Pob's Story **3 Month Update**

Pob

Member
Reaction score
0
I’ve been reading this site for about 2 months now, and first of all I’d like to say thank you to all the people who have contributed here. Reading of your progress and advice has been a huge help. Initially it wasn’t my intention to post, but then I realised that if everyone was selfish in that way then I would never have received the help and knowledge that I’ve have.

I’m 39 and only became aware of my hair loss a few months ago, although I now realise that it has been happening over several years. Having read the stories of some of the young guys here, I consider myself very lucky to have made it this far. I feel for you young guys. Nevertheless, the realisation was traumatic for me as it was something I’d never even considered I’d have to worry about .

I would put myself as a Norwood 1.5 with diffuse thinning on top. The thinning is not noticeable when my hair is dry but when it’s wet I realise that I’ve lost a considerable amount of hair.

I’ve been on the big three for 6 weeks now, and just the fact that I’m doing something has allowed me to stop worrying every second of the day. What I have learnt from this site, from people’s successes and failures, is to be consistent with these treatments and wait for a minimum of one year. If I see no success after that then I may consider adding other treatments, but I’m determined to make no changes until then. I’m also going to try to be objective about the progress (or lack of it) that I’m making, and not to panic and imagine things are getting far worse than they are. What I don’t want to do is spend all day in front of the mirror or counting hairs in the bath. All of this is comes as a result of reading posts on this forum.

After 6 weeks on the treatments I’m not surprised to have seen no changes. My shedding continues at least the same rate. I have noticed that my temples have receded bit further since I’ve started (which is obviously going to be the most noticeable), leaving the hairline thinned out. If I’m lucky this thinning may be as a result of the minoxidil and will grow back. We’ll see.

There’s a couple of other things I wanted to mention after reading people’s experiences here. Firstly, my girlfriend. I haven’t wanted to talk about this with anyone, but eventually I plucked up the courage. Her reaction couldn’t have been better. She was very sympathetic, and she told me she’d love me however bad my hairloss became. Also, she said that she had been out with guys with little or no hair in the past and it made no difference to her, and that anyway, shaved heads are trendy. It made me feel a lot better.

The second thing that has struck a chord with me is how, like some other people here, the first thing I look at in other men is their hair! However, I now notice that certain people have lost significant amounts of hair, whereas before I wouldn’t have really been aware of it. The point I’m trying to make is that nobody is half as interested in our hairloss as we are ourselves.

Lastly, my situation has made me determined to make the most of what I’ve got. I’ve started exercising regularly, eating more healthily and just generally looking after myself. I’ve made it my goal this year to get in the best shape I can and to make the very best of my appearance.

I’ll post an update in due course, but in the meantime good luck to everyone, keep the faith, and make the best of what you have.
 

Pob

Member
Reaction score
0
Time for my 2 month update on the Big 3.

It’s early days of course, so there’s not much to tell, but I have some observations.

1) I have not experienced any sides.

2) I have also not experienced any dramatic increase in shedding as is often reported. In fact, although I try not to obsessively counts the hairs in the shower, I believe in the past week I have noticed a slight decrease in shedding. I’m hoping this may be a positive sign, but I’m also aware that it may mean nothing, and anyway it’s a very subjective judgement which is what I’m trying to avoid. We’ll see.

3) I haven’t noticed any increase in hair, which after this short time I wouldn’t expect to, particularly as I still have a lot of very thick hair. The diffuse thinning, which is my major problem, can be covered up if I brush my hair in the right way. If I don’t do this I tend to have a number of very wide partings all over.

4)I have noticed my hairline and side taking a hit over the last couple of months. The front is thinner and the hairline has receded somewhat. I have a small scar at the top of my forehead that serves as a ‘landmark’, so I can measure this quite objectively. This concerns me a bit, although if I’m trying to be positive then this could be treatment induced shedding that may grow back. Maybe.

What I don’t really understand with receding is the following. I’m aware that hair does not one day drop out never to return, but goes through a cycle of regrowth and miniaturisation. However, this doesn’t really seem to be the case with the hairline, at least not in my experience. Is it possible that in this particularly difficult area that hair miniaturises in a single cycle?

Anyway, overall I’m still very positive about my treatment and I’m trying not let male pattern baldness take over my life. If things get seriously worse in the next few months I’ve decided I’ll buzz it (scary), keep up the treatments faithfully, and then regrow and reassess in a year. Hopefully that way I’ll worry less because I won’t be able to obsess in front of the mirror with a buzz cut.

Ok, next update in 4 weeks. Until then, take care of yourselves…and each other.
 

Johnny24601

Experienced Member
Reaction score
2
"The second thing that has struck a chord with me is how, like some other people here, the first thing I look at in other men is their hair! However, I now notice that certain people have lost significant amounts of hair, whereas before I wouldn’t have really been aware of it. The point I’m trying to make is that nobody is half as interested in out hairloss as we are ourselves.

Lastly, my situation has made me determined to make the most of what I’ve got. I’ve started exercising regularly, eating more healthily and just generally looking after myself. I’ve made it my goal this year to get in the best shape I can and to make the very best of my appearance."

Those are really great points and very well said, I had the exact same experience.
As far as the miniturization question and your shedding issues, I would first say that many of the people on this board are experiencing a far more aggressive form of male pattern baldness then you. Without treatment (and in many cases even with treatment) many on this site will be completely bald by the time they reach your age. Therefore, when you try to compare your results to them, it is like apples and oranges. Your male pattern baldness is so slow that you may not even be catching the miniturization cycles of your hair follicles because there are so few that are declining in size. Your androgens are most likely less receptive to DHT. There is always a chance that I am worng, but do you understand what I am saying?
As far as shedding, well I go back to my previous point. Typically hairs shed because they are readjusting to life without DHT in their follicle. Someone who is in their late 30's and has just a mild amount of recession, most likely has less hairs being affect by DHT and therefore MAY shed less.
Make sure you take photos as you move further along. As your original post said, just keep up the big three and reevaluate after a year.
 

Pob

Member
Reaction score
0
Johnny, yep I understand what you're saying. As I mentioned I want to be as positive as I can and it's too early to make any conclusions one way or the other thus far. Ultimately the only think that's damaging about losing hair is the way it makes you feel about yourself. I'm certainly very lucky to have made it to 39 and have as much hair as I do. My heart goes out to the younger ones here.

Even though it's often stated that the younger guys have a better chance of success, similar to what you say, my (unscientific) feeling is is that people of my age also have a very good chance simply because to have made it this far it may mean that the hair is less sensitive to DHT. Mind you, I guess it could also be because my levels of DHT have only recently started to rise to damaging levels. However, anecdotally, it does seem to me that the younger male pattern baldness exibits itself the more aggresive it is.

Thanks to all for the encouragement.
 

Johnny24601

Experienced Member
Reaction score
2
re:

The only reason why people talk about better results on finasteride for younger people is because it is assumed that older male pattern baldness sufferers tend to have less hair and more areas of their scalp that are completly bald with no chance that any hairs from those areas being saved. People who are younger and "catch" their male pattern baldness at an early age tend to have a better shot then the guy who finnally begins a regime when he is 35 and a Norwood-3. finasteride is best for maintenance, so what people actually mean to say is "the more hair you have to start off with, the better the results". This means that you should be able to keep most of your hair for a long time seeing how u have a good baseline hair count. Remember, for some unknown reason, finasteride appears to have no effect on about 15% of users, but lets hope it works for you.
 

wangho75

Experienced Member
Reaction score
4
Re: re:

Johnny24601 said:
The only reason why people talk about better results on finasteride for younger people is because it is assumed that older male pattern baldness sufferers tend to have less hair and more areas of their scalp that are completly bald with no chance that any hairs from those areas being saved. People who are younger and "catch" their male pattern baldness at an early age tend to have a better shot then the guy who finnally begins a regime when he is 35 and a Norwood-3. finasteride is best for maintenance, so what people actually mean to say is "the more hair you have to start off with, the better the results". This means that you should be able to keep most of your hair for a long time seeing how u have a good baseline hair count. Remember, for some unknown reason, finasteride appears to have no effect on about 15% of users, but lets hope it works for you.

finasteride + minoxidil can definitely regrow hair in "completely bald" areas and at 30 years age with 12 years of hairloss. My temples are a testament to that.
 

Johnny24601

Experienced Member
Reaction score
2
re:

When a follicle is dead it is dead. You could have had follicles that were in the resting stage or had shrunken so much that the hairs were not noticable or had rediculously short growth cycles.
My point remains the same, the more hair you have to start out with the better the chances are that you can save it, not too complicated. male pattern baldness is progressive.
I think it is great that you are battling your male pattern baldness very late in the game and I hope you and everyone else has success.
 

Pob

Member
Reaction score
0
So, here I am with my 3 month update.

Just to recap, I’m 39 with moderate diffuse thinning and slight recession. I’ve always had very thick hair, still do have lots of hair, and with care am able to hide my hair loss.

OK, for most of the last three months things have continued as they did before I started the treatments. I’ve still been losing the same amount of hair in the shower, no more, no less. The thinning on the top of my scalp has certainly increased; I now have to brush my hair back very carefully to stop my scalp being exposed. I’ve also seen my hairline creep back a little bit, but more worrying is the fact that the first centimetre of the hairline has become thinner and more diffuse, and I can see scalp through there. Cosmetically it doesn’t make a great deal of difference at the moment, but it certainly a sign of things to come. I also have a particularly thin section about the size of a large coin just behind and in the centre of my hairline, and it was actually this that first alerted me to the fact I was starting to lose my hair. This is now almost impossible to hide.

Although my sides are pretty good and I’m barely on the Norwood scale, my right side is very thin and scalp can permanently be seen through it. I really am just a thin covering of hairs away from a Norwood 2. Worst of all – and I suspect this is the moment all of us newly balding people dread - I received my first ‘ooh, you’re getting a bit thin there’ comment from my roommate. What is especially frustrating is that if I loose my sides there, I’m really going to have to crop my hair as being a N2 on one side only is going to pretty damn silly. It’s annoying because I still have plenty of good hair elsewhere.

OK, but there is some good news! In just the last 3 or 4 days I’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the number of hairs in the shower. Before and after I started treatment I was seeing about 30 hairs left behind, now I’m seeing just around 5. I feel positive about this and am hoping that this is a sign I’ve turned the corner. Maybe now that my hair has stopped falling, it may start to thicken up. To be honest, I would be perfectly satisfied if things just don’t get any worse.

So, all in all I’m feeling very positive.

A few other points of interest….

After about 9 weeks my head suddenly became unbearably irritated and painful from the Kirkland minoxidil I was using. This struck me as odd as I would have thought that if I was going to react so badly I would have done so from the beginning. Anyway, I felt I couldn’t go on like this as my scalp was so bad it was probably doing more harm than good. For the last 2 weeks I’ve switched to Xandrox 5% with Retin A and this has certainly proved to be a lot less irritating and I’m happy with it. It’s certainly more expensive, but I’m lucky enough to be able to afford it. As a point of interest, my regimen is costing me about $120 a month, including shampoo and MSM. Not too bad I think.

Incidentally, with regards to Dr Lee (and I make no claims about the efficacy of his products over anyone else’s) I have seen him come in for criticism over the one-off $20 consultation fee he asks for. I did not have to pay this as I am in the UK, and think it’s only US customers that do have to. I suspect that as he is based in the US (unlike most online pharmacies) and is supplying his own custom products, he is merely complying with a US law that requires him to provide a consultation. That’s just a throw away observation, and I could be wrong, but I thought I’d open that one out to the forum anyway.

So, all in all, I’m feeling hopeful. As always, thanks to everyone here for the support and information provided. I wish you all good luck and stick with it.

Next update in 4 weeks. In the meantime, take care of yourselves….and each other :)
 

Hawaii male

Established Member
Reaction score
1
Good Luck.. my case is very similar to yours, except im much younger. Will be interesting to see how we end up in the next months.
 
Top