I’m a gym bro, have healthy testosterone levels and considering fin. As I understand it. Fin increases testosterone, increases estrogen and decreased DHT, it’s the last two I’m worried about. Talks about ED and gyno, although rare, make me worry for my “manliness”. Can anyone speak to muscle building, voice tone, behavior/deamenor while on fin?
No, the dose of finasteride is far too small to overcome the impact of all of your male hormones.
If you take a photo of your cut hairs like this with either a hand video microscope (available on Amazon) or a good camera with a zoom in feature, you will see the follicular groups. The average Caucasian density averages 2.1 hairs per Follicular Group so if you count the number of groups and the number of hairs, you can know for certainty what your donor density is. In these pictures, the circles in C and D have higher than normal donor densities as the average number of hair in each Follicular Unit averages significantly above 2.1 hairs per Follicular Unit. That means that the person who has the higher donor density has more hair to transplant and if they want to do FUE, can do certainly more grafts based upon the chart here: https://newhair.com/resources/#tab-id-4
Like it or not, this has been the benchmark approach to learning about new treatments for disease; but it doesn’t always relate to the human diseases it mimics.
https://theconversation.com/of-mice-and-men-why-animal-trial-results-dont-always-translate-to-humans-73354
My dermatologist said he “isn’t convinced” I’m balding (fingers crossed), sees no miniaturization and said if it is MPB it’s very early, but because I’m still shedding hair he’s told me to start using an ointment with minoxidil/finasteride and see how it goes.
One of the side effects of minoxidil is increased body hair and I’ve read stories of people getting huge amounts of (possible permanent?) back hair and so on which for me would be equally as bad as balding. How common is it? Should I just go back and ask for finasteride only?
It is common in women who use it. My best friend’s wife used it and shortly stopped taking it because it produced facial hair that she did not like. I can’t advise you on the finasteride as that is between you and your dermatologist
As the doctor who pioneered the FUE, I can tell you with authority that 6000 FUE grafts will deplete your donor area and produce a see-through donor area. This is not a fixable situation as once the hair is moved, it will not regrow there. What is the doctor’s plan other than to get your money? What happens if you continue to bald over time, what then? Have you thought through this process?? If you are under 25, then you are about to make a terrible mistake.
You can have a second hair transplant if the donor area has a reasonable amount of hair left. Failures are usually the result of technical problems at the time of the surgery. If the first surgery was with FUE, the second surgery should not use FUE or you will have balding in the donor area. Your available donor area depends upon your original donor density that you had prior to the first hair transplant. Did your doctor measure it?
Is there a way to tell the difference between a standard min/fin shed cycle and min/fin no longer being effective? I’ve lost a ton in the past 3-4 weeks after being on fin and min for over 14 months, and am terrified min/fin are no longer effective and that this shedding won’t stop.
If you have been on finasteride and minoxidil for 14 months are are now seeing shedding, you most likely are experiencing an acceleration of your balding. You might want to see your doctor and get an opinion. If you were my patient, I would have had a HAIRCHECK test done on you a year ago and would repeat the test to confirm new hair loss and to what degree. That is the value of the HAIRCHECK test when you start treatment.
This is not uncommon, an increased sex drive and water semen. Most of the guys have a focus on loss of libido, not what you are getting.
This is a reasonable study. Read it and try it if you like. I don’t see a down side
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289931/
Can you give me an analysis of what you see?
Ask yourself: How many hair would have been in this area had you not lost the hair? Normal hair density ranges between 1000-1250 hairs/square inch depending upon your race. To get a reasonable density from a hair transplant when you hair is brown, skin is fair, and hair is of a medium thickness, you need to restore about 20-40% of the original hair density. There are many gaps in your hair transplant and the frontal hairline is a straight line when it should be soft, non-linear and the grafts random and to make matters worse, your doctor put another straight line of hair grafts behind the frontal line. I am worried about the nature of your frontal line grafts, as they must be single hair grafts or your hairline will look pluggy. You will, I am sure, need another transplant but I wouldn’t go back to that doctor again
Yes, there is a reduction of hair in the donor area which is clearly helped by letting your hair grow out longer as you did on the picture on the right. If this still bothers you, you can have Scalp Micropigmentation (click here) will make it look like you never had the donor area harvested
Dr. Rassman, I implore you to avoid making slanderous comments about another physician’s character online. Go ahead and criticize the result – but calling a physician ‘immoral’ is unprofessional, at best.
I have been outspoken for many years, at meetings and in written comments, even in published materials. Many years ago, I was heavily criticized when I told hundreds of doctor at a meeting about a surgery that was commonly done that I though was inappropriate and deforming. The result of those comments resulted in almost all of the doctors in litigious countries, to stop doing this particular surgery. Donald Trump was a victim of that surgery and from what I heard through medical channels, he was very, very angry with his results and lives with those results today (as everyone can see).
Some doctors must be held accountable and when a person comes to see me and they tell me their ‘horror story’ I do my best to make sure others are aware of their story so that the few rotten applies in our profession will learn that they can be held accountable. I called this doctor immoral because he lied to the patient, promised something he didn’t deliver (a partly failed transplant) and significantly overcharged him. Like any other trade or profession, not everyone behaves morally. When they cause harm, there is always the court system to protect the innocent. I have occasionally volunteered as an expert witness in such cases. As you should note, I did not name the doctor involved.