Do you wish you would have started earlier?

[PappinAce]

I started big 3 treatment about two years after the onset of my hair loss, and I really wish I would have jumped on it earlier! I'm a diffuse thinner so it snuck up on me; I noticed my hair was looking like ****, but I attributed it to dryness from shampoo or humidity. Only when it persisted for years and got worse did I realize I have male pattern baldness.

I'm optimistic that if you start treatment within 2-3 years of the first sign, you should still be able to get respectable results. A hair follicle doesn't die overnight; once you start noticing thinning, you still should have a couple years to save those follicles as they go through the long process of miniaturization. Reduce that DHT and you have a lot of potential if the follicle is still alive.

I'm curious about those of you who progressed to a NW3 or higher before starting treatments. What were your reasons for not starting earlier? Some of you do still get some amazing results though, which is great!

 

[Agustin Araujo]

I would have gotten on a DHT inhibitor at age 18 or even 17 if I knew about them at the time, I didn't know about them until age 22 and that's when I got on one. It's maddening knowing that I could've saved so much more hair if I got educated about proven maintenance treatments and gotten on them when I first started balding.

 

[PappinAce]

Yup, I feel the same way! My hairdresser first noticed a thinning spot and said I should just grow the hair out and it will cover it up. Then another hairdresser told me to take saw palmetto. All these idiots were giving me false information, and in the meantime I was losing ground! Really shows the lack of education about proven male pattern baldness treatments. I wish I would have taken the initiative to do my own research, but I was young and not too worried about it yet. Now I need to make the best of what I still have!

 

[Agustin Araujo]

Many people are uneducated about hair loss, it's really disturbing. Hair loss is one of those things that no one cares about until it happens to the ones who never cared. Balding is a pretty lonely thing to go through for the sufferer.

 

[Hairloss23]

Yes and that's coming from someone who caught it early (relatively speaking) and then went hard with a regimen. The first sign I got of thinning was in Feburary 2015 when the spot on my crown grew slightly bigger, my hairdresser said if I just comb it then it will go back to how it used to, and actually to my surprise the bald spot went back to normal within a couple of months so I guess he was right. After that I didn't get a comment on hair until May when my friend said I had a receding hairline. This guy is obsessed with hair and literally could spot a receding hairline a mile off, he is also a dick about it and calls out absolutely everyone, he thinks it's funny (Ironically he's started receding aggressively now lol). The way I styled my hair meant the hairline still looked absolutely normal.
Then in late July I had a huge shed which I think could be attributed to a steroid cream I was using to treat my mild psoriasis of the hands. At that point I thought my hair loss was solely down to the cream and the shampoos I'd been using, everyone wants to act like it just wouldn't be male pattern baldness but 9 times out of 10 it is.

Wasted a month to see if it would get better with healthy eating and exercise and although the scalp thickened up but is still not what it was, the hairline stayed receded. I realized I had male pattern baldness at this point and after a month of just worrying, I finally tried to get a finasteride script, went through a GP and 2 different dermatologists, all a waste of time because they wouldn't prescribe it. Oh yeah those derms were willing to prescribe me Minoxidil though, which did nothing but make me lose more hair and by the time I quit it 4 months later I was NW2. Wasted nearly 4 months on that (thanks NHS waiting times) before finally calling it quits and getting the medication online. Decided on dutasteride over finasteride because all my loss was recent and dutasteride is much better for recent loss, then a lot of my other treatments came through from the Group Buys I was in, I got in on them because I was impressed by SwissTemples and his PG protocol and now I am regrowing to NW1 and maybe NW0 .

Sorry for the life story lol, I just thought it was important to say that it is critical to catch male pattern baldness early, that message may only be necessary to a few reading this, I imagine most who neglect it are unlikely to vacate hair loss forums. Even so, if you are sitting there worrying about your hair then it is important to get on treatments asap if you want to keep it. Good luck!

 

[TinTon]

Yes, all the bloody side effects post put me off for a year, really wish I had not read all that negativity and just followed my heart from the very beginning. Well I've been on finasteride for 5 weeks, time will tell just how much I will be kicking myself...

 

[INT]

Believe me my situation is a lot more frustrating...

I was aware that I would go bald at some point in my life 10 years before it actually started (bald dad and bald maternal grandfather) so already knew everything there was to know about hairloss and how to treat it. I have long curly hair which definitely is my most important trait when it comes to appearance.

I knew that at some point I had to go on finasteride and was completely fine with it. Besides, the thickness and texture of my hair would make me a PERFECT hair transplant candidate. I was so confident that I would kick male pattern baldness's *** that I was already picturing myself opening a thread in the success stories section where I would post pictures of my still great looking hair and telling people that starting early is THE key to succes.


I started finasteride 7 weeks ago (age 25) because I thought (still not sure yet) that my hair had thinned out a little on the temples. Unfortunately I am experiencing sexual side effects (loss of morning wood, less firm erections) so it might be that I am f*cked anyway... I will wait a little bit and see if the side subside but I am afraid that 7 weeks is too long for sides to go away...

 

[GoldenMane]

More than a cure for male pattern baldness, I wish somebody would invent technology to send messages back in time to our past selves... Could save so much heartache and money... If you catch it early enough, you don't even need minoxidil...

 

[1knox1]

Even some dermatologists give you ridiculous advice on male pattern baldness. Giving stupid lotions and stuff that do nothing. I wonder whether they do this on purpose or are just generally ignorant of the process.

 

[TinTon]

More than a cure for male pattern baldness, I wish somebody would invent technology to send messages back in time to our past selves... Could save so much heartache and money... If you catch it early enough, you don't even need minoxidil...

I agree with stating early and not need minoxidil (I really don't think I will ever bother with minoxidil), but I'm not sure I have caught my male pattern baldness early enough, mainly due to delaying I did which was fuelled by all the finasteride the scare stories.

Only time will tell. I have diffuse thinning all on top and have had this gradually for the past 8 years, only properly acknowledging it to myself for the last 2 years or so.

Also I have low (pre-finasteride) baseline serum levels of DHT so I'm not holding out much hope, but I'll give finasteride a good year and see what happens.

 

[debyne]

Has Minoxidil not been that effective for most?

I'm 39 and I started noticing my hair thinning around age 31. I went to a dermatologist and they said that I could do Finasteride or Minoxidil, but that both wasn't really necessary. I started with Kirkland Minoxidil but got scared ****less from all the shedding, so I stopped. I then went on Propecia but it was so bloody expensive and I started scaring myself with research online (e.g., Propeciahelp.com) that I was driving myself insane thinking I had brain fog, impotence, etc. The whole time my wife is wanting me to get on everything because she's honestly more superficial about me not going bald....stressful.

After going on and off and on and off, I finally decided to go all in with Minoxidil and Finasteride when I visited a hair transplant surgeon and he said that I should really do medications first before considering a hair transplant. He also said that with minoxidil and finasteride, it's like 1+1=3...better results than the sum of their parts; this was the best advice I ever got...finasteride + minoxidil was a miracle for me. minoxidil is obviously a pain (mostly in the morning) because it's greasy, but I've learned to wash my hair first thing when I wake up, apply minoxidil, let it set for an hour or so, and then use a hair dryer to dry it all out before styling. This has worked wonders, and I wish I had never second-guessed myself and had visited that hair transplant surgeon first thing before the stupid dermatologist who knew nothing.

By the way, over the last 8 years or so of experimenting with finasteride and minoxidil, I really feel both together are powerful and that minoxidil twice per day is noticeably more effective than once per day when combined with finasteride 1mg/day.​ I'd love to hear others' experiences on this. In my experience, minoxidil by itself did practically nothing.

 

[abcdefg]

A large part of the issue with finasteride and the hesitancy a lot of men have really is the issue of possible sides that come with it. Also there are a lot of bad things associated with drugs in general. A lot of people these days do not like or believe in the idea of taking drugs unless absolutely needed like a critical health issue. A lot of doctors included, and its hard to argue with that. If it aint broke why risk breaking complicated systems no one understands? That is why a lot of men/doctors do not like or advise something like finasteride. Its your only option, but I can see why people refuse or delay taking it. I myself do agree with the natural approach in most cases, but the problem is with male pattern baldness I dont think that approach works.

 

[testingit]

Yes, I first noticed crown starting to slightly thin at 23 in my case and it may have been starting slowly before then. I started propecia about 3 years later. I don't think I would have hopped on propecia at 18 or anything but I do wish I started 2+ years prior.

 

[Dench57]

Contrary to pretty much everyone else no, I wish I'd never started. Caught mine very early, got on approved medication straight away, backfired horribly.

 

[Manow]

Nah, I think it's probably a bad idea to mess with your hormones before you're fully grown. I started at 20, any earlier than that I would've been worried about messing with my hormones.