Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.

[Solxama]

Estradiol might be addictive. In many ways, it might be similar to SSRI's in terms of the calming effects and the reduction in sexual input.

I used to take SSRI's for three years, between 13 and 16 to cope with shitty Eastern European school life, and to be honest I hated them so I stopped. I was always feeling tired and was sleeping in the day, I was also overweight and I felt like a emotionally dull zombie with huge brain fog. I don't think psychiatric drugs are a good way to treat mental health issues like moderate depression, they only reduce the symptoms but don't resolve the cause. They can be useful for very mentally ill people, but I don't think handing them out like candy as psychiatrists in Eastern Europe do is a good idea.

But Estradiol is different, it's a hormone that is natural for humans so I believe I will only have positive mental effects. I don't want to be too quick as this is most likely placebo, but I think I already feel a bit calmer, and more happy overall. Will report more in my thread after a week on HRT passes.

Almost 2.5 months on HRT. I think there is more fluff on my temples, and it slowly returns, and the vellus hair is lengthened. But I'm not sure about that, maybe I'm wishful thinking. The next two months will show better

In any case, the results from HRT are very slow. It takes a long time even to restore Norwood 1. There is also a problem with the quality of the hair: you need not only to fill the bald patches with hair, but also to achieve the desired thickness and shine. Judging by Gergely, it takes at least 9 months to improve the quality of hair. Considering all these factors, my fear of worsening and the rate of baldness, I began to question the viability of the idea of HRT cycles. But we will find out about this next year.

Don't worry Almas, I think your hair will benefit off HRT cycles, even if regrowth is slow. And if cycles really do fail, you can always do what I'm planning, that is to stay on HRT for life. Unless you want to retain your masculinity of course, for me hair is more important, but it's up to you to decide.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I used to take SSRI's for three years, between 13 and 16 to cope with shitty Eastern European school life, and to be honest I hated them so I stopped. I was always feeling tired and was sleeping in the day, I was also overweight and I felt like a emotionally dull zombie with huge brain fog. I don't think psychiatric drugs are a good way to treat mental health issues like moderate depression, they only reduce the symptoms but don't resolve the cause. They can be useful for very mentally ill people, but I don't think handing them out like candy as psychiatrists in Eastern Europe do is a good idea.

But Estradiol is different, it's a hormone that is natural for humans so I believe I will only have positive mental effects. I don't want to be too quick as this is most likely placebo, but I think I already feel a bit calmer, and more happy overall. Will report more in my thread after a week on HRT passes.

Don't worry Almas, I think your hair will benefit off HRT cycles, even if regrowth is slow. And if cycles really do fail, you can always do what I'm planning, that is to stay on HRT for life. Unless you want to retain your masculinity of course, for me hair is more important, but it's up to you to decide.

I know older people allege no improvement from HRT but if you do it and microneedling I don't think you can miss. The two together with just topical minoxidil appear to be enormously powerful and you can add a reductase inhibitor for stability in DHT levels if you miss targets for a while. I missed targets for several years using low-dose. I will see if I can get my tests. They should be posted on my thread. Some of them were widely out of wack or varied greatly in E2 levels but less so in T levels it seems. Breast growth started immediately and substantially on Biestro cream meaning 80% estriol to any of the estriol folks. Great for boobs, not for hair--you've got it backwards, sorry.

 

[Solxama]

I know older people allege no improvement from HRT but if you do it and microneedling I don't think you can miss. The two together with just topical minoxidil appear to be enormously powerful and you can add a reductase inhibitor for stability in DHT levels if you miss targets for a while. I missed targets for several years using low-dose. I will see if I can get my tests. They should be posted on my thread. Some of them were widely out of wack or varied greatly in E2 levels but less so in T levels it seems. Breast growth started immediately and substantially on Biestro cream meaning 80% estriol to any of the estriol folks. Great for boobs, not for hair--you've got it backwards, sorry.

I don't know If I'll do microneedling as I have very sensitive skin, and I mean it, taking care of it is very labour intense. But I might consider Minoxidil if my hair does not get as good as I want it during the next few months.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I don't know If I'll do microneedling as I have very sensitive skin, and I mean it, taking care of it is very labour intense. But I might consider Minoxidil if my hair does not get as good as I want it during the next few months.

Oh no. You will end up on Janey's list of people who fail to used the best treatments available based upon "potential sides" with some guys refusing to use the Big 3 and somehow opting for CB, Alfatradiol or RU. One thing is that collagen increases which seems to make bleeding less normal if not entirely absent. One thing I do which others might not notice is that I couch most of my terms or consensus views in ways that do not overstate the hypothesis. Thus, I never unless not being colloquial state that estradiol grows hair. What I state is that long-term use of substantial amounts of estradiol are associated with noticeable improvements in hair quality and almost certainly in anagen which I qualify to almost since I don't know if we have anything but observational data related to this apart from females universally in races that have beard expression have far longer hair in general. Less true for Asians and untrue for the Inuit who have no beard development like Native Americans.

 

[Solxama]

Oh no. You will end up on Janey's list of people who fail to used the best treatments available based upon "potential sides" with some guys refusing to use the Big 3 and somehow opting for CB, Alfatradiol or RU. One thing is that collagen increases which seems to make bleeding less normal if not entirely absent. One thing I do which others might not notice is that I couch most of my terms or consensus views in ways that do not overstate the hypothesis. Thus, I never unless not being colloquial state that estradiol grows hair. What I state is that long-term use of substantial amounts of estradiol are associated with noticeable improvements in hair quality and almost certainly in anagen which I qualify to almost since I don't know if we have anything but observational data related to this apart from females universally in races that have beard expression have far longer hair in general. Less true for Asians and untrue for the Inuit who have no beard development like Native Americans.

It's not about potential sides mind you, literally my skin might not be able to handle Microneedling. Look up atopic dermatitis, it's a condition I got. And I suspect that in my case it has a lot to do with what I call "androgen allergy", as it really flared up during puberty.

 

[keepcoolmybabies]

Men seem to often lose hair in front of the ears that leaves a partial jutting out area that is quite noticeable.

Any chance you can post an example? Not sure I've ever noticed this difference but am curious

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Any chance you can post an example? Not sure I've ever noticed this difference but am curious

Sure be right back. My big three include two whose hair loss stabilized and one who went bald and got transplants and also Evil Ed from Fright Night and Christian Slater from Pump up the Volume and that era and Jack Nicholson but Almas' picture above is perfect in terms of reconstructing the oval hair line which I always try to do when people ask for opinions. Other races tend to lack this baldness artifact or differences in the halo/canopy/oval hair lines of children and females. My hair regrowth is mostly in front of the ears in terms of count increases and hair line and temple improvements and filling in. This is a strength of mine with uncertain predictability coefficients but it at least helps people visualize transplant options if you point to Ringo and Sting as still being great candidates for transplants which I all but universally discourage otherwise. So let's look at Mr. Pacino and his side patterns as I dub them. I have created all sort of baldness terminology in terms of referencing different hair loss patterns and I call this "jutting out" which is similar to triangle where hair is lost both above and below. Many men lack this but have instead obvious ear area baldness that goes back with no jutting and people get ready for a pic of Will because again, I have looked at all of this from every angle I can think of and Capone recently agree with me that loss of hair in front of the ears needs to always be a transplant issue but seldom is. He calls it ignoring temple points I believe.

o

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Here is Evil Ed with the chick from Love and Marriage/Married with Children. It also featured Chris Sarandon and his excellent hair and the guy from Herman's Head but you are Brit so you might not know that ridiculous show that was similar to the mind of Janey with various personalities arguing back and forth to influence Herman's decision-making. It was close to My Mother the Car in terms of being worst sitcom in history which was about a car like from Model T times that is the reincarnation of Dick van Dykes' brother's mother. Dick was in Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dr. Doolittle as a triumvirate of insipid movies that did very well at the box office. I saw this movie in 1985 in Portugal and I remember being disturbed by the implications of hell versus soul death but mostly fixating on this kid's hair below. He had a remarkable over the top performance similar to the main two killers in Scream where you either liked it or found it cloying and overdone. I always remember "Not in my movie" as being a solipsistic embodiment of free will against fate that is completely against you.

 

[keepcoolmybabies]

I'm not British, i live in los angeles lol. But anyway i'm not sure what these pics are demonstrating. I see the lack of temple hair in the men, but not sure still what i'm looking for in terms of hairloss "in front of the ears"

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Hair recession, sigh, in front of my ears. The second pic is ironically named and was from spring. Also notice why I stress that female hair/juvenile is always nicer for whites/Semites. You can see on close up all of the malformed hairs that don't lie flat or respond to brushing but are independent wounded warriors so to speak. The level of beard growth here along with the visible dermatitis is quite unbecoming. For many of us, beard hair removal becomes all but impossible without infection and the beard hair is too coarse that leads to the typical five o'clock shadow that is unbecoming and always apparent on MtF's who do not have their beards removed. Such females are, I'm sorry a transgender archetype of who gets made fun of if not removed and when combined with a wig, beards as in Some Like it Hot become a running gag that the MtF is either not aware of or chooses to blissfully ignore:

"Hey guys, in Translater, "I have perfected a makeup application system that complete hides all traces of beard".

Janey: "Please don't leave the house looking like that as all trannies reflect on each other".

Result: "Boo hoo. Moderator, ban Janey, wah!"

Now I don't bother because such folks are passive aggressive if you say anything but "You go girl" and many of them as on here seek humiliation which I refuse to feed. Some I feel so sorry for because the are really trying and say that they look over to me as an older MtF in terms of example in my progress in my 50's. It's very hard to do anything different from all doctors and say, "I am sure you have Telogen Effluvium because it's too heartbreaking to break the news so put if off nine months which can be tragic. My doctor refused to prescribe estradiol and told me "Man up", which I did but I stopped all baldness research since I had exhausted the literature in 1984 and only estradiol worked as min wasn't quite out yet. Polysorbates worked similar to Keto and those saved me from impotence which immediately reversed and I was on no medication at all.

Goddess bless us all.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I'm not British, i live in los angeles lol. But anyway i'm not sure what these pics are demonstrating. I see the lack of temple hair in the men, but not sure still what i'm looking for in terms of hairloss "in front of the ears"

L.A. I did treatment for cannabis there which my X figured had made made me trans or at least a cross-dresser and eh, it did reduces my inhibitions but instead I got hooked on nicotine vaping which I am doing now. I never saw it until out in California and it was so cool. We got vaping supplements via insurance and cigarettes, one pack a week for our drug cravings. You are an ideal archetype of the young MtF even without I presume puberty blockers and for all of the assholes who say "never been one that I can't spot" as they tumble forward from alcohol intoxication in any local bar or pub. That's why you are often on so late. I thought you were an early morning Brit as I obviously have to stop being on here so addictively but it's like the early Christians with me. I have to tell people not to despair and give up at least in many situations. I would to hear a rendering of your hair transition in terms of texture and anagen. Trannies on here and this thread and on reddit are often XY obsessives and brilliant which I love.

Here it's recessed back from the ears which is maybe visually similar to shrinkage so the hair in front of the ears is not level with where the temples points should be. Capone put up three great pics showing the guy before and after transplant. The hair on top looks great and most people might not notice but it's unnatural looking to have a mop on top with not much complete fringe below it. I posted a less good example below but look here at how the hair on the sides and in front of the ears is all recessed. Perfect transplant candidates have strong fringe hair everywhere and the fringe hair remaining is basically the same as the previous juvenile hair everywhere. These folks even if NW7 can get very close to NW1 again with hair that can be worn long and look good. Here for me is post transplant 25 years and it's clear why they should never have operated on me now. I have other pics showing the hundreds of circular plugs with little or no productive hair any longer and all of it was cobblestoned which is simply horrible and it's horrible forever until microneedling. The scar tissue scabs and shrinks every time and the plugs have mostly all become productive again and the collagen patterns have been renewed meaning all of the hair points in the right direction again and the baby doll effect has been all but perfectly integrated now. My last dead plugs in the temples are beginning to blend in and small hairs are filling in. But a bad transplant without microneedling can make all future treatment pointless without something to process scar tissue which is under a microscope very similar to balding tissue and also cellulite in that it lacks the typical lattice-form integration. The body does a half-assed job of wound reparation resulting in scar tissue that up to now has been largely untreatable. My plugs are itching like crazy tonight which I perceive as a positive in terms of nerve re-attachment. The grafts have itched forever and caught on my plugs and my scars in my fringe and I couldn't keep my hands away from the back fringe which got really butchered. I got roped in by a ringer that I just mentioned, a guy who was NW7 with perfect and high completely non-DUPA fringe. They couldn't do hair lines then but by not quite making plugs continuous the overall effect was perfect density almost to the point of hair helmet density. This is why the transplant decision is so hard.

I would never show any pics either like the others except that I was prepared psychologically to keep extensive visual and other types of evidence both related to decline and my restoration which predated my knowledge of the current thread. Someone on Reddit named Baldingat14, slightly redacted for their privacy clued me into this thread. That person was 23 and an expert on bica for hair loss and apparently already without hope for their hair back which I still though always happened as a result of MtF HRT. And those brows, Goddess. Not sure what to do with those since they are recovering and I might have to lay low as male for my children which is way I am so conflicted right now.

Best, KCMB,

Janey

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

This is FTM transgender. On his example, you can see the differences between male and female hairline: a man without baldness has a sharper growth line, thick hair. Women have more fluff and a rounded growth line. This is an interesting example.

This from above has great explicative value regarding the transition of the female to male hair line, Almas and I had three different guys with this kind of hair loss asking me about how it predicts there future which to me, is fairly bright for this sort of uneven recession in front of the ears.

 

[Almas_NW0]

Update
Started HRT on June 19. The top photo is the month of HRT, the bottom photo is on August 27, that is, today
My vellus hair at my temples is getting darker and longer, and I'm on my way to Norwood 0. The question is whether my hair is going to get good quality and thick enough. I think this is quite real

As I said before HRT, the first results should be visible within the first 3 months. You may see slight deterioration, especially after haircuts.

Breast growth has not yet begun. The skin became smoother and more hydrated, I stopped using moisturizer. The physique has not changed. Perhaps it became easier for me to cry, as in childhood. This is noticeable when watching movies. In general, psychologically has not changed in any way

Fun Fact: Bicalutamide improved my acne, but it didn't stop completely. On estrogen, acne stopped appearing altogether. Estrogen is Better as an Antiandrogen

Wait for the next report in 3 months. I think my progress will accelerate.

 

[Almas_NW0]

Because of Androgenetic Alopecia, my hair in the parting has stopped growing to a sufficient length and just sticks out. I am waiting for estrogen to increase their anagen phase so that they grow to normal length.

 

[Solxama]

Very nice progress Almas, I believe it will only get better now

I really can't wait to get better skin, It's one of the effects I'm waiting for the most beside hair regrowth. As for the crying thing, welcome to my world друг, I've been highly emotional since childhood. I wonder if HRT will make me even more emotional, I admit that could be a bit of work to handle lol.

 

[Solxama]

Anyway, I got news for everybody, my Bica came today! I will take my first pill in the evening and keep everybody updated in my thread.

 

[Almas_NW0]

Very nice progress Almas, I believe it will only get better now

I really can't wait to get better skin, It's one of the effects I'm waiting for the most beside hair regrowth. As for the crying thing, welcome to my world друг, I've been highly emotional since childhood. I wonder if HRT will make me even more emotional, I admit that could be a bit of work to handle lol.

I caught a very strong flashback when I felt crying. I remembered my childhood when I cried more often. It's not that bad and you won't cry if you don't want to.

 

[Almas_NW0]

Today is exactly one year since the day I found out that I was balding. It took a year of trial and error to find a solution to the problem. But young people who began to go bald, could repeat this and go straight to HRT, including Jacob Williams. However, beginners tend to be very afraid of this and try to use finasteride/Duta, which are powerless on their own.

If I can do HRT cycles, then for the first time we will see a recovery from Norwood 0 to ... Norwood 0. But with better quality hair. Fear of HRT is a waste of time for newbies, which is why we rarely see recovery stories with mild baldness. This is also due to late diagnosis: people do not understand that they are balding. For 2 years I did not understand what was happening and did not think that it could be baldness. My dorm roommate is 20 years old and has 2 Norwood with retrograde alopecia. I didn’t talk to him about this, but he doesn’t accept anything and probably doesn’t know about it.

 

[Solxama]

I caught a very strong flashback when I felt crying. I remembered my childhood when I cried more often. It's not that bad and you won't cry if you don't want to.

I already cry a lot, even if I don't want to but I see something that makes me emotional. Like I was watching a pretty emotional Anime movie a few days ago, about a girl who is deaf and was bullied in school. Although it has a happy ending, let's just say I cried for like 60% of the movie.

Today is exactly one year since the day I found out that I was balding. It took a year of trial and error to find a solution to the problem. But young people who began to go bald, could repeat this and go straight to HRT, including Jacob Williams. However, beginners tend to be very afraid of this and try to use finasteride/Duta, which are powerless on their own.

If I can do HRT cycles, then for the first time we will see a recovery from Norwood 0 to ... Norwood 0. But with better quality hair. Fear of HRT is a waste of time for newbies, which is why we rarely see recovery stories with mild baldness. This is also due to late diagnosis: people do not understand that they are balding. For 2 years I did not understand what was happening and did not think that it could be baldness. My dorm roommate is 20 years old and has 2 Norwood with retrograde alopecia. I didn’t talk to him about this, but he doesn’t accept anything and probably doesn’t know about it.

If only I have done something about hair loss earlier, when I was 18 probably even a few months of HRT would have fixed everything. But as you said, the problem is the fear young men have, that I think stems from stupid expectations people have of males. We have to be strong they say, that we shouldn't care about our appearance including hair, that we have to hide our emotions and love our animalistic libido etc. All of this makes young men scared of just Fina/Duta, not to mention HRT.

I was a victim of this kind of grooming, yes that's a good word for it. My stupid "friends" and some of my family members told me all of this crap. They literally told me that nothing can be done about androgenic alopecia, they didn't even mention Finasteride. And I believed all that nonsense. That's why I only have myself to blame, I too was stupid. Thank God I have woken up and I don't give a sh*t about other people's opinions anymore.

 

[MrOscar]

I like your input, thanks for posting. I was actually targeting E2's EC50 value, which has not been determined unambiguously but should be around 0.1nM for both receptors (see here for study links). Check this earlier post of mine. Actually, applying around 1ng of E2 on the temples is already sufficient to reach such concentrations (also taking fractional absorption into account). However, I agree that this may be a little short-sighted, because I did not consider the hair follicle as a structure (but just the test-tube estrogen receptors). What concentration would you suggest? 1mcg (on the temples) provides 1000 times the EC50 and should saturate every single receptor available. That is pretty huge, because it would allow us to employ a powerful way to maintain (and a slight possibility for regrowth) hair without the cost of usual sides (20% going systemic - 0.2mcg will not give anyone sides. For full scalp coverage, under 2mcg going systemic should be feasible). To clarify, this does not come even close to oral HRT in terms of effectiveness, but it could allow us to get some of the benefits without any of the side effects.

@JaneyElizabeth. I do not know. I think hairloss in most people is multi-faceted with actually a major inflammatory compound that does not originate from androgens. I would guess that the effectiveness of E2 would depend on the "degree of male pattern baldness" that someone has. For pure male pattern baldness, E2 would of course be a winner since it directly opposes androgens in many ways. Probability for regrowth then depends on factors like scalp calcification and probably age. You cannot really predict the severity of that a priori, but microneedling may help breaking up some fibrosis. Reducing systemic inflammation through dietary adjustments is absolutely underrated in my opinion. While it will not have any effect on male pattern baldness on its own, it should speed up (and increase) the effect of treatments. I would postulate that the lower the systemic inflammation, the higher the chances on regrowth on HRT.

The article on locally varying effects of E2 was in one of my previous posts. Since there is never really absence of androgens in vivo, I think the results cannot be translated to treatments. The study suggested that in hair follicles on the vertex, E2 was actually catagenic. I do believe, however, that E2 is especially effective in male frontotemporal follicles, since they lack aromatase compared to female frontotemporal follicles. In short, I believe that topical E2 definitely adds value to any regimen

Unfortunately there is only the abstract available of the article that tested balding scalp derived DP cells, but it seems, with the limit of the in vitro model, the cells response break point happen at a lower concentration: >36 nM, so maybe 2X , so 72 nM?
The full text study says cell proliferation was increased starting from 180 nM and the study on hair shaft elongation model in vitro says 100 nM is suitable (even not optimal like the 10 nM).
I would go for a compromise concentration of 200 nM, that should be realized by a topical at 0.001 % order of magnitude, but you can make the math with your model based with the vehicle you have selected. Even assuming a full scalp application, namely 2 ml, the total estradiol would be 0.02 mg, that I don't think it's enough to cause unwanted sides.
I'm going to run a similar test with WAY-200070 and RU (just because I don't have a better AA in my hands now).