved between 5-10 years, and only 14% experienced some hair loss. Since the maximum regrowth in most users is achieved after 1-2 years, the curve of the AVERAGE hair count usually starts to decline after 2 years, because bad responders lose hair and the majority of good responders doesn't improve much significantly. That's it!

There is no reason to suppose that minoxidil works much differently than finasteride. 5% minoxidil may be weaker than finasteride, but it doesn't mean that stronger minoxidil concentrations cannot be more effective.

Sometimes I think over, what are such forums for. Yes, one can find some useful information here, one can find help, but much more frequently, these forums attract frustrated people, who don't respond to medications and report experiences that are characteristic for 0.5% users. These frustrated nuts then poison people's minds and take their hope.

And to the question of BaldBoy: If you start to experience first signs of hairloss, you should apply minoxidil on the whole area of your head that is normally affected by hairloss. If you are a good responder and if you apply it regularly, you can hold it practically indefinitely. Furthermore, even if it ceased to work, you can gradually uprade your minoxidil concentration. At worst, you can use the minoxidil+finasteride combo that should be effective in nearly all men - except the small minority of hopeless cases.

 

[kc444]

The difference between finasteride and minoxidil is that if you do a study with minoxidil and have a treatment group and a control group for a certain number of years, the treatment group will have the same density as the control group when they stop taking it. If you do the same study with finasteride, the treatment group will end up having a higher density than the control group when they stop because finasteride prevents DHT from damaging the follicles. Finasteride slows the process, but minoxidil just grows a certain amount of hair so long as you continue taking it. Minoxidil doesn't lose effectiveness as some think, but it doesn't slow hair loss. If your baseline is 100 hairs per unit of area and taking minoxidil adds 50 hairs per unit to that after 6 months for a total of 150, then your hair count will always be baseline + 50. The problem is that your baseline will continue to fall at the same rate that it would naturally, so if your baseline is destined to be 50 hairs per unit after two years, then you would only have 100 hairs after those two years if you were still taking minoxidil. If you stopped taking it, you'd have 50 hairs. I'm sure it doesn't actually calculate this nicely in reality, but my point is that minoxidil just adds "bonus hairs" to your head whereas finasteride slows the process down. That's what Ben was saying. I'd like to see the study where some minoxidil users continued improving after 4 years because I don't believe it.

 

[WarLord]

"Minoxidil doesn't lose effectiveness as some think, but it doesn't slow hair loss."

Are you retarded or what? Didn't you read, what I just wrote in my previous post? Well, I wonder why I have been using it for nearly 16 years already. I am a fool!

"The problem is that your baseline will continue to fall at the same rate that it would naturally"

Does this forum attract mainly imbeciles?

"That's what Ben was saying."

Ben was saying... But quite probably never took minoxidil on his own, right?

I really don't need to read this crap. I will stop visiting this forum. Too much wisdom here and no practical experience.

 

[ladysmanfelpz]

I just posted a forum asking if you can start minoxidil too young. I too started on a full head of hair hoping to maintain and maybe see improvement but am now wondering if it can do more harm than good.

 

[Bryan]

Here are my hard won lessons regarding minoxidil.

- It is EXTREMELY powerful. Its not as powerful as propecia but it does prevent male pattern baldness.

Topical minoxidil certainly doesn't "prevent male pattern baldness". That's because it doesn't interfere with the fundamental cause of balding. I thought another poster put it very nicely when he gave a numerical example of how minoxidil stimulates a little growth, but haircounts continue to slowly drop, as time goes by!

 

[Bryan]

I really don't need to read this crap. I will stop visiting this forum.

Is that a promise?