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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   601 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 20, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

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  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I notice the front of my hairline thinning. What can I do? Male in my 30s. I lasted this long but now my time has come.

My recollection is that there are actually effective treatments if started early? And is there a way to objectively measure thinning? Calipers? Any Gwern-esque research on this?

One more thing: A generally accepted good way to measure your hair loss is using a hair catcher your shower drain, this gives you a good idea of how much hair you are losing (compared to baseline shedding).

I have never done this, so I don't know what the proper metrics are, but you can probably google it.

Calipers?

I tried with a couple of beard hairs and they read around 0.10mm on 1/100mm range calipers so I expect you'd want a micron scale micrometer to get consistent readings of thinning head hair. That said I would have thought that number of hairs per cm^2 would be a more appropriate metric.

What can I do.

The best thing I ever did was accept that it was happening, hit the gym, and embrace it.

Finasteride is the best available treatment. Topical Minoxidil helps promote growth, but isn't great for hairlines (works better in the crown), leaves your hair looking bad and the hair you gain falls off if you suspend it. There's a lot of hype around microneedling (particularly when paired with Minoxidil), but it's even more annoying, and the evidence for it is not as strong.

Finasteride is known to cause impotency in rare cases, and, most annoyingly, you can't donate blood if you've been taking it the previous month.

Thanks! I presume that's oral finasterise, and the topical version is less effective? And doesn't the impotency go away if you stop talking it?

I presume that's oral finasterise

Yes.

and the topical version is less effective?

No idea.

And doesn't the impotency go away if you stop talking it?

Supposedly, yes. There are accounts of people who claim it remained after suspending treatment, but eh, who knows.

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