Finasteride, Dutasteride and Hair Transplants

john_Jea said:
Thanks for giving it to me straight at least, I'll guess this will be my motivator to make better lifestyle choices. The hair loss isn't visible yet unless you look for it so I'll just hope it will be a slow and gradual change.


I'm baldpilled now, it is what it is.
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I recently buzzed mine even though I have decent hair, not nearly as much as I used to but still decent and I'm surprised how much I like it. Totally different look but not a bad look at all.

I'll tell you this, if you want to hold on to what you have as long as you can now is the time and you have to get on the drugs. You have a choice to make. My younger cousin in his early 20's start losing his hair and swore up and down he wasn't and the only reason his brother lost his hair was because of something stupid that he wanted to tell himself to make himself feel better. He didn't listen to me when I said the time was now and he waited until he lost a lot until he started using the drugs and by then his hair looked like crap and still does now, he won't shave it. He still says he wishes he had listened to me....

Buzz it see how you look, see if you can live with it. It doesn't make you less of a man to want to keep your hair, nothing wrong with that.....just have to weigh the potential cost.
 
Sometimes going bald can be the best thing that ever happened to you.

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On a more serious note, from everything I've read, going on finasteride sounds far too risky. I think anyone struggling with baldness is much better off just shaving their head (or investing in a hair transplant if the baldness is only mild/moderate). I'm fortunate to have good hair genes, but I've buzzed my head many times, and there's a certain feeling of freedom you get from having little/no hair. I think it definitely (although subtly) increases the "DGAF" vibes as get2choppaa alluded to. Plus it's nice not having to ever worry about styling your hair. And while it's true that most guys don't look as good bald as they do with hair, you're much better off bald than with the George Castanza look. Besides, as a man you shouldn't be overly reliant on your appearance anyway. Baldness also conveys maturity, experience, wisdom and power, which can be used to your advantage, especially in your career.
 
scorpion said:
Sometimes going bald can be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Stone-Cold-throwback-3eac.png

On a more serious note, from everything I've read, going on finasteride sounds far too risky. I think anyone struggling with baldness is much better off just shaving their head (or investing in a hair transplant if the baldness is only mild/moderate). I'm fortunate to have good hair genes, but I've buzzed my head many times, and there's a certain feeling of freedom you get from having little/no hair. I think it definitely (although subtly) increases the "DGAF" vibes as get2choppaa alluded to. Plus it's nice not having to ever worry about styling your hair. And while it's true that most guys don't look as good bald as they do with hair, you're much better off bald than with the George Castanza look. Besides, as a man you shouldn't be overly reliant on your appearance anyway. Baldness also conveys maturity, experience, wisdom and power, which can be used to your advantage, especially in your career.
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Honestly this is highly underestimated, I had to buzz my head recently and not having to worry about just simply brushing my hair over in the morning, much less actually on a day when I need to style it, and not having to worry about it all during the day is incredibly freeing!
 
Blade Runner said:
How much do you think you lose (or how much does it signficantly thin) over 5 year time intervals, after you get the FUE procedure?
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The transplanted area should lose very, very few grafts/hairs, basically none in 5 years. They make sure to only use really durable hairs for the transplant.

I could end up with a fading "ring" of baldness slowly forming, which is why I'd need to get a touch-up like I mentioned. Of course, the clinic has thought of that already, so they make sure to "fade" it into your existing hair. So if it does form, it'll be really slow.

It's been 2 years for me and I'm quite happy with it.
 
cosine said:
The transplanted area should lose very, very few grafts/hairs, basically none in 5 years. They make sure to only use really durable hairs for the transplant.

I could end up with a fading "ring" of baldness slowly forming, which is why I'd need to get a touch-up like I mentioned. Of course, the clinic has thought of that already, so they make sure to "fade" it into your existing hair. So if it does form, it'll be really slow.

It's been 2 years for me and I'm quite happy with it.
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Thanks for the real world info on this! How long until the new hairs started growing? Did you keep your hair buzzed until they started growing in or did you let your hair grow out during the ugly duckling phase?
 
cosine said:
The transplanted area should lose very, very few grafts/hairs, basically none in 5 years. They make sure to only use really durable hairs for the transplant.

I could end up with a fading "ring" of baldness slowly forming, which is why I'd need to get a touch-up like I mentioned. Of course, the clinic has thought of that already, so they make sure to "fade" it into your existing hair. So if it does form, it'll be really slow.

It's been 2 years for me and I'm quite happy with it.
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Yes, I guess more of the variation I'm asking about is if you don't get as many as you did and how quickly the native that was left at the time of the procedure, keeps falling out or thinning.
 
I’d just like to comment that I really appreciate the nuanced discussion here, that there’s not a one size fits all approach for dealing with hair loss. Shaving it all off, doing nothing, using medicine, getting transplants all have their pros and cons and you kind of need to evaluate them to figure out the best choice for you.

Shaving your head can look good if you’re buff or even just an average physique. For tall skinny ectomorph guys like me it really does not look good. I’ve seen a couple guys I know of this type go the shave route and it looked very silly and awkward, beard or no. Natural balding plus trimmed beard is not a bad look, in most cases, especially if you’re 40+.
 
Hermetic Seal said:
I’d just like to comment that I really appreciate the nuanced discussion here, that there’s not a one size fits all approach for dealing with hair loss. Shaving it all off, doing nothing, using medicine, getting transplants all have their pros and cons and you kind of need to evaluate them to figure out the best choice for you.

Shaving your head can look good if you’re buff or even just an average physique. For tall skinny ectomorph guys like me it really does not look good. I’ve seen a couple guys I know of this type go the shave route and it looked very silly and awkward, beard or no. Natural balding plus trimmed beard is not a bad look, in most cases, especially if you’re 40+.
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Of course you could just lift some weights and eat w cheese burger or two ;)

Yeah Its up to your own self perception honestly. If you need some hair on your dome to feel good about your self esteem then I'm not gonna fault you...
 
Blade Runner said:
Yes, I guess more of the variation I'm asking about is if you don't get as many as you did and how quickly the native that was left at the time of the procedure, keeps falling out or thinning.
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Great question. It falls out at whatever rate it was going to, I guess. This is a reason why hair transplants can be weird for guys who are NW2-3 -- you're going to lose more hair as you age, especially if you don't want to take drugs like finasteride and minoxidil. So, picking a clinic and hairline and etc requires some thought so you aren't setting yourself up to need a second procedure. Happy to expand.
FrancisK said:
Thanks for the real world info on this! How long until the new hairs started growing? Did you keep your hair buzzed until they started growing in or did you let your hair grow out during the ugly duckling phase?
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- I was buzzing it before the procedure
- You have to let it grow a little bit before the procedure so they understand what sort of hair you are working with
- Don't get FUT, you'll have a scar on the back of your head. Do FUE.
- I could wear a hat at something like 48 hours after the procedure.
- It actually looks good at something like day 8, then the transplanted hair falls out and you're an ugly duckling for several months. Wasn't half as bad as I feared.
- Once it was healed enough to buzz it again, I actually used the ugly duckling phase to walk around and say hi to people I know and just see if they noticed and said anything or not.
- I still buzz it now, it just looks way better in my opinion. Your own opinion is by far the most important.
- Two people have mentioned, "did you change something with your hair?" And that's it. Best part was talking to a friend's girlfriend -- she was teasing him for not noticing how she changed something with her hair. Meanwhile I was standing in front of her with a f***ing hair transplant in the and she didn't notice, even in the ugly duckling phase. Turns out when it's mostly adding hairs to the top of your head, no one really cares about what it looks like, or remembers. I didn't expect that almost no one would notice it, even my mother and sister. Ultimately, it's what made me finally relax about the whole thing instead of feeling self-conscious.

The only people who know about it are:
1. My woman. She definitely thought it was odd, but I introduced it in a thoughtful way saying, "this is important to me" and she said that she thought my buzzed bald head looked good anyway, but that I should do whatever I want.
2. You guys
 
I know someone who was on finesteride for 6 months. Said he gradually lost his libido over 3 months and then it came back over the next 3. Said it was completely gone for about a month. After that he was on dutesteride for about 9 months. Said he didn't have any issues, but then one day he was out running and his heart began beating very fast and he felt very weak. He had chest discomfort for a while and then one day he woke up feeling very light headed and feeling he was going to die. Had chest pain. Went for some heart tests and other things. No problems. Then nothing for a while. Then he went abroad and was at a train station and could barely walk, dizzy, fuzzy thinking, loss of feeling. Something like that happened a few times. He thought it might have been the oral minoxodil he stated taking about 6 months earlier, so had already stopped taking it. But after some switching he found out it was the dutesteride. One day back on and he'd get the weakness and vairous other issues. Said that for quite some time after stopping it he would periodically feel very weird, like his blood was turning upside down, strange feeling in the heart, the sort of feeling you get when you take those pre-workout powders.

It turns out that the dutesteride and finesteride doesn't even do anything for him. He said that the oral minxodoil causes some extra hair growth and makes existing hairs stronger.

I'd guess it's different for different people. Maybe some people don't need one or the other, but most people seem to take both.

So, this goes to show you don't really have much clue what these things are doing. They can have no side effects for a considerable time and them - boom. What's this stuff going to do over 20 years?
 
Cynllo said:
I'd guess it's different for different people. Maybe some people don't need one or the other, but most people seem to take both.
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I'd agree. This other doc I know claimed it was all "nocebo" (negative placebo, essentially) and that, because one guy who is a researcher claimed DHT is a development hormone, as I have stated before, and just deleterious for men in old age, there's no problem with the 5 alpha red inhibitors. I didn't buy that, and still don't, because it makes no sense from both common sense and medical points of view. What's more, DHT is a major supporter of CNS and recruitment of muscle and spatial recognition for tasks that men of course excel at.

As a result, I don't think my minimal exposure to a fin/minoxidil solution that I placed topically could possibly be random or placebo/nocebo. For me it's not worth it. By the way, when you look at the half lives of the finasteride and dutasteride, you'll see that they are moderate to long, and the dutasteride is really long. No way, from my experience and from what I have heard from others, would I take those.
 
Cynllo said:
I know someone who was on finesteride for 6 months. Said he gradually lost his libido over 3 months and then it came back over the next 3. Said it was completely gone for about a month. After that he was on dutesteride for about 9 months. Said he didn't have any issues, but then one day he was out running and his heart began beating very fast and he felt very weak. He had chest discomfort for a while and then one day he woke up feeling very light headed and feeling he was going to die. Had chest pain. Went for some heart tests and other things. No problems. Then nothing for a while. Then he went abroad and was at a train station and could barely walk, dizzy, fuzzy thinking, loss of feeling. Something like that happened a few times. He thought it might have been the oral minoxodil he stated taking about 6 months earlier, so had already stopped taking it. But after some switching he found out it was the dutesteride. One day back on and he'd get the weakness and vairous other issues. Said that for quite some time after stopping it he would periodically feel very weird, like his blood was turning upside down, strange feeling in the heart, the sort of feeling you get when you take those pre-workout powders.

It turns out that the dutesteride and finesteride doesn't even do anything for him. He said that the oral minxodoil causes some extra hair growth and makes existing hairs stronger.

I'd guess it's different for different people. Maybe some people don't need one or the other, but most people seem to take both.

So, this goes to show you don't really have much clue what these things are doing. They can have no side effects for a considerable time and them - boom. What's this stuff going to do over 20 years?
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Blade Runner said:
I'd agree. This other doc I know claimed it was all "nocebo" (negative placebo, essentially) and that, because one guy who is a researcher claimed DHT is a development hormone, as I have stated before, and just deleterious for men in old age, there's no problem with the 5 alpha red inhibitors. I didn't buy that, and still don't, because it makes no sense from both common sense and medical points of view. What's more, DHT is a major supporter of CNS and recruitment of muscle and spatial recognition for tasks that men of course excel at.

As a result, I don't think my minimal exposure to a fin/minoxidil solution that I placed topically could possibly be random or placebo/nocebo. For me it's not worth it. By the way, when you look at the half lives of the finasteride and dutasteride, you'll see that they are moderate to long, and the dutasteride is really long. No way, from my experience and from what I have heard from others, would I take those.
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These drugs get marketed as, "rare side effects and typically mild when they occur" is such BS.

It seems like half of guys I talk to have side effects that they have noticed. So really the amount of side effects must be greater. That's anecdotal, but if you look at Reddit it's full of guys with horrible libido disasters, depression, heart issues, etc.
 
A correction to what I posted above, it was the minoxidil that caused the issues for them. Got that mixed up.

I'm reading that it is a vasodilator - something which causes widening of the blood vessels. The aim is to widen blood vessels in the scalp to increase circulation to hair follicles. But it obviously does that to the whole body. And it seems that can cause changes in the heart. Specifically there are reports of enlargement of the left ventricles (which it seems can be a precursor of future heart problems) and damage to a small part of the heart.
 


This guy talks about a Chinese study that claims that microneedling by it self results in 1,5x the results of hair growth compared with minoxidil only (no microneedling).
 
Don't forget also that if you have a shorter haircut, in general it makes the hairs on the top look better due to the lever arm/gravitational pull and clumping that happens as they elongate. While longer hair can be good for certain styling, it usually renders an appearance that makes thinning more visible.
 
Baldness is a gift to some. A curse to others.

The only hormone I think it's safe to increase with out irreversible effects is testosterone and Vitamin D (which is a hormone and not really a vitamin)

The rest is going to do weird shit to your brain.

If you're going to go bald... That's the way God made you. It's part of how He made your body.
 
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