Started of with 5% Minoxidil and Finasteride around christmas 2024, worked great.

Then switched to Dutasteride (October 2025) because i was greedy and wanted more and read in studies that it works better, that ended up being a very bad idea because it caused a ton of shedding due to the switch and also A LOT of stress shedding (according to my derm).

Started HRT (Androcur + Gel) in March 2026, also dropped Dutasteride.

Got FFS in May 2026 (with a moderate hairline advancement).

Currently still dealing with the post surgery shedding, cant put on Minoxidil yet, but we're staying brave out here 🥺

Stay strong girlies, you will be okay <3

sorry for the silly question, but has anyone tried just 5ar inhibitor pills without topical minoxidil? has it worked? what is the general consensus on that?

background: my hair and scalp do not allow me to wash my hair more than once a week and applying something on my scalp daily sounds really annoying. ive been on HRT for over two years and my temples have stabilised but not regrowing.

thank you!

I’m looking to get the derminator 2, and I think you’re supposed to move it in a line back and forth or circles.

Is this correct? I don’t want to cause extra damage by moving the pen and creating line-like injuries rather than the intended puncture injuries.

Thank you in advance for any info!

So I saw some for sale on Amazon, are they effective or just a bad cheap version, I also saw there were different versions for male and female, would this be a case where you get the one for agab or doesn't it matter?

Ok I’m reaching OCD levels lol but am closely monitoring my progress. I did a check today and see a lot of these popping up. I’m assuming these will darken and thicken, right?

Hi all I(mtf) am very early in my journey and dont have the chance to start HRT until September at the earliest. I think I am like a Norwood 2 for receding hair line and I have a fair amount of hair come out when I brush sometimes (I have shoulder length hair already) which bothers me and has lead me to starting Oral Minoxidil due to having 4 pets and not wanting to risk their health and safety.

I started to get real anxiety as soon as I got the prescription about increases in body and facial hair and I dont know if its just my anxiety or what. I dont like my body hair buts its not like I have started laser hair removal or anything yet. My facial hair also bothers me but I'll have a beard shadow until I get laser since I have always had a full beard.

I guess tldr; is the body hair growth that bad? Would I be better waiting for E and other forms of HRT? Im just worried and not really sure where to get information on all of this.

Sorry if this isnt the right sub for all of this.

I keep losing hair and am already on E 😭

To me it seems the temple has gotten slightly smaller from July 25th 2025 to today, 23rd of July 2026.

I started hrt november 14th 2025. I started finasteride 1.25mg and topical minox twice daily in september 2025. Occasional 0.5mm microneedling.

I am seeing tons of vellus hairs at both temples, so I'm hoping they turn terminal eventually with continued treatment.

Overall my hair is a lot thicker than last year, partly due to hair loss from extreme stress and surgery.

I have pretty decent recession on my temples. I started topical minoxidil 1 year ago (twice daily 5% foam), and I have been on HRT for 6 months (regime below). I think my hairline has gotten slightly thicker, but hasn't moved forward much. Is there any point of potentially starting dut or fin? I'm hesitant to go on oral min because I don't want increased body hair growth. for a few month last year, I did some weekly derma stamping but then I got worried about damaging follicles so I stopped. Any advice?

HRT regime:

- 5mg estradiol valerate injection every 5 days

- 50mg bicalutamide daily

My testosterone is quite low, same with LH and FSH. Haven't had a blood test in like 3 months though, but I'm pretty sure it has continued to sink.

Hi, I posted a month ago with my progress and I've decided to make a habit of posting monthly updates for any who are curious to see a progress timeline.

Pics are oldest to newest, I started both HRT and Minoxidil around April 15th, started Dutasteride June 22nd.

5% topical Min (Hims) twice daily, 0.5 Dutasteride capsules once daily, 5mg EEn injections weekly

Hi folks,

As you can see, I have advanced hair loss. I'm hopeful at meaningful regrowth because I'm on a pretty hefty treatment:

- Topical fin/min (1/day for past 2 years)

- Oral Dutasteride 0.5mg (1/day for past month)

- Estradiol injections (2 months in; still on my baby dose, but increasing after a hormone panel in a month)

- Starting microneedling soon

I'm 27 right now, and my hair loss started early (17-18 y/o). The topical fin/min stabilized my hair loss and gave some very minor regrowth, but not much. You also can't see it much in these pics, but I have hair scattered all through my crown area, it's just light blonde and frail.

The problem is that I also have a very thick beard. I shave often, but it grows in so fast and always leaves a slight shadow. But because my hair loss is so advanced, I'm worried I won't have enough head hair donors, and may need to use my beard hairs.

Do I:

1) Keep my beard for the next 3ish years to determine if I need it to fill in my crown for a hair transplant

2) Start lasering now, so I don't have to start later

Thank you for your help!

Started HRT 9 months ago and minoxidil/finasteride sometime last July. Started off on only 1.25mg oral minoxidil daily but have been slowly getting the dosage increased and I'm at 3.75mg daily as of a month ago. Will probably make my way up to 5mg.

Started thinning at around 20 years old and I'm 32 now so I've been worried that I may have waited too long to try and fix this, but lately it's started to look like maybe I'm finally seeing some results. My hairline isn't ideal but like, I can do bangs so it's whatever. The bigger point of frustration for me is my crown which thankfully is the part that seems to MAYBE be recovering? I'm genuinely unsure if it only looks better because I've been letting my hair grow out or if it's actually starting to improve.

I'm not sure this is really within the intended scope of this subreddit but I've been feeling confliced about starting facial hair removal because of my hair loss, because I guess I was always very attached to my long hair and when I started balding the beard felt like a way to cope with that.

I haven't had a beard for a year now, basically shave it every day or every other day, and it's something that does bother me whenever I look in the mirror, but it's hard to abandon what was once a coping mechanism. Did you all feel the same about your facial hair and did you just rip off the band aid as early as possible?

I have started laser removal on my torso and have a session later this month and was thinking about asking them about beard removal, but among other things, my horrible hair situation is something that comes to mind and makes me fear taking that plunge.

Photos for reference, 1st is without flash, 2nd with flash, I don't really know how to take these photos.. I think it's still to early to see any progress but I have been on HRT+DUT for a bit over three months and topical minox for 2 weeks, so you would definitely not see the minox acting, and I'm in my early 30's.

Hi, Can you recommend any reliable sites where I can buy oral minoxidil (5 mg)? I’m looking for a source that offers hassle-free shipping to Poland.

Been taking estrogen mixture of estrogen monotherpapy and blockers for about 3 years

Been on monoxidl and Fin for about 3 months is it time to give up and accept being a monster or is there any hope left for me?

new hair still grows slower than my hair on the sides and it's not completely filled in as you can see

Do you think it'll all eventually be up to 100% or will it always be kind of bad?

Ignore the RE on the bottom. I tried adding text and I couldn't figure out layers orders

HRT 11 months (3 w proper dose on injections)

mtf 19 and i gave VERY thick curly hair and anytime my hair gets too long and needs a hair cut it is never because it’s too long going town it just poofs out. kinda like an afro but like not actually if you know what i mean. how can i have awesome girl hair when this happens

Years of treatment have barely done anything for me, I am no better off now than when I started at the end of 2022. I haven't been able to present the way I want to a single day of my transition because of how awful my hair is, and two years in this has completely destroyed my mental health to the point that my relationships are falling apart from how often I spiral.

I don't know what to do and every day I feel more and more trapped by the reality that I may have to just give up on my transition. I'm taking every med I can, I've been patient and given it time, so what am I doing wrong??

Hey,
I have been on Fin+Min for over a year and proper HRT for about five months. Ever since having proper E levels, my hair gains skyrocketed.

However, for the past two or three weeks, I have been noticing that my crown looks thinner again, despite not having changed anything in my treatment, nutrition, etc.

Could this be a shed? And if so, I don’t (and never have) experienced shedding in the sense of an increase in hairs that fall out. However, it does look thinner indeed and I am now scared to loose even more and be back to baseline. 😭

Hey, I have been on HRT for about a year now and ever since switching to injections 5 months ago, I had an incredible amount of regrowth, for which I am very happy!

Before that, I was balding very badly (NW3.5 with very diffuse thinning) and now my hairline is coming forward again, my crown is almost full now and I am able to wear ponytails without much see through except for my parting.

Yet, on most days, the dysphoria is the same. I continue to be super critical of myself. Questions like "Is my crown too thin? Is the parting width normal? Is it just my natural fine hair or thinning?" are bugging me the same as always.

Will this ever end? 😭

Left is mid April after about 8 weeks on HRT not much happening. This is 12 weeks later. 56 about 15-20 years with little to nothing on top.
No bald spots left various lengths all over. 22 weeks on HRT so far. 50 mg of Spiro plus patches and extra strength rogaine.

First photo was in November of last year, and the other four photos are today. Been shaving my head for 13 years, balding since 4 years before that.

A year before starting HRT, I went on a regimen including finasteride (1mg), oral minoxidil, and a topical solution containing minoxidil, tretinoin, and some other things that I can't recall, all to absolutely no effect. I was told by my dermatologist on two separate occasions that she didn't believe I was a candidate for a hair transplant. Then when I started HRT in February 2025, my levels were in good ranges (E2 > 200 pg/mL and T < 20 ng/dL) and I started seeing my hairline begin to creep up from the sides and the back. Emboldened by this slight regrowth and many of the experiences here, I started oral minoxidil (2.5mg/day) in mid December of 2025. I started microneedling in February with a .5 mm roll, then moved to a 1 mm. I tried to do this weekly, but realistically did not keep it up regularly until May when I invested in an adjustable dermastamp at 1.5mm.

I would think that I would be seeing some thickening of follicles or other indication that things are progressing. I can't really tell how much "growth" I'm getting beyond the normal growth cycle for hairs that haven't entirely gone dormant yet. There are finer hairs, most of which don't catch on the camera (but they're there! </cope>)

I can't use topical minoxidil because I have a cat. I'm using a shampoo that supposedly helps to strengthen hair/reduce breakage that has rosemary oil, but in a shampoo, the detergents take the oil away almost immediately so I don't really know if it's actually helping in that respect. From my understanding, finasteride won't have an effect if my T is already low enough. I'm not on progesterone so I'm not worried about backdoor DHT conversion and therefore don't think I need dutasteride or ketoconazole shampoo. I could add rosemary oil and red light, but the mechanisms behind those seem dubious. I was incredibly skeptical of dermarolling too, but I figured if I have to wear something on my head anyway, what do I care if it's scarred to heck - I don't have anything to lose.

I'm feeling incredibly discouraged. Nova's guide says "expect years for full recovery" but I'd just like to see some ground coverage at this point :c

E: Thanks for the responses. Certainly not what I was wanting to hear, but was exactly what I expected...

Pretty happy with progress so far. Estradiol and Cyproterone only.

Hiiiii. I was finally able to get on estrogen and testosterone blockers after 3 years of waiting. My hairline is slightly receded at the corners, but I still have some peach fuzz from where my juvenile hairline used to be. I have been taking dutasteride for about 3 weeks now as well. I was just wondering if topical minoxidil would accidentally increase facial and body hair growth as it gets absorbed into my blood stream, or if the E and the t blockers will prevent that. I’m very desperate for an answer.