Unpopular opinion: my hair loss still bothers me

General Discussion
#1

For PFS people, the general consensus is that they couldn’t care less about hair loss anymore. For the worst cases out there, i can understand that sentiment.

However, while I agree your health is more important, I still care about my appearance and have not accepted my hair loss yet. I’ll even admit that I’m still reading up on topical anti-androgens, as crazy as that may sound. I mean if baldness was one of PFS’s symptoms, wouldn’t we hate it and try to treat it?

It’s been ten years since I quit propecia. I was always afraid of that catchup hair loss but it has been very gradual over the last years, which I believe is due to PFS. This brings me to my questions:

  1. Would the slow progress of hairloss make us better candidates for a hair transplant? If you’ve had a hair transplant post PFS, are you happy with your decision? How will you deal with further loss down the road if medication is no longer an option?

  2. There are many reports of PFS people feeling better when they reintroduce mild 5ar inhibitors (even going back on finasteride has made people feel better) and feeling worse after TRT, exercising or anything androgenic. This makes me wonder if a topical antiandrogen going systemic would be as detrimental for us as it may seem?

#2

Despite my username, I have to say that I can partially relate, I mean the only thing I consider ‘positive’ of my few months of PFS is the fact that I’m not loosing that much hair anymore, which would definitely have been another thing that stresses me out. Anyway I definitely care less than before and when I’ll be recovered I’m not gonna do anything about it beside accepting it when it’s time.
If I could go back in time tho, knowing that I wasn’t able to ignore my hair loss, instead of touching that 5ari shit (even topical is a really bad idea) I would probably just try with very low dose topical spiro, which I’m pretty sure would have been an extremely better choice for me.
But post PFS I wouldn’t really bother man, trust me

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#3

@ithought - there used to be a user active on this forum called @nopecia who advocated for hair transplants without finasteride. Here is a link to this particular thread: Hair transplant consultant

#4

I relate. Even though I’ve come to term with my hair loss. You can’t have everything in life sadly.

But it still hurts when you had something, then it gets taken away. I bet if we were all bald since birth we wouldn’t have cared half as much.

With that said, if you have thick hairs a transplant without Fin could work. If your hair are thin, a hair transplant won’t look as good unfortunately.

Your not going to lose the hair you transplant, so the use of Fin is just to “slow down” the natural hairs you have left.

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#5

I’ve been using a red light cap for 6 months. I think it has helped.

If all else fails, I will jut shave and do smp.

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#6

I think I got lucky that I have a good head shape for the bald look, and also can grow a very thick beard. I realise others are not as lucky though and hair loss is still a real concern for them. However, as others have noted here, I would not be touching a topical 5ARI under any circumstances.

#8

PFS halted my hairloss and now it maintains my thin hair

but it bothers me too so im microneedling and checking out other options

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#9

To be fair, this is a completely legitimate topic of conversation. When I saw it come up in recent threads again, I actually stopped to think about my hair loss. Although I got lucky with it suiting my look, it does bother me how PFS has actually accelerated my hair loss and make it extremely patchy.

For example, I used to be mostly receding at the temples, with some crown thinning. After PFS, the receding became extremely aggressive, but I also started getting patchy “islands” around the front of my scalp as well. That’s what forced me to shave my head to completely bald. It’s also a bitch to maintain at a complete zero.

It sucks to have your confidence affected further when you’re already dealing with such low mood and health problems. I have low weeks where I barely have the energy to shave my head, so I just wear a cap because I’m embarrassed about the patchy “islands”.

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#10

Unpopular opinion: Would you try Minoxidil or Nioxin? I used it before putting myself in a mess with topical Fin and it worked wonders. I regrew at my temples and crown; I’m such an idiot for using Fin and messing up that major progression I had.

#11

I have seen cases of this condition being caused by only Minoxidil, so while it appears to be only mildly anti-androgenic, I would still not recommend it. According to one patient I spoke to, there is a private support group with over 60 members, so that’s enough for me to say no.

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#12

Sorry, but then you would like to say that Post-syndrome finasteride Stops hair loss? It’s been 5 years and I’ve lost a lot of hair in the meantime, is that a good thing? Is the syndrome regressing?

#13

i crashed from minoxidil

would not recommend

#14

no that depends on the individual

we all have different symptom profiles here. some people can’t workout, some people can.

some people can take certain substances, others can’t.

PFS accelerates hair loss for some, and it haults hairloss for others

#15

My hair loss was definitely slowed down a lot by fin and PFS. I’ve almost been off fin for 10 years and the loss was stable during the first years but seems to catch up now, unfortunately.

I would consider a hair transplant but as finasteride is no longer an option, i’m afraid i might regret it when i’m out of donor hair for a a natural result.

I hope there are safe alternatives in the future, such as GT20029 by Kintor, to stop further hair loss so that i could be more confident about the results.

I was even considering giving ru58841 a chance but after reading reports about symptoms similiar to PFS, that seems like a recipe for disaster. The fact i’m still thinking about it, is telling about how much it still bothers me. I don’t have the head shape for it and i have hardly any facial hair to get away with the bald look.

I’m still using minoxidil though, as i have never had any issues or side effects with it, although there’s no way to be sure. It’s hard to assess if it actually does anything for my hair so maybe i’m putting myself at risk without any benefits.

#16

I tried to use Minox and it made me feel like crap.

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#17

Unfortunately GT20029 just targets the AR directly, so it would likely create the same effect.

#18

It should supposedly have little to no side effects but we’ve heard that one before so i’m not holding my breath.

#19

Anyone tried the stem cell approach to hair loss?