Diffuse balding is not male pattern baldness

[returnoftheshedi]

i've been browsing hairloss forums for over 6 years...basically since the time i started noticing fallout. In all that time I have seen and heard very few success stories from people with diffuse loss. Personally, I have been on the big 3 for YEARS and added dutasteride over a year ago. Meanwhile, I continue to have the identical gradual thinning. People love to say that shedding is meaningles. However, for diffuse thinners it is an obvious sign of further loss. My point - these hairloss meds might work for male pattern baldness but show me some success stories wtih people who are a Norwood 0 , but have female type hairloss.

For years, this hasnt bothered me as i have buzzed my hair down to a #2. However, the time is coming where i am gonna have to go to a #1 or a zero and it amazes me that there is so little knowledge about this. This post isnt a rant. I have come to terms with living my life without hair. However, its just strange that we dont even have a seperate forum for diffuse thinners. male pattern baldness and diffuse loss are two different animals, bottom line.

 

[Goingat20]

im a diffuse thinner also. Have used the big 3 (including dutasteride) and now prox-n, and yet hair continues to get worse. I think you might have a point...

 

[jimjohn]

yesss me too.

 

[techprof]

return,
let me ask you an alternate question.
show me one user with pictures with diffuse balding who gone worser after being finasteride/dutasteride in a year or two.

 

[Nathaniel]

I think the problem with medications especially hairloss drugs is that people expect too much out of them. I think its possible to improve, and we may all do so during the first few years but we can also continue to lose hair, but at a MUCH slower pace provided we are consistent with the regimen. But most people want regrowth or full recovery, so it ends up as a disappointment. I personally think that if you just keep what you have then its a great accomplishment.

 

[Goingat20]

return,
let me ask you an alternate question.
show me one user with pictures with diffuse balding who gone worser after being finasteride/dutasteride in a year or two.

tech, im a good example, i will post updated pics soon...

 

[techprof]

goingat20, please post. I am sorry to hear your situation. I suggest that you use dutasteride if you had used finasteride before.
Did you lose hairs in the crown and top or in the NW1 area?

 

[returnoftheshedi]

return,
let me ask you an alternate question.
show me one user with pictures with diffuse balding who gone worser after being finasteride/dutasteride in a year or two.

are you serious?? every diffuse thinner starts with a full head of hair and a norwood 0. for the past 6 years i have gradually watched my hair get thinner and thinner.....all while being on the big 3 for pretty much the entire time.

see my point.

 

[returnoftheshedi]

I think the problem with medications especially hairloss drugs is that people expect too much out of them. I think its possible to improve, and we may all do so during the first few years but we can also continue to lose hair, but at a MUCH slower pace provided we are consistent with the regimen. But most people want regrowth or full recovery, so it ends up as a disappointment. I personally think that if you just keep what you have then its a great accomplishment.

please show me a diffuse thinner with a norwood 0 (meaning they arent also sufferng from male pattern baldness) who has shown any improvement. most of us start on meds before seeing visible loss. we are the ones who shed like crazy. hence my screenname.

 

[Goingat20]

hey tech
ive been using dutasteride for over 2 years now... I recently added prox-n and have been using that for 4 months now also. I have lost hair all over scalp, worst is in the front and mid section of scalp (my templed indiacte i am a Norwood 2). Im thinking of adding proxiphen and im also trying RU soon. I dont know what else to do. But i think return might have a point

 

[techprof]

goingat20,
I still would like to see pictures. While in general one might lose density while on meds, if you take pictures with and without flash with hair length at 2 inches long, do you see scalp? If so it means you probably have aggressive male pattern baldness and without meds you would be slick bald by now.

 

[Goingat20]

I will post pics today or tomorrow. Your right i do have aggressive male pattern baldness, thats why i am continuing to use treatment, i will try my best to slow things down till something else comes up.

 

[Guest]

i'm getting worse on dutasteride but i hope it's just a shed. i am a diffuse thinner. hairline is staying intact.

male pattern baldness and diffuse loss are not two different animals as the original poster claimed. i have diffuse PATTERNED alopecia which is a form of male pattern baldness. I eventually end up in the same state as a male pattern balder with aggressive hair loss, the Norwood 6 pattern. I just take a different route to get there because I think all over the top first and then my top meets my crown and I end up with the horseshoe.

You may be suffering from diffuse UNPATTERNED alopecia which not only claims your top and front but also claims your sides and back leaving you no donor hair at all.

 

[JayBear]

I'm a diffuse thinner. I started finasteride because, frankly, what else can i do? i can't really get hair transplant because even if they fill in all the thin spots, i'm going to keep thinning around the transplants and man if that won't look terrible. maybe hm will be the answer but what, are they going to fill in my entire head? If finasteride can keep me from having to shave my head for a little while, great. if not, oh well, and if it makes it worse, well i'm headed there anyway. I agree we should have our own forum though.

 

[Guest]

I agree we should have our own forum though.

why? the treatments for us are the same. it's not like we have alopecia areata or some non-genetic male pattern baldness.

we simply have diffused pattern baldness. we use finasteride/dutasteride for 5ar inhibition of dht just like the regular male pattern baldness people do. we can use minoxidil to regrow hair just like the regular male pattern baldness people do.

if you guys don't think these treatments work for diffusers you are kidding yourselves. look at bubka's thread in the success stories forum. he is a diffuse thinner and gained a lot of hair back with propecia. now it's hard to tell he's even balding.

 

[JayBear]

I agree we should have our own forum though.

why? the treatments for us are the same. it's not like we have alopecia areata or some non-genetic male pattern baldness.

True, but i know one reason i waited so long to start meds is because the fact that my hairline hasn't moved since i got it first back in the eighties made me slower to recognize that i was balding. Might be helpful to get the word out and start recognizing diffuse thinning as essentiall the same as male pattern baldness. Also, although the meds are the same, the experience i imagine is quite different. Some of the problems, challenges, and solutions are the same, but some are different.

 

[Guest]

I agree we should have our own forum though.

why? the treatments for us are the same. it's not like we have alopecia areata or some non-genetic male pattern baldness.

True, but i know one reason i waited so long to start meds is because the fact that my hairline hasn't moved since i got it first back in the eighties made me slower to recognize that i was balding. Might be helpful to get the word out and start recognizing diffuse thinning as essentiall the same as male pattern baldness. Also, although the meds are the same, the experience i imagine is quite different. Some of the problems, challenges, and solutions are the same, but some are different.

same thing happened to me man. it sucks. but fortunately it's much easier to regrow non-hairline areas so we are fortunate in that respect. hairline and temple regrowth is very hard to get and people typically need transplants. my hairline and temples are in good shape, it's just my top and crown that are thinning and i hope respond to meds, for example.

i just don't think we need an entire separate forum for diffuse thinners a the bottom with the other ones because it would just cause a divide in the conversations on here and make things a lot more messy.

 

[returnoftheshedi]

I agree we should have our own forum though.

why? the treatments for us are the same. it's not like we have alopecia areata or some non-genetic male pattern baldness.

True, but i know one reason i waited so long to start meds is because the fact that my hairline hasn't moved since i got it first back in the eighties made me slower to recognize that i was balding. Might be helpful to get the word out and start recognizing diffuse thinning as essentiall the same as male pattern baldness. Also, although the meds are the same, the experience i imagine is quite different. Some of the problems, challenges, and solutions are the same, but some are different.

same thing happened to me man. it sucks. but fortunately it's much easier to regrow non-hairline areas so we are fortunate in that respect. hairline and temple regrowth is very hard to get and people typically need transplants. my hairline and temples are in good shape, it's just my top and crown that are thinning and i hope respond to meds, for example.

i just don't think we need an entire separate forum for diffuse thinners a the bottom with the other ones because it would just cause a divide in the conversations on here and make things a lot more messy.

you are wrong. it is much, much, much easier to see the progress of male pattern baldness than it is diffuse loss. with male pattern baldness you can actually see your hairline recede and your balding spot get bigger. diffuse is the opposite. you can have unnoticeable thinning for YEARS (trust me on this) and then it gets to a point where its just too thin to style and you have to shave it...then soon after you're bald.

furthermore, we have no way of gauging whether these meds work. most people with male pattern baldness dont start medicating until their hairline recedes slightly. again with diffuse, you notice shedding months and even years before seeing thinning. i, like many other diffusers, starting medicating with the big 3 before my hair was noticeably thinner. obviously, if these meds halted hairloss, i'd still have a thick head of hair. please show me evidence (more than 1 guy) that these meds work for diffuse loss. i havent seen it..and although my post count says "newbie", ive been looking at these forums for 6 years.

 

[JayBear]

Um, we were both saying that diffuse thinning takes longer to recognize.

 

[returnoftheshedi]

Um, we were both saying that diffuse thinning takes longer to recognize.

i was responding to jayman saying that we don't need anothe forum to discuss diffuse loss. imo, the discussions we have about diffuse loss are about 20 years behind where they should be. its almost 2007 and there aren't any treatments that target diffuse loss. male pattern baldness treatments cannot be the answer. is dht even the culprit? i'm on dutasteride and finasteride..don't see my shedding decreasing.