Hair that grew or would have fallen out but did not as a result of finasteride will fall away within weeks of stopping it.
Hey i started topical 0.03%fin month ago , and since i can buy fin without a prescription i was thinking of adding 0.25 orally to my routine, what do you think?
If you are going to go oral, then go entirely oral. Topical finasteride gets absorbed, so much of it is systemic. If you only take oral medication, you will know exactly what goes into your body. Slowly increase it from 0.25mgs (50% as effective as the full 1mg dose) to 0.5mg (which is 82% as effective as the 1mg full dose)
[If you have any questions, you can reach me at williamrassman33@gmail.com]
So I’ve been on topical minoxidil for about 2 years and I’ve finally decided to switch to oral, tired of dermatitis and partially because of laziness. I’ve microneedled for a while on topical. Now since I’m switching to oral, is there any point in microneedling without topical Or should I use topical once a week a day after microneedling? Does one day of topical make a difference or will it just make me shed for no reason?
When Microneedling is done properly, it generally works with or without minoxidil. 60% of men will not respond to topical minoxidil, but 100% should respond to the oral form. I would continue microneedling for 6 months and expect to see some results by then. Recent shedding suggests that the oral minoxidil is now working for you.
[If you have any questions, you can reach me at williamrassman33@gmail.com]
I’m scheduled for a transplant in a few weeks. I wanted to back out, and the surgeon sent me before after pictures of a case he thought was similar to mine that they “worked on last year.” We’ve never discussed my case being two procedures.
But the before picture he sent me was one he posted online in 2016. So either he misled me about it being a one procedure case, or lied about it being last year right? How can you honestly mistake an eight year old procedure for a one year old one? Do I have this right?
You got it right! When you first met with the surgeon, did he come off as knowledgeable and honest? Was he trying to sell you a hair transplant, or was he acting as an impartial surgeon who offered you various options? You can seek other surgeon’s advice. I always tell patients to shop around. To understand the “Two procedure issue” I would need more information, so if you would like another opinion, send me photos to williamrassman33@gmail.com
I wanted to know your opinion on whether this genetic testing service (rootsbyga.com) is worth while. Supposedly, they analyze your DNA from a cheek swab and come up with a custom topical formula based on the result.
If you follow your “balding pattern” as it appears and then the degree of miniaturization you develop (as offset with appropriate medications), you will know where you might go if you see evidence of genetic balding. Many previous offerings like this give you a statistical likelihood that balding might be in your picture. With 50% of men balding to some degree within their lifetime, a testing system has a 50/50 chance of accuracy.
Unfortunately, there is little I can do for your graying other than recommend that you have your hair dyed by a professional to meet your needs. You had great results from your single surgery.
It is essential to know that 50% of men were balding to some degree in the 1700s. In the nobility, add Syphilis to the formulae for many wealthy and aristocratic men, as this disease contributed to balding. Around the mid-1600s, at almost the same time that King Louis made wigs popular in France, his cousin King Charles II of England also began wearing them to cover his prematurely graying hair — both monarchs’ hair conditions are believed to have been caused by syphilis and its treatments. According to some scholars, these unfortunate side effects didn’t necessarily leave sufferers cowering in the shadows—in some cases, fashion may have evolved to help hide the signs of late-stage syphilis. (Source: History Facts)
[If you have any questions, you can reach me at williamrassman33@gmail.com]
It will only get better
I was hoping to get your thoughts on an issue related to the use of finasteride while trying to conceive.
There is no clear evidence that taking finasteride will cause problems at conception or with pregnancy. What I have told my patients that asked, if they were concerned, then could go off finasteride for one week before and one week after ovulation. Two weeks off, on a temporary basis, should not be a problem. As I have not seen lawsuits against Merck for baby problems that are proportional to the millions of men who have taken finasteride and gotten their wives pregnant without stopping the drug, I think that it might be safe; however, I would go to Mercks (original manufacturer for Propecia) and look up on the Propecia website, advice on pregnancy and finasteride. Keep in mind, that much of what they say was likely written by their legal department to protect them.
These results would have happened with finasteride as it did with dutasteride. The key for this man was minoxidil which was very effective even as early as 4 months, just better at 8 months.
This is a great result; however, some of what is seen has to do with hair length as a factor. In addition, the results on the crown are far better than the front, which actually only got thicker and, unfortunately, was only partly restored. Topical use of these two drugs, without a doubt, went systemic, but the value is clearly shown in the photos.
I get this question often, too often. Young men send me pictures like the one shown below as if I have magical insight to offer. They are frightful because of the familial balding present in their families and project what they see upon themselves. My answer to this man is to purchase a hand microscope from Amazon and determine if significant miniaturization is present that predicts the balding process.
[If you have any questions, you can reach me at williamrassman33@gmail.com]
The arrow suggests where the hairline should be, so when he went on oral minoxidil it grew in the area where the arrow points. The growth will only get better.
I have been seeing more and more experiences as you showed here, as many men seem to be achieving the impossible, reversing a slick bald Class 6 pattern. The microneedling is clearly instrumental in this reversal. Adding oral minoxidil might help, but persistence over time is the key factor. You might even reverse the balding pattern in another 10 months. Congrats!
I have been doing hair transplants for 33 years and pioneered today’s FUE procedures. With that history, I have had an opportunity to look back on patients transplanted as much as 23+ years ago. The area I transplanted was usually maintained without medications, just from the permanent hair placed into the balding area. The average age of these men was in their late 30s, which is essential, as so many of today’s readers are younger than that. For those men I transplanted after 1997 (when Propecia first came out), I used finasteride to prevent progressive balding, and those men, now 19 years post-transplant, still have the hair that they expected. The hair they lost mainly was frontal hair, which was replaced with transplanted hair, and the hair they kept with finasteride mainly was in their crown area.
With that said, a group of older men have since developed ‘age-related thinning’, in which ALL of the hair on the head becomes thinner (including the transplanted hair). This has produced a thinner transplanted area so one reached out for another transplant just last month, as many others have done over the past few years. I told them about Age-Related Thinning in which hair transplants just will not work for them, as their donor area is impacted by the same thinning that brought them to me again. So, I am treating two of those men, both over 65 years of age, with Age-Related Thinning, by performing SMP on the previous transplanted area (on one man) and the other with SMP on his entire head. Both men still have most or all of their hair transplants present, but as their hairs thinned with age, they needed more fullness that SMP would provide for them.