So it has been recommended to me by endo to start rogaine for my thinning hair. My question is once the root cause, my testicles, are gone will I be able to stop taking the rogaine and not lose hair? Rogaine is it covered by my insurance and would be an expensive habit in the long run. I am hoping that the long run need not ever be.

What is your experience or what have you heard?

Quote from: Christine167 on August 27, 2013, 10:52:03 PM
So it has been recommended to me by endo to start rogaine for my thinning hair. My question is once the root cause, my testicles, are gone will I be able to stop taking the rogaine and not lose hair? Rogaine is it covered by my insurance and would be an expensive habit in the long run. I am hoping that the long run need not ever be.

What is your experience or what have you heard?

I'm 59 and have a full head of hair, but sometimes I lose virtually nothing, the next week I lose 50-100 hairs a day. It may be a little less, but it seems like a huge amount because my hair's now past my shoulder blades. But it's scaring the heck out of me. I've got a hairline that can easily pass right now, but who knows for how long?!?! I think I'm going to start using rogaine too, but since I'm on hormones and have virtually no testosterone, do I use Rogaine for women or men? And I'm serious about the question! Hugs, Mira

Talk to your doctor about finasteride also. Presumably you shouldn't need it anymore after E and bottom surgery. It blocks key male hormones that trigger baldness (at least the male pattern kind) but pretty sure E should also do that and bottom surgery for sure.

Thanks, you both bring up good points.

Miranda I'm sorry that I don't know the answer but since it is the same active ingredient and you have no testosterone perhaps rogaine for women.

Dalebert I will ask my endo about it.

Quote from: Miranda Elizabeth on August 27, 2013, 11:47:45 PM
I'm 59 and have a full head of hair, but sometimes I lose virtually nothing, the next week I lose 50-100 hairs a day. It may be a little less, but it seems like a huge amount because my hair's now past my shoulder blades. But it's scaring the heck out of me. I've got a hairline that can easily pass right now, but who knows for how long?!?! I think I'm going to start using rogaine too, but since I'm on hormones and have virtually no testosterone, do I use Rogaine for women or men? And I'm serious about the question! Hugs, Mira

The only difference between women's and men's Rogaine is the percentage of the active ingredient (minoxidil). The women's version is much less than the men's and the men's comes in regular and extra strength. There are so many potential side effects with Rogaine and if you stop using it after hair growth most individuals lose all the hair they had gained. Some ups and downs of shedding some hair is a normal process as the hair goes through the various growth cycles. It is also possible with the length of hair you have some of the loss could be from hair breakage and not hair follicle loss. Biotin, folic acid, Vitam E, and some shampoos have been shown to improve both the quality of hair, promote growth, and increase density. Pre-GRS Finasteride is also an option and has shown overall better results than Rogaine.

You have to understand why people lose hair that they gained with Rogaine. It's because the Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is still there. DHT is a testosterone by-product and that plus a genetic vulnerability to DHT is what causes male pattern baldness. Removing DHT (i.e. removing the testicles) is almost always sufficient to stop DHT based hair loss.

Normal human hair loss is in the 100-150 hairs per day. The average human head (not affected by male pattern baldness) has 100,000 or more hairs on it.

Hairs go through three stages:

Anagen -- active hair growth that lasts between two to six years
Catagen -- transitional hair growth that lasts two to three weeks
Telogen -- resting phase that lasts about two to three months; at the end of the resting phase the hair is shed and a new hair replaces it and the growing cycle starts again.

Androgenic alopecia is the formal name for male pattern baldness. Basically what happens is that the Anagen phase becomes shorter and shorter and shorter while the Telogen phase becomes longer and longer and longer, all due to the impacts of DHT.

Rogaine (or generic Minoxidil, which is basically the same thing but far cheaper) encourages hair growth. Finasteride (marketed as Propecia when used for hair loss) blocks DHT formation to some degree. The less testosterone you have, the more effective finasteride will be since there will be less testosterone to even turn into DHT to begin with. Also, the less testosterone you have, the more likely minoxidil will be effective since it's less likely to have to fight against DHT.

However, if a region of the scalp has been under the effect of DHT for too long, the hairs in that region may actually die out and not return.

One thing that can be done as an alternative is to find a hair restoration surgeon who uses the new ACell + PRP technique. ACell is a product originally designed to stimulate stem cells in a wound site to produce healthy tissue instead of scar tissue. Some hair restoration surgeons began using it to minimize scarring during hair transplants and discovered that it seemed to promote new hair growth. Subsequent studies do seem to verify that it can promote new hair growth when applied via injections to the entire scalp, though as always, your mileage may vary.

I personally have very extensive male pattern baldness and do not expect transplants to be sufficient to give me a normal head of hair at the current time. But eventually I do plan to save the money for an ACell + PRP treatment and see if that can increase my overall hair growth and density to where transplants can do the rest.

Quote from: Miranda Elizabeth on August 27, 2013, 11:47:45 PM
I'm 59 and have a full head of hair, but sometimes I lose virtually nothing, the next week I lose 50-100 hairs a day.

Hair goes through cycles. Head hair has the longest cycles which is why it can get really long but all hair naturally falls out eventually as that follicle goes into a dormant phase for a while before starting to grow new hair. 100 hairs a day is actually about average for hair falling out for a typical, non-balding person. Hair loss represents either an increase well above average in some cases or the permanent dying off of follicles as is the case with male-pattern baldness. I believe it's caused by calcium build-up in the follicles in that case.

Most people don't notice their hair falling out all the time if it's reasonably short because it goes right down the drain. Longer hair doesn't flush down so easily. If you've got long hair or share a bathroom with someone with long hair, it will eventually clog your drain. Doesn't matter if they're not showing any signs of baldness.

So anyway, unless you see signs of it on your actual head, you probably have nothing to worry about. And if you're already on E, you have even less to worry about because MPB, if it hasn't triggered yet, probably isn't going to.

Wow, I go on and on, don't I?? If anyone is wondering why I seem obsessed with this subject, it's because I am. I've struggled with MPB since it first showed up at 19 years old. I've refused to go bald gracefully and fought it every step of the way. With rogaine (at first) and then finasteride prescriptions ever since (I was in one of the first drug studies for it's use for MPB) and also one surgery, I've managed to still keep a moderately tolerable head of hair that takes a little maintenance with frequent hair cuts and lightening. Lighter colored hair doesn't show thin spots nearly so much, I've learned. So even though I like my natural hair color, a sort of dark blonde, I'm usually a lighter blonde. I still hate my hair and get really jealous when I see a guy with great hair (I hate you, Harry Styles!), but now it's something I don't think about in a negative way nearly so much. It's my personal dysmorphia, I guess, but now it's mild compared to what it used to be.

It isn't covered but you can get generic minoxidil for around 40 dollars, it's chapter than the brand name