Rogaine will synchronize the hairs to shed all at the same time and grow at the same time. So think of it this way, without Rogaine certain hairs were going to shed as they normally do and that is what you are used to noticing. You add rogaine and it reprograms your hair to shed some hairs that were supposed to shed later EARLIER PLUS on top of that the normal amount you were going to shed if you were not using rogaine. So now you see more shedding than you normally do and its panic time. Now you have to wait another six months or longer until these hairs come back to the point you notice them. So during those six months you think your hair is getting worse and you panic the whole time waiting for them to return and that panic does not help your situation. It will take about 12 months to 24 months for the synchronized shed to appear to recover so you will always go thru these large sheds on and off as you use rogaine. Its a roller coaster ride. Once you get used to your new reprogramed shedding from rogaine, you panic less. All rogaine really is doing is keeping more hair in the growth phase so it appears your hair is thicker. Its all an illusion but its real. Some of the weaker hairs can get thicker so that will help too but eventually these weaker hairs will lose the battle if they are destined to become vellus hairs. So rogaine is like a time machine that reprograms your hair cycle to be more synchronized than when you don't use it. So when you stop using it your hair will go back to the way it used to synchronize and you will go thru one huge shed. And then it will take a year or more to eventually get to the way it used to synchronize before you used rogaine so you will go back to shedding alot less hair but the balding process will continue as it always has even when you were using rogaine but you will be convinced your hair is getting better now because you are shedding less and your panic is gone. However, little did you know is Rogaine did work but it never stopped your hair from balding in the first place it only gave you 2 years of unbelievable growth and thickening. However, if you used it and thought you were balding fast and later stop and things get better, its only because you are actually balding at a snails pace and Rogaine will work BEST on these people as it will keep the hair synched the way it did at first so you will seem to maintain on rogaine. However if you have aggressive balding which supposedly is not very common, once you stop using Rogaine you will continue to bald but you will notice it more because your hair is not synchronized the same as it was ON rogaine.
I stopped Rogaine due to sides. The other reason I stopped was because I realized it was just creating an illusion of thicker hair when it was in the growth phase but when it was in the shedding phase it looked worse and I would panic. I would rather stay with shedding less( without rogaine) hair than more as it psychologically makes you think your are not losing your hair as much. I have very mild thinning and it thins at a snails pace, so rogaine is theoretically a perfect choice because it will give me the illusion of thicker hair and my normal thinning will still go on but in my mind I will be convinced Rogaine is maintaining but its just I am not aggressively balding. So is Rogaine worth it for this illusion, not in MY case. I want something that can actually reverse or slow down balding. Supposedly Proxiphen and Propecia do that so I use them. So far its working( pyschologically at least) but maybe I would be fine without them too. Who knows? By the way this is why Rogaine will not save your hairline too. It took me many years for this to sink in so I hope I made it so you understand it better. This is why Rogaine will work if you don't have aggressive balding but it you do, it won't help much to the point its worth the hassle. Think about this logically, there is no way to know what would of happened if you never used anything if you decide to use something. You just are basically having faith in what you are currently using to believe it is helping. So for me as long as I believe using Proxiphen and Propecia is helping, I will believe its slowing down my thinning. I could gamble it all and stop both and still be thinning the same but I need my drugs to "survive" psychologically. Everyone in here who is using treatments is doing exactly the same. We use treatments to buy us confidence that our hair will not get worse but we will never know the true outcome unless we quit cold turkey. Some do and win and some don't and lose. I don't want to gamble with my hair right now. So I will continue to buy my faith as so many chose to do here.
