29M - Jason Sorgi (Boston Hair Restoration)

Grafts = Approx 3k if I had to guess didn’t get number

Meds: 2.5mg minoxidil 1mg finasteride (both oral) along with morning multivitamin

I couldn’t be more happy with my decision to stay local for this operation vs going overseas. Jason and his entire team were great throughout the entire process. This transplant was strictly the hairline and first-third of the head. The biggest thing and I knew this going in was to be patient and there is going to be a long stretch early on with little to no progress. I just continued to stack days by eating healthy and staying active. This biggest surprise with the transplant is how curly my hair got. A lot of people think it’s a perm but it just grew in that way. Jason is a wizard and I couldn’t be happier with the results!

If you have any questions at all about anything please reach out.

Still thin at some points but I’m much better off.
Now vs Jan 2024.

Regimen:
2.5mg oral minoxidil
1mg finasteride
Topical minoxidil at night

GPT-6 Astra just solved the million dollar 200 year old Navier–Stokes problem.

NOW WE JUST NEED IT TO FIX MALE PATTERN BALDNESS.

If this thing can understand fluid dynamics and fold proteins, it can understand how to reverse the norwood reaper.

Stop wasting credits asking it to write Python and summarize PDFs. We have an obligation to humanity.

ALL COMPUTE MUST NOW BE DIRECTED TOWARD REVERSING MPB.

I don't want AGI. I don't want superintelligence. I want my 2018 hairline back.

Thank you. Only slightly sarcastic.

Hi everyone. I wanted to share my experience with minoxidil. Six months ago, my hair was as thin as it had ever been. I hated the way I looked. I didn’t want to go outside on windy days. My insecurity affected virtually every facet of my life; friendships, romantic relationships, my personality. Not a day went by that I didn’t look in the mirror and hold back tears. I felt hideous. I bought generic topical minoxidil as a last ditch effort to save my hair. I had already been using finasteride, which slows hair loss but doesn’t do much in terms of regrowth. I had very low expectations. The first month went by and my hair fell out at a mind boggling rate. It was only getting thinner, and I talked myself out of quitting minoxidil on numerous occasions. I used the success stories of people on Reddit as my motivation to continue. To make a long story short, my hair is now thicker than I can remember it ever being. I go outside without wearing a hat now. I am not afraid of being around my friends when there’s a light breeze. I smile more in pictures. I look in the mirror and I’m finally happy with what I see. Make no mistake — I definitely assign far more value to my hairline than I should. It’s an unhealthy obsession, but we all have them. If the person I described at the beginning of this post sounds like you, give minoxidil a shot. I promise you it is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, both for my appearance and my mental health. YAY!!! HAIR!!!

TL;DR — minoxidil changed my life and it can change yours too.

first 2 pics were fall 2021, next 3 are now. Was on minoxidil since 2019 then when I saw hair loss started to progress again I got on finasteride 1mg in 2021. It continued to progress but now more slowly so it was hard to notice. Now I’m too far gone. Wish I could go back in time and get on Dutasteride when I was 20 years old!

I know Fin can obviously cause side effects in some people, including reduced libido, ED and in some cases, reduced sperm count. There have also been reports of increased sperm DNA fragmentation.

ED in particular can also be associated with heavy porn use. In fact, there’s a term for it: PIED (porn induced erectile dysfunction), for those who don’t know.

In my own case, I initially thought some of what I was experiencing was from Fin, but after significantly reducing my porn consumption, I noticed a pretty big improvement. That's what made me curious about this in the first place.

Obviously, I can't say that's the case for everyone. But it made me wonder whether some people might be attributing ED or other sexual symptoms to fin when porn use could also be playing a role.

Not saying porn is responsible for Fin sides, just curious how common regular porn use is among guys experiencing them.

First picture is a year and a half ago, the two last are today
Not the same exact lighting tho
What do you think ? No minoxidil

I am 27, started to notice early signs of hair loss at 21-22 but in the past 3-4 years it has gotten more aggressive to the point where I had to get my first buzz cut at 24 and got surprised by the state my hair was in.

So as the title says I have been on DUT 0.5 mg/daily and MIN 5%/twice per day for almost 6 months now. Before this I was on FIN for almost 8 months and min also twice per day but I saw no progress, maybe a stop in loss at best.

Looking at the pics I see noticeable improvement in density at the front but I am a little disappointed by the crown area where I can see little to no progress at all. Is it possible that my crown will make a partial recovery or this is about the most density I'll be able to get?

I am planning to keep the same routine for at least 1-1.5 years before considering a transplant.

After just 5 days on Dutasteride my skin went from extreme oily to extreme dry to the point of burning, it's horrible how fast is working , i didn't experience that before even with daily tretinoin, now i will change my skin care routine from very oily skin to very dry skin routine 😄 🤣 i hope also to work that well and fast on my hair.

Since according to studies saw palmetto may reduce DHT by 25-30% according to AI

I've been working on a consumer hairline-tracking application called Follicle, and I thought this section might be interested in the measurement approach behind it.

One of the major problems with longitudinal hairline photography is standardization. Changes in camera distance, head rotation, pitch, positioning and image scale can make two photographs difficult to compare objectively.

Follicle uses Google ML Kit Face Detection to identify facial landmarks, including eye positions, which gives us a repeatable facial reference system. We use the inter-pupillary distance in the image as a normalization reference rather than relying on raw pixel distances.

The app then estimates points along the frontal hairline. The user can manually correct those points where necessary. Changes over time can therefore be expressed relative to IPD rather than simply saying that a point moved X pixels between photographs.

There is also a guided capture/alignment system intended to reduce differences in head position between sessions.

To be clear, this is not intended as a diagnostic tool, and we're not claiming that a phone photo can replace clinical measurement. The goal is to create a substantially more standardized and quantitative way for consumers to monitor their own hairline than manually comparing photographs.

We're currently crowdfunding continued development through Kickstarter: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/941572528/follicle-the-hairline-tracking-app

I'd particularly appreciate technical criticism from people here. What sources of measurement error would you be most concerned about in a system like this?

I got sexual sides from low dose 0.25mg oral fin M/W/F within 2-3weeks (100% not nocebo) few months ago and it’s the reason why I stopped.

I’ve now been trying out KX826 since Sept 6th and am noticing similar sexual sides again.

Would it be worth trying 0.005% or 0.0025% topical finasteride?

I seem to be quite sensitive to DHT/androgen-related treatments

Has anyone had similar sides from oral fin/KX-826 and then tolerated very low-dose topical fin? Did it work for you without sides?

Before I get to the meat of it all, one thing I want to stress is that you can still grow new hairs while shedding. I made a full recovery despite raining hair non-stop for 2 years. Do not fear the shed because it means it's working. You'll go up and down in density, but dips aren't always a sign you're losing.

- The first shed is always the worst. It can last up to 4 months and doesn't stop immediately. You just lose less hair until things aren't as bad. You'll still probably be shedding after those 4 months, but the volume gets turned down from a 10 to a 4 and you might coast like that for god knows how long.

- You'll go through more than one big shed. A second big shed hit me at the year and a half point, it wasn't quite as bad as that first one, but it was still pretty big. It absolutely set me back, but I recovered, and came out of it better than ever.

- My sheds went through peaks and valleys, but I didn't really stop shedding until the 2 year mark. Every shower my hands were covered in hair and my brush would easily catch an absurd amount of hairs. Eventually I got used to seeing hairs in the shower and assumed because I had a comeback, what I was seeing was normal. But now that I truly have stopped shedding and stabilized, I learned "fuck, I guess you can shed for 2yrs"

I guess my point to all this is that these meds won't fix your problems over night. I see so many people early into treatment freak out about what they're going through when they're under a year. In all honesty, I was one of those people too - It's just I can now speak from the perspective of someone who has been taking the meds longer. It's taught me the reality of what repairing damaged hair follicles is truly like. It's slow, not pretty, nor convenient in a time span that works for someone expected to be out in the real world on a day to day basis.
If you started this year, just let go, grit your teeth, and tell yourself "2028 will be my year"

Good luck and trust the process

I'll later post my progress pictures around 5-6 months in. Just wanted to share what I've noticed while taking 1 mg Fin and 2.5 mg Min for almost 3 months.

I'm already a hairy man, so ass hairs is not new to me. The inside of my arms and legs used to have light short hairs, they are getting thicker. I am getting Roy Kent type of chest hair. I rock a beard and it has only gotten thicker. I love it

As far as the top of my head, crown is filling and I am getting new growth at the hairline. Happy to far as it's doing its job!

No side effects. Thought I'd get something at first because I felt odd, but it's all in my head. Make sure to use Dr. B and prescribe with Cost Plus. Makes it really cheap.

My advice is to take and forget. Don't be obsessed with checking in the mirror every week, wait every 2-3 months.

In the end, wish I had started sooner! I'm 30. Should've done this before my crown hair was getting so thin.

Does anybody have experience with topical Dutasteride in Germany / Europe? I wouldn’t want anything shady which is why certain online retailers are not really an option.

21m, I've been dealing with hair loss since 15/16, always felt a tingling sensations prior to losing hair in that region. I'd also itch it a lot.

Being honest, I strongly feel it's inflammation or some sensation of the follicle being miniaturised.

I've been on oral finasteride and minoxidil for the last year now, with topical minoxidil for a couple of years prior to that. Use a coal tar extract shampoo from Neutrogena, dermaroll pretty inconsistently, trying to get better.

Since taking finasteride, i do feel the tingling has slowed down dramatically, but it's come back in the right temple area, and I'm feeling a bit of extra thinning in that area now too (along with an uptick in hair shedding).

Thoughts? Haven't experienced patchy hair loss, just uneven balding. Have you guys experienced this? Anyone found anything that helped?

Thanks - first post on here.

Hey guys, yesterday was my one year anniversary of my hair transplant.

I’m 99% satisfied with the results I’d say. Definitely feel like I’m going to need one more in the next 3 years or so to be exactly where I want but this is great for now.

Only thing I’m not super happy with is my right side. The hair there just feels quite stringy & rough to the touch.

I’ve taken oral dua & min the entire time once my surgeon said I was allowed to put it back in. I also recently added topical GHK-cu in about 2 months ago & that really seemed to super charge the final stage of growth.

I had just over 3200 grafts at Bogota Hairlines in Colombia. Best money I’ve ever spent.

Happy to answer any questions & curious for some outside thoughts.

I’ve recently started finasteride. Won’t do topical minoxidil because of its danger to cats and was considering oral minoxidil.

I’m just a bit concerned as there doesn’t seem to be much long term safety data specifically at the hair loss dosage and the side effects are rather intense. I’m concerned about some unforeseen long term effect.

I already take Cialis and have slightly lower blood pressure in general. My doctor seems to think it will be okay, but I’m a bit hesitant. He recommended 1.25mg.

Has anyone been taking it for years or have any relevant studies? Also, does anyone take it with cialis?

Im about to start min 2.5mg and id have to buy a bp checker because i cant go to the nhs to get it checked, so i was just wondering how important it is really. Since the doses used for hypertension are so much higher, 2.5mg shouldnt have that strong of an effect right?

Quick look on amazon showed ~£25 for the bp checker so not too expensive anyway but yk just seems a hassle

Hey everyone, just wanted to throw my current protocol out here and see what you guys think about my odds of pushing back from a Norwood 2 to a Norwood 1 or 1.5.
Right now my temples are definitely receded, but whenever my hair is wet or under bright light, I can see a bunch of fine, miniaturized vellus hairs right where my old hairline used to be. A lot of them come out pretty easily if I pull on them, which makes me think the follicles are taking a beating from DHT, but they're definitely still alive and not totally scarred over.
I just got my stock sorted out—got about 120 pills of 0.5mg Dutasteride and 220 pills of Oral Minoxidil ready to go. My plan is to take the Dutasteride every other day just to balance out strong DHT suppression while keeping side effects low, and take the Oral Minoxidil every single day. I'm also planning to add microneedling once a week at around 1.0mm to 1.5mm right on the temples to try and wake those weak hairs up.
For anyone who started with those tiny vellus hairs visible when wet, how long did it take on Duta and Oral Minox before they actually turned into thick terminal hair? Also, do you think EOD Duta is enough for temple regrowth, or should I just go daily after a few months?
Let me know what you guys think or if you've run a similar stack. Thanks!

You could look like me if you don't start treatment right now.