One thing that has me very disillusioned at the moment is thinking about my hair.
Living as a man my whole life has done some damage, I have lost a good portion of my hair due to T.
On the reverse side I have hair in all the places I do not want hair.
Furthermore I am concerned what reactions I might elicit when starting shaving the hair I do not want (hoping to eventually have that all laser-ed).

Once on E is there a chance for me to recover my T damaged hair follicles? Have any of you started shaving (arms, legs, armpits etc) and had very bad reactions from people?
I am not out to very many people yet..

Please forgive how much of a n00b I am

From what I've read, estrogen will not help regrow what you've lost, but can help keep what you have got left
As for shaving, I don't believe you'd get bad reactions from people. many cis men remove body hair, it's not out of the ordinary

I only shave my legs and armpits, and well I think everyone should shave the armpits for hygiene, and about the legs, I wish my hair didn't grow, but I'm not on E yet so they do LOL... I'm not shaving my arms since they aren't many hair I guess but some girls at my school don't shave them neither, and I have the same amounts of hair as them so yeah u_u I heard that finasteride helps for your hair, and if the damage isn't too much estrogen will help too.

When you get on therapeutic M2F levels of estrogen your body hair is going to decrease (for me it was a lot. I'm part asian).

All of my body hair is down to about 40% and grows really slow. Armpits actually stopped growing after about 3/4 inch.

As for the hair on top? Everyone varies. I've been pretty lucky with mine, I expect to get my mid 20's hairline back.

Thank you Kitty, Emily, and Evalyn,

That does help. You're right many men do shave, and it is good to know that E will help both with both.

I appreciate it.
-Anna

I've been shaving my legs for about a year and only my wife (before I was out to her) and brother have said anything about it.  You should be fine.

Quote from: Evelyn K on July 10, 2014, 01:01:39 AM
As for the hair on top? Everyone varies. I've been pretty lucky with mine, I expect to get my mid 20's hairline back.

I'd be psyched to get my mid 20's hairline back.  But I've probably got hair transplants in my future.

Hi Annabella

Like you, I've always been very hairy and my hair receded a fair bit too. I always telly hated both of those things too. I'm getting ready to go full time now, but not quite there yet for a while.

When I first accepted the truth I wanted to get rid of the body hair but I was worried what people would think, so first I shaved the bits people don't see, then the backs of my hands and finally my arms. I got no comments about any of that and now people have probably forgotten I was ever hairy. Bottom line is most people don't care that much about other people

My body hair grows more slowly now, but it's still quite dark.

Whether the hair on your head comes back is really difficult to say. If you still have tiny little fine hairs growing in the bald places then there is a chance they will wake up and start growing again. Mine have done that and my hair line is slowly edging forward.   Other people have reported similar effects. Other people still have had no change, so who knows what will happen.

I started shaving arms legs chest stomach back in junior high only people who question were my parents especially stepfather

Finasteride or Dutasteride are supposed to help stop hair loss, with a chance of regrowth.  There is no guarantee though.

Quote from: katiej on July 10, 2014, 01:15:58 AM
I'd be psyched to get my mid 20's hairline back.  But I've probably got hair transplants in my future.

I'm now in my 30's. I did have what's considered a normal amount of recession.

But I've been on what's considered a nuclear level hairloss regimen using Dutasteride > Spiro > E.

I didn't care if I ended up with tiny peanuts and sterile. I'm to vain not have my hair. So here I sit turning M2F.

My DHT levels are currently "OUT OF RANGE" <2.5 pg/ml. Normal range for a male is 100 - 700 pg/ml.
Testosterone "LOW" 18.7 ng/dl. Normal range for a male is 250 - 850 ng/dl.

Well it sure as hell worked. Viva la Fem!

Quote from: Evelyn K on July 10, 2014, 02:22:04 PM
I'm now in my 30's. I did have what's considered a normal amount of recession.

But I've been on what's considered a nuclear level hairloss regimen using Dutasteride > Spiro > E.

I didn't care if I ended up with tiny peanuts and sterile. I'm to vain not have my hair. So here I sit turning M2F.

My DHT levels are currently "OUT OF RANGE" <2.5 pg/ml. Normal range for a male is 100 - 700 pg/ml.
Testosterone "LOW" 18.7 ng/dl. Normal range for a male is 250 - 850 ng/dl.

Well it sure as hell worked. Viva la Fem!

I am suddenly 90% more enthusiastic about my transition. That sounds amazing.. very jealous :]
I still have hair all over my head, it is thinning though, so I have hopes if I start transitioning soon enough it will come back stronger. If not.. I suppose there are always wigs and extensions, at least until cloning hair follicles is a thing.

My experience with it is that you will indeed regrow at least a little hair, with enough time.

Once you drop down to female levels of testosterone, further hair loss will stop, and you'll keep everything that's already there.

Hair follicles that were weakened or rendered inactive by DHT will indeed recover, and slowly start regrowing, with time. I've heard sources say that the most HRT can regrow is about 5-7 years worth of hair loss, and it takes about 3-5 years for the full effect. So it depends how much you've lost, and how recently. And again, it can only recover follicles that have been weakened, not killed off. So basically, if an area is shiny, the hair is dead, it's not going to come back. If there's still little blond peach-fuzzy hairs there, it's only been weakened, so it will slowly start recovering.


I started HRT with a receding hairline and very thin hair on top of my head. After about 3 months on HRT, I could see peach fuzz growing in droves on the corners of my hairline. And slowly, slowly, slowly, ever since then, it's been turning back into dark active-follicle hair again, little by little, starting at the hairline and slowly filling in.

It's not a lot. Admittedly there's still more peach fuzz than actual hair, with only the very edges filling in, so I still have a LOT of hairline recession after 18 months on hormones. And I'm not going to get back the full completely-thick head of hair that I had pre-puberty. Even at age 20 I was already thinning very visibly, and I'm 28 now, so that's probably the best it's going to get again. But the peach fuzz continues to grow more and more with each passing month, so I don't know, hopefully it will keep going. My hair still looks extra frizzy because there's all of these little short hairs still popping back up, and they keep coming and coming, so who knows.

Again, it takes a LONG time. 3-5 years for it to reach its full recovery potential. And it's not a lot. It's just enough that people have commented me by saying "wow, your hair has really been getting thicker back there" when looking at the back of my head, but not enough to fix it completely.

Thank you for the reality check Carrie, I do appreciate it. I will not go into this with pipe dreams, but even a little hope of recovering a good portion of what is thinning is exciting news.

Congratulations on your progress as well. You are looking fantastic.

Thanks.

And again, even though I wish it would regrow more, and the thinness of it still bothers me, it's WAY better than it was, and it's still highly gratifying to know that I'm never going to turn into my uncle and end up with almost no hair on top. I used to have nightmares about that constantly. Not anymore. Now I get to have a tangled frizzy mess just like my mom.

So yeah... regrowth or not, it's still a great feeling.

Quote from: Evelyn K on July 10, 2014, 02:22:04 PM
I'm now in my 30's. I did have what's considered a normal amount of recession.

But I've been on what's considered a nuclear level hairloss regimen using Dutasteride > Spiro > E.

I'm in my mid 30's and my hair has definitely gotten thinner over the last couple years, so I'm hopeful i can bring some of it back. I'm pre HRT, but I'm doing finasteride and minoxodil, and i just started taking biotin supplements. It's not the nuclear treatment you're doing, but I'm throwing a lot at it.

At this point, my real aim is to prevent additional hair loss until i can get to HRT. And I'll probably do transplants to fill in my temples and to make my hairline more feminine

Hi Annabella,
I didn't have very much body hair before I started HRT, and if I remember correctly it probably took about six months of treatment to really start thinning the body hair that I did have and slow down the growth.  I was blessed with a full head of hair before HRT, but I did have a little bit of an M shape recession in my hair line, and I only grew very fine baby hair in the areas from HRT, but when I had FFS the surgeon did a scalp advancement and fully replaced my hairline.  As far as facial hair is concerned, HRT will not change the structure or growth of the hair; the only thing that will get rid of that hair is electrolysis and laser treatments.  Just be patient and do what you can do, and I agree that a lot of cis gendered men are into "manscaping", so you shouldn't worry about it, and try to have your body hair waxed if you can, and the hair will grow out slower. 

Karen