So I realized that I had an M-shaped hairline a year ago. My dad and uncle are bald, but granddad isn’t.
I’ve been trying natural stuff, like onion juice, or rosemary oil, changing my diet, etc.
I don’t think it got any better, and now I am seeing signs of thinning on the airline and vertex.
Thinking of buying a dermapen/dermastamp ( currently considering Derminator2, as ppl on Reddit seem to favor that).
Just wanted to get some suggestions or recommendations, do y’all think I should continue with the onion juice/rosemary oil along with microneedling, or should I start on min or fin, or possibly both? ( Any recommendation on dermapen/dermastamp is also appreciated)
Ignore the white droplets on the hair, please (it’s onion juice)
The first photo is the vertex.
time to A) shave it, B)under the strict supervision of a doctor get on finasteride/dutasteride and minoxidil (oral 2.5mg-5mg is better but conduct blood pressure checks and ecg if possible.). those diffusing sectors may return, rest of the non-diffusing eg. receding areas will need likely a hair transplant. not all diffused areas may also fill, imho you will need a 4000-5000 graft hair transplant operation to return to hair you had in your childhood being realistic. keep your donor area intact.Now, this is for your “treatments” that you use:
YOU FOR THE GOD’S SAKE STOP THE ONION JUICE AND THE DAMN ROSEMARY OIL, THEY ARE INEFFECTIVE AS A BALL OF DIRT RUBBED ONTO YOUR SCALP AGAINST SEVERE BALDING/HAIR LOSS THAT YOU EXPERIENCE, THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS, I HAVE MORE HAIR THAN YOU AND I AM ON DUTASTERIDE AND YOU WONDER WHETHER IT IS TIME FOR THE FINASTERIDE, BRO WHAT THE FUCK. GO TO MY PROFILE MY MAN, YEP GO THERE. RIGHT NOW, GO THERE! I GOT DUMB DERMATOLOGISTS WHO PRESCRIBED ME STUPID SUPPLEMENTS EG B12 OR ZINC AND STUFF THAT DID NOT DO ANYTHING. THEY DID NOT EVEN GOT ME ON FIN AND I KEPT LOSING HAIR, NOW YOU SHOULD NOT JUST GO GET FIN/DUT YOURSELF BUT THAT IS WHAT I HAD TO DO, YOU SHOULD SEE A PROPER DERMATOLOGIST. D-E-R-M-A-T-O-L-O-G-I-S-T. A GOOD DERM IS A GOOD WEAPON AGAINST THE SLAPHEAD CURSE. WHY DID I TELL YOU TO SEE MY PROFILE, BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE “HOLISTIC” AKA FIXING DIET OR TRYING NATURAL BULLSHIT WILL FIX THE GRIM SITUATION YOU MAN HAVE, BUT WHEREAS IT WILL NOT EVEN ITCH THE SURFACE AGAINST THE DAMN ANDROGENETIC ALOPECIA. IT ALSO DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER YOU HAVE FAMILY HISTORY OF BALDING, HAIRLINE RECEDING IS 100% MPB. THERE IS NO OTHER FUCKING THING THAT DOES THIS. NOT CTE, NOT TE, NOT DUPA. MY DUDE IS THINNING AT VERTEX, THINNING AT THE PARIETAL/FRONTAL AREAS (NOT AT OCCUPITAL AREA, WHICH IS CONSISTENT WITH AGA) AND IS ALSO RECEDING AND STILL FUCKING WONDERS WHETER HE HAS AGA OR NOT. IF YOU ARE REALISTIC, YOU MAY EVEN NEED DUTASTERIDE TO SAVE THOSE DAMN FOLLICLES (ALWAYS CONSULT A DOC BEFORE BEGINNING ANY MEDICATION). MAYBE EVEN A TOPICAL ANTI-ANDROGEN EG. TOPICAL SPIRO IN LOW DOSES, THOUGH SAFETY PROFILE OF SPIRO OR ANTI-ANDROGENS (EG. RU58841) IS NOT THE SAME AS EG. FIN/DUT, KEEP THAT IN MIND.
NO FUCKING WONDER WHY? THE FDA APPROVED MEDS ARE MINOXIDIL AND FINASTERIDE. THIS IS IT, MAYBE DUTASTERIDE AND ORAL MINOXIDIL (BOTH ARE MORE EFFECTIVE THOUGH PRESCRIBED OFF-LABEL TYPICALLY, LEGAL BUT LIKE THIS IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE PRIMARILY DESIGNED FOR). SOME PEOPLE EVEN GO AND USE RU58841, WHICH I DON’T RECOMMEND AND I HOPE YOU WON’T HAVE TO RESORT TO IT, BUT YOU MAY HAVE TO IF YOU KEEP USING SUCH USELESS FUCKING “TREATMENTS” AGAINST HAIR LOSS. GO SEE A PROPER DERM AND SEE WHETHER FIN/MIN ARE SUITABLE FOR YOU. YOU MAY NEED DUTASTERIDE INSTEAD OF FINASTERIDE GIVEN THE LEVEL OF YOUR HAIR LOSS, ASK A DERM OR FEW DERMS ABOUT WHETHER IT WOULD BE OK TO TAKE IT OR NOT.
EITHER TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF A DOCTOR GET ON THE RELEVANT MEDICINES (FIN/DUT+MIN, PERHAPS A TOPICAL ANTIANDROGEN EG. TOPICAL SPIRO) OR LOSE YOUR HAIR. NOT A WEEK LATER, AT THE VERY MOST GO SEE A DERM TOMORROW. TOMORROW. TOMORROW. TOMORROW, DID I SAY TOMORROW?
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE AT AN EXTREMELY CRITICAL SITUATION. EXTREMELY. YOU ARE 50-60% BALD ALREADY, SO HALFWAY THERE, KEEP THAT IN MIND. AND THAT RECOVERY WON’T BE EASY AND LIKELY TAKE TIME, IF YOU WANT TO RECOVER IT, WHICH YOU SHOULD AS YOU ARE ONLY IN YOUR 20s. I AM ALSO 20, AND HAD ALSO BELIEVED THE SITUATION HAD STABILIZED WHEN IT GOT WORSE. NEVER BELIEVE THAT AGA WILL NOT PROGRESS, IT ALWAYS DOES PROGRESS ONE WAY OR ANOTHER FOR THE WORSE. KEEP THIS IN YOUR MIND. I DON’T BULLSHIT YOU, AND THIS IS A BRUTALLY HONEST REVIEW OF YOUR SITUATION.
ps:this is not an insult directed at you (where fuck is mentioned) but amazement to your lack of knowledge, don’t take personally
Thanks so much for your comment and for keeping it real, man. I appreciate your time so much.
I am pretty sure that it is MPD, just wanted to see if natural treatments could help, but yeah, as you say, it’s time to get serious.
I actually saw a dermatologist before, he took one look and said “yup its balding, lets set you up with PRP”, which I was actually suspicious of and didn’t proceed further.
I’ll book another appointment ASAP and look into fin/dut + min. Will check your profile and posts rn.
All photos except the vertex one were taken when the hair was wet, and with onion juice all over it, so it does look worse than when it is dry.
Also, it’s a lot better when I just get out of a bath, the vertex photo is taken after 1.5 - 2 days I had a bath ( I have a bath once every 2 days when it’s cold…). And my scalp gets oily very fast, which makes the hair even worse than it is.
Here are some new photos of dry hair. ( took a bath yesterday) I do realize now that my vertex is actually in a worse situation than I thought, so I must be Norwood 3 at least, I guess?
this paints a far differenet picture to be honest. your situation seems to be fixable with medicines. though always refer to a doc before taking any medicine.
Finasteride will probably work for you If fin does not work, then dutasteride very, very likely will work for you You can likely regrow what you had lost with oral minoxidil (topical response rate is low) A topical anti-androgen eg. spironolactone will likely add the cherry on top of the cake. You may also continue using microneedling (but refer to a proper derm, I heard it may ruin hair transplants), it will be effective. Not on its own, but combined with fin/dut it will be. You can add ketoconazole, as it has mild anti-androgenic effects. You DO NOT need ru58841 type of anti-androgens.
My assesment: You caught it still early, and have time. Don’t waste it, and see a proper derm, with his/her advice hop on the fin/dut and minoxidil (min for regrowing what you had lost and fin/dut for stopping the balding process).
Whew, haha. Didn’t mean to mislead; just wanted to show more of the bad photos to see whether I am stressing for a reason.
I’ll see a derm again ASAP.
Haven’t started microneedling yet, probably will buy one from Amazon or Derminator2, not sure ( will look into the transplant stuff).
I’ll look into topical spironolactone and oral minoxidil; do you recommend that I take oral finasteride or should I just get a topical one?
Lastly, do you have any brand recommendations for the medicine?
TL;DR: 1)oral fin>topical fin in effectiveness, topical fin>oral fin in adverse effect risk. keep in mind only a small fraction of men experience side effects and in lower doses or continuing it for some time it goes away. 2)Any brand as long as it is reputable, has license and ideally well-known is good to go. I cannot say like oh get rogaine oh get kirkland oh get loniten oh get propecia oh get avodart etc. But avodart is good for dutasteride from what I had heard, as tablets are deemed less effective for dutasteride but gel capsules eg. that of avodart is deemed effective, not to advertise but to inform.
ps:I use oral minoxidil myself but that is like compounded, I cannot get original oral minoxidil here in Turkey unfortunately, nope. You have to contact the pharmacists’ association here and they will source it but it is 200 euro for 5mg oral minoxidil for 100 days. It is not cheap.That is it, by the way conduct a sodium hypochlorite (aka bleach) test on minoxidil that you use, ideally should yield an orange color if legit. Also topical spiro is not crazy effective, expect very mild results that is why I said the cherry on the cake. If it goes systemic it may pose dangers, I would say topical spiro is like not needed but maaaaaybe you can add it, it also smells very bad from what I had heard (in topical spiro vs. ru58841 comparison ru58841 is effective over topical spiro no doubt and crazy fucking effective for some, not much for other people but at the end of the day is a research chemical).my current stack is 2.5mg oral minoxidil every day, 0.5mg oral dutasteride every day, ketoconazole biweekly and 1-1.5mg of finasteride every day (proscar 1/4 to 1/5) because I got 10-15 days of fin dose during transition to dut and don’t wanna throw it away.
Topical spiro smelling bad is probably something I can deal with ( onion juice, lmfaoo); will also look at ru58841, but probably will try to see if I can solve it via min/fin and dermapen first.
If any brand is ok, I’ll probably get Hims or smt, been seeing its ads a lot.
Will see how the medicine-acquiring process goes here in the USA. I am unfamiliar with how pharmacies work here.
Finasteride will probably work for you