Jump to content


  • Content Count

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Community Reputation

0 Neutral

About chino

  • Rank
    Advanced Member
  1. Hey pondle. If you want more hair at the temples I would advise you to apply the foam directly to the bald temple bits and then massage it in with a fingertip. In my experience, when I started I had a few weak scraggly hairs at the temples, and these hairs rather than being knocked out by minox, as many seem to claim will happen to healthy hairs (didn't happen to healthy hairs either), actually are now growing thicker/longer. I'd say just using minox is a matter of convenience really. It's quite a chore, but I've even taken 4 days off, twice, to go away on holiday, and it was fine. Good luck whatever you choose mate.
  2. Hey Chino, I only had the transplant a couple of weeks ago, so my current hair is all minoxidil and propecia. I'm hopefully gonna post some pics of my hair tonight showing 13 days post op, which should give you an idea of my hair. Bear in mind that some areas have been buzzed down and I have also suffered quite a bit of shock loss!! For me....minoxidil worked far better at regrowing hair than propecia. For the first 3 years I was only on regain and it held my hair and prevented me from looking as if I was thinning. Believe me that was a great feat esp since my mpb is soooo aggressive. My dad was bald by 21 and I was defo heading in that direction. When I went on propecia, it seemed to really kick start the minoxidil. It's as if the propecia was not holding the hair freeing up minoxidil to regrow. However, after about 5 years of use both drugs were no where near as effective and for the last couple of years I degraded enough for people to comment on me thinning on top....hence the HT!! Hopefully in 6 - 8 months time....I'm gonna make them eat my words!! Thanks for the reply sagg. Sounds like you had some really great results! Hope your HT works out well for you!
  3. sagg thanks for sharing your experience! I also feel this forum is unjustly biased against it. I was wondering, without your HT, where do you feel you would be if you had only used rogaine? Asin, how well would it have held your hair? What were your experiences with it after several years of being on it?
  4. Guys, I said I'd update you with my progress with rogaine foam after 3 months, so here it is. I've been using finasteride since last febuary, and started rogaine foam on my temples and hairline on the 1st of November. I then started using foam on my crown/vertex kinda joining area on 10th December, and started using it behind the hairline on 1st January. My experience with finasteride was that I shedded a lot after about 3 months, and it was thinnest from months 4-7 (below baseline) then after that it thickened back up to baseline/maybe a bit better. Rogaine foam made me shed a little bit and now you can see the effects it has had after 3 months (as well as proscar). There are quite a lot of hairs over my hairline and temples that are not fully terminal but I believe have been grown by the foam, and I hope that these too will thicken up. Anyway, check out my updated pictures over at http://www.hairlosshelp.com/websites/chino/ Chino
  5. I think a massive bender might increase irritation but that's about it. If you're not using it then I suggest using nizoral, or something with piroctone olamine in? Also, if minox was helping you then quitting it is going to make you shed loads mate, still not sure if you're off it but if you are, get back on! I reccomend the foam btw, really liking it!
  6. I think use the retin-a first, then the minox then spiro. Only use the retin-a max once a day, maybe less at first as your skin may need to get used to it, spiro is generally said to be best done twice a day. You might wanna let the minox dry before the spiro. I'm no expert though, it's just what I've read on various forums
  7. Mate, I'm not sure, but from your post are you saying that you have stopped taking minox recently??
  8. I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed to say...but I'll say and then if I'm not, I guess this'll just get deleted. I'm not aware of places in the UK you can get spiro, but www.minoxidil.com sells it, it comes from america, that's where I got it when I used it, you can either get a creme or lotion. You might be able to get retin-a there too, but i don't know, try googling it if you can't. About copper peptides...There's 2 brands, folligen and tricomin. I get tricomin from www.tricotec.co.uk, its well expensive though. Folligen's cheaper, I dunno where to get that from tho, try googling it. Word of warning about spiro, it MAY make u smell a bit like a skunk, a lot of people complain about that, especially when you mix it with minoxidil, but as far as topical anti-androgens go you don't really have much of a choice other than it. These things aren't proven to work though so please don't have a go if they fail, they're just the next best things if that even exists. You're doing yourself a bit of an injustice in not taking finasteride. Btw, do you use rogaine twice a day?
  9. Yeah I have seen independent minoxidil studies. I did quite a lot of research, mainly on google, and also from hair loss sites. I think the longer stuides are the FDA studies though, which yeah are done by the drug companies, but who else is gonna fund them? I was reading a european study the other day, can't remember how but if I ever come across it again I'll post it. If you're happy with the shaved look then why not just take it all off and forget about it? On the other hand, if you really want hair then you should take up a serious regime, which unfortunatley includes an anti-androgen. Minox doesn't stop the hairloss process, just increases thickness and provides more growth, so if you are really serious about having hair, you really need at least fin. But if not, you need a topical anti-androgen. Having used spiro topically I'm not convinced it worked but you could give it a try. Maybe revivogen (another topicalanti-androgen, again though, I'm not convinced)? Retin-a could help you get more regrowth from minoxidil. Copper peptides might help you get regrowth. But in honesty, refusing to take fin, you do kinda limit yourself, most other things pretty much offer no guarentees. Also, try growing it out, you might be surprised at how it looks.
  10. I agree with spex. Take some photos now, then in say, 6 months, take some more, and compare them. Maybe come here and show us them so we can take a look. But don't start meds yet, you should be sure first.
  11. Mate that's a shame to hear. If you say it shed, then regrew and possibly thickened up (albeit not as good as before) then chances are that the hairs that came back/thickened did so dependent on minox. If you quit it then chances are you will lose those hairs. It is possible that your hair may keep improving if you keep using it, I'd suggest reading some topical minoxidil studies as they do show that occurs, with best regrowth being between 1 and 2 years. You could try copper peptides if you don't want to use fin, or some retin-a. But mate, I've been on fin since febuary and never had any sides, and many don't, if you get sides and you really don't like it then you can just quit it and they go away. Do you have any pictures so we can advise you better?
  12. Fin is the mainstay of any anti-hairloss regime, although it doesn't work for everyone - about 20% of men are non-responders, and about 2-3% get side effects. The drug is better at maintaining hair than regrowing it; getting on Fin early is the key to keeping the hair you currently have. The longer you wait before starting, the more time MPB has to progress - as you'll see from the attached chart. While Regaine can thicken hair better than Fin, it does not even slow the underlying balding process, whereas Fin can halt or even (very partially) reverse it. I've used Fin for about 15 months and I've been quite pleased with it. The high levels of shedding I was experiencing in 2005, prior to starting on the drug, stopped within two months of taking Fin. The crown seems to have thickened up very slightly, although I've seen less benefit at the temples. I've had no side effects. Yeah well it's best to use both. I must say, the shedding I saw MAY have been because my fin wasn't real (it was finpecia, since getting on proscar, shedding slowed down slightly).
  13. The only reason I'm reccomending rogaine over propecia, is because from using fin from about febuary until october, I pretty much shed non stop, and if you asked me if it made my hair better/worse, well, although maybe not completely noticeable, I'd say it made it more diffuse across the top. Although now I think it's filling back in maybe. With the foam, just apply a small ball of foam directly to each temple and then rub in. Eeeasy, good luck mate!
  14. Why do you say that rogaine is going to 'cause' you to lose hair around your temples!? Mate I'm using it there and hairline, and that simply hasn't happened... The reason why it says that is because they aren't allowed to claim it works there as they did not test it there in the trials. Rogaine shouldwork wherever you put it, as long as the hairs haven't been gone for more than say...2 years (I'm not just claiming that, there was a study somewhere about length of time hairs must have gone for before they are irreversibly gone). Anyway, I'm on both fin and rogaine, that's probably the best way to go. If you're just going to use one for now, I'd say try rogaine foam as it gives more regrowth than propecia. No it ism't greasy at all. Problem is, the foam isn't on sale here in the UK yet (were so behind, it is in some european countries!) so you'd have to get it off the internet. You use it twice a day if you want the best results from it, once a day might work, I started off on once a day but soon realised I want to maximise my chances of regrowth. Why not twice a day when you can, once when you can't?
  15. Hi mate. Well I have used 5% spiro on temples and hairline, I used it twice a day from febuary until about err....august I think, used it irregularly after that. And basically, I have stopped using it, I never saw any satisfactory regrowth from it, maybe 3 hairs in total lol and when I stopped I didn't lose them. Mate the simple thing is, there are only a few proven things that work, and saying that you don't want to use them really aint doing you any favours. If you don't want to use fin that's fine, what I really reccomend you use right now is rogaine foam. It is very very easy to use. If I could I would go back and use the foam instead of spiro on my temples (foam only came out in october though), I'll update with my 3 month rogaine results beginning of febuary so don't ask me about my results with it just yet. Don't be scared of rogaine, especially the foam, which I find very easy to use and doesn't produce irritation. And don't be scared off by stories, for any treatment. P.S. I'm not saying topical spiro doesn't work, I think it may be good for maintaining the hair that you've got, but you can't really expect regrowth from it. So if regrowth is what you want, don't use it as a beginning treatment, you can use it as an additional treatment later.
  • Create New...