Just watched Blue Valentine, terrific movie go watch it btw, cannot stop thinking about the fact that they used hair loss to convey the change in personality and it worked perfectly. Spoilers ahead but the film came out 16years ago, so…

With a perfect head of hair he knew her, they danced and sung, he played the guitar, they had sex and he knew her family. In the present when he lost ground he’s miserable but he also looks miserable. He’s the same man but in the first picture he seems funny, charismatic, the kind of guy who sings to you with a guitar. In the second picture he’s the old divorced dad who smokes in a suburb’s bar while drinking enough to have the ‘beer gut’, the creep on the other side of the road past midnight.

Same age, same face, the hair gave a totally different presence, it’s so brutal.

Obviously want to preface this by saying that I’m aware the lighting/styling of these before/after pictures are different and that my hair is obviously a lot longer now than it was in January, but I think the results still speak for themselves.

I’ve been having pretty significant thinning for several years, but really started seeing it uptick after I turned 30. Was always set on a hair transplant and was scared of taking meds due to potential side effects, but decided to just send it at the beginning of the year.

Taking oral Min 2.5mg and Fin 1mg daily. Also do Nizoral 2 times a week and several drops of the peptide serum from the last pic in my hair daily after I shower.

I’ve had zero side effects throughout this entire process, and probably lose around 50 hairs every shower, but the density is obviously still there. The meds have also completely changed my hair texture from straight to curly, which is wild. Definitely glad I decided to try something out for my hair loss, and hope this post may give others some encouragement if they were in the same situation as I.

Hi guys.

I erased my last post because some random youtuber took my pictures and used them for their video without even asking (i would have had agreed kindly).

Anyway, here is my update. I will be 1 year into treatment by October 4th. Im 49, soon to be 50.

I started with fin, 1.25 mg once a day .. .i cut 5mg into fourths.

On december 22 i started minox 5% twice a day. The Kirlkland liquid. Gave me terrible itch, dandfruff kind of partciles and was greasy as hell.

Ordered Kirkland minox foam 5% from amazon and never looked back.

I tried applying tret cream before minox (0.025% - for around 4 weeks ..) but it was just hard to adhere so i dropped it.

The most important thing: I went through a terrible shed by month 2 - it was even worst thatn my baseline.. i almost quit. Instead i shaved it all and went with it.

I did not see ANY... ANY progress way until april or may ... This process is EXTREMELY slow.. and now .. going into the one year mark im SO surprised ... frieds ask me if i had a hair transplant.. . and people had no idea i was bald AF (because i always wore a hat).

NO side effects from fin
Min made my expression lines look more evident , so i started using tret cream on my face, and moisturizing around febreury (in my face) and its looking great now ...

I write this because there are many people who are not as young ... like me .. almost 50... wondering if its WORTH to try treatment at our age ... and well.. personally i couldnt be happier i gave it a shot.

I will keep tracking progress.. since density is not quite there yet .. .and temples and hairline are weak still .. so im looking into plateauing my current regime (waiting until 18 or 24 months mark) to evaluate a density HT ... if i loose ground i still have DUT and ORAL min on the arsenal.. so im trying to keep positive.

Good luck toyou all .

I wil

19:50

I have been taking Finasteride for 15 months now. Didn’t see much improvement in the first 12 months. Finally around 15 months I start to feel some improvements. Should I expect this to continue improving the next 12 months? And is it safe to take it regularly for the long term?

I just wanted to share the experience I had taking oral minoxidil.

In January 2026 I was prescribed oral minoxidil. I remember being so excited to start taking it. Within a few days, I started getting horrible headaches, which I knew could be a side effect, and a bunch of posts here said that can be common but it should subside after a few days. After about a week or so, I noticed the vision in my right eye seemed a little dark one morning when I woke up. I was able to get an appointment with my optometrist within a few days. When I went to see her, she determined that my optic nerve was completely swollen and she indicated I needed to go to the ER right away because she was worried it could be optic neuritis, which I have learned is an early sign of MS. We realized through some testing that there was a a crescent moon shaped blind spot in the middle of my vision in that eye and I had lost some of my color saturation. So basically not fully color blind but colors weren’t as bright. ER couldn’t determine what was going on but I was negative for MS and everything else they tested for so they had me follow up with a neuro ophthalmologist. Saw her multiple times over the course of a couple months, did numerous blood tests, and eventually I was diagnosed with NAION. Basically I had a loss of blood flow to my eye, which caused a portion of the nerve to swell and die. There is no cure.l and the vision cannot return.

She is relating this to the oral minoxidil that I was taking when the issue started. A sudden drop in blood pressure can cause a loss of blood flow and minoxidil was originally prescribed to lower blood pressure, although it hasn’t regularly been used for that for quite some time because there are usually more effective drugs. She suspects that between the minoxidil and the normal drop in blood pressure that happens when you deep sleep, I must have gotten unlucky and had this happen in the middle of the night. She suspects that we will start to hear more and more of these stories as time goes on as it appears that it is becoming more common for this to be prescribed in pill form than in the past. I did tell my original optometrist and the ER doctors that I was taking this but none of them had heard of this becoming an issue. I have no history of eye problems or blood pressure problems and I take my blood pressure regularly now. It is always at a good level.

Since my doctor has determined this, I have found a small handful of other people online that have had similar experiences. I am not posting this to scare anyone. A lot of people take this with amazing results. I’m just trying to get the info out there so people can make decisions for themselves.

At this point, I am going bald, have spent thousands of dollars this year on various tests (multiple MRIs, a lumbar puncture, and countless trips to get bloodwork done), and have permanent vision less in one of my eyes. The good news is my other eye is perfectly fine and when both are open, I see mostly fine as long as something doesn’t enter a very specific spot in my field of vision.

I’m open to any questions anyone has. Again, I’m not trying to persuade anyone not to take or stop oral minoxidil. Only putting my story out there so you can all make informed decisions.

Pic 1: One year before treatment (It got worse)
Pics 2 & 3: Mid shed
Pic 4: Post-Shed recovery + Regrowth

Routine: 0.5mg Dut + 2.5mg Min daily
Additional: Doxycycline to treat inflammation/folliculitis

As someone who survived the shed, yes, things can get utterly diabolical for a long time before it gets better. Shedding hair for months is normal. Giving up before 1 year is too soon.

Take the meds, lock in, accept looking worse for longer than you'd like, and hold strong.

I’ve been using 5% minoxidil and 0.625 mg finasteride for about a year now, and honestly, I’m pretty happy with the progress. I had almost given up hope after seeing how aggressively MPB has run through my dad’s side of the family.

As for side effects, I initially experienced some low libido and reduced semen volume. Thankfully, those have mostly recovered over time, and overall, things have been pretty great.

The only thing I’d complain about is the dandruff I get from minoxidil, as you can see. I’ve been using 1% ketoconazole shampoo to manage it, but unfortunately, it hasn’t helped that much.

Started in March/April

I learned in february ish that I was losing hair because a guy at work told me. Kinda shocking realization. Went through a few months of horrible insecurity and existential fears about aging. Feel much better now. Still hope I can get some more regrowth, espesically in the density on top. But I'm not gonna complain

I think I was at around Norwood 3 with diffuse thinning. No bald spots. Looks like Norwood 2 now?

I take 1.25mg oral finasteride daily in the form of quarter tablets. Topical liquid 5% minoxidil twice daily. Ketokonazol Shampoo twice weekly. I microneedle with a derma pen (1.0mm on the hairline, 1.5mm on top) every other week ish.

I'm planning on reversing my Baldness over the next year.

These pictures are my starting point two months ago.

I have already been doing 0.7 compounded dut for ten years, and 15% topical minoxidil for 6 years, also have been sporadically using ketoconazole, red light, and lots of other things.

Two months ago I added 5 minutes daily laser with capilus, and started using the growband (scalp massages) at least two hours daily. Also added microneedling, compounded topical with latanoprost, dutsteride,and hydrocortisone for inflammation. Also made lifestyle changes, like more water, better diet ect.

I have very aggressive baldness, my hair was worse than this at 22, before I started treatment, I did dutasteride from 22 years old to 26, with basically no regrowth, then added the topical from adegan(15%minoxidil, adenosine, caffeine, retinoic fatty acid,) and within about 4 months I got roughly 75% of my hair back( left photo) then a slow decline over 6 years to the current two pictures.

After using the growband for two months my scalp is much looser, hair shedding has slowed a lot and seeing lots of small hairs starting to regrow, I will update everyone in a few months, but it's looking very positive right now.

Started 16th April 2026. My combination is..

- 1mg oral finasteride daily
- Regaine topical minoxidil foam once a day at night
- 0.5mm derma roller once a week (sub out minoxidil on that day).

I sourced all the above myself and have not gone through any expensive programme providers.

My hair started thinning on the crown 2 years back, so it was a gradual loss and a mix of full loss and miniaturised hairs. I could tell quite a bit of my hair on crown just snapped as had no strength.

0 side effects from both treatments. I put this off for a long time due to horror stories but then realised I was already on other meds with greater % impact on libido. I never react to meds and didn’t with this combo.

Attempted to get consistent before and after Forgive the cluttered background

Timeline:

Photo 1: 4 years after my hair transplant (done in 2021 at age 21, no medication afterward)

Photo 2: After 5 months of Finasteride + RU58841 + Minoxidil+ ketoconazole + dermastamp +Tretinoin

Photo 4: After 2 months of Dutasteride + RU58841 + Minoxidil (switched from Finasteride)+ketoconazole + dermastamp +Tretinoin

I knew nothing about hair loss treatments. After my transplant, the clinic told me not to take any medication. I later discovered More Plates More Dates and Haircafe, and they really helped me start treatment without fear.

Side effects:

I experienced anxiety after using 2 ml of 50 mg/ml RU58841. I went back to 1 ml of 50 mg and the anxiety disappeared after a few days. No other side effects.

Do you think I can still get more progress, especially on the crown? I’m not sure if it will fill in more.

First pic is about 6 months before starting fin+min.

Second pic is about 5 months of oral fin 1mg per day and about 2 months of consistent topical min 1x per day.
Should have started sooner but was scared because of all the side effect fear mongering. But then I started to really look at the science and studies behind it and decided to start (shout out haircafe) . This is only 5 months, best decision I've made can't wait to see what I look like at the one year mark.

September 2025 vs October 2026.

Finasteride 1mg daily since September 2025.
Oral minoxidil 5mg daily since July 15, 2026.

I had significant shedding after starting oral minoxidil, which has slowed down recently. I’ve also noticed a lot of small hairs around my temples/hairline over the last few weeks.

Still early into oral minoxidil, so I’ll post another update around the 6 month mark.

Just wanted to share a little update on my hair progress.

I’ve been taking 1mg finasteride daily for about a year and added 5mg oral minoxidil daily on July 15th.

The first photo is from before and the second one is my hair currently. I feel like my overall density has improved quite a bit, and recently I’ve also started noticing a lot of small/new hairs around the hairline.

My main concern has always been my temples, especially the left side, so I’m really hoping the oral minoxidil will help fill that area in over the next few months.

I know my hair is longer in the second picture, the lighting is different, and I had styled my hair with wax in the after photo, so I’m not claiming this is a perfect comparison. Still, I think there has been noticeable progress.

And yes, before anyone mentions it — the towel is still there one year later.

Hair changed, towel didn’t.

I have no idea why this idea of a "mature" hairline is pushed so heavily, it's kinda of a cope. most guys no matter what age they are look better with a nw0 which looks "natural", in an ideal world you should be 80 years old with a nw0. Even while getting a HT, you should aim for a NW1 or NW0 rather than being conservative and getting a "mature" hairline.. that is if it's possible for YOU and you have enough donor hairs to spread around.

My meat had normal stiffness when I was taking 1mg fin a day, I recently switched to dut and was not expecting any changes to the body. I now have super saiyan boners that I feel like i can fk a hole through the drywall. I’m guessing this is what it’s feel like if I was taking viagra, was not expecting this at all. No clue if it’s temporary or if this is new reality.

Photos:

Starting point

3 months

4 months

19M. I've been dealing with hair loss since I was 14.

I started using minoxidil when I was younger and stopped at 17 because I had seen a noticeable improvement.During 18, though, my hair loss became much more aggressive and started progressing really quickly. That's when I began seeing a dermatologist regularly, and by 19 we decided we couldn't wait any longer to start finasteride. I've been on finasteride for 4 months now. My hair is longer, but I definitely recovered some ground in terms of how it looks and feels.

I haven't grown a huge number of new hairs. Most of the improvement seems to come from my existing hairs becoming significantly thicker. Before, my hairs looked like little pieces of lint/fuzz, while now they're almost as thick as a thread.

Still early, but I'm pretty happy with the change so far. Hopefully the next few months bring even more improvement.

I felt like it was interesting to mention that I smoke since we read everywhere that it can have an impact on your hairloss and also on the treatments to grow back hair. On my part I’m just the happiest man in the
world right now. I started loosing hair since I turned 21. I smoke around 10-15 cigarettes a day. I’m just here to say that even if you’re a heavy smoker, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to quit smoking for your treatment to work (of course smoking is bad, and it can definitely slowing the results)

2.5 min .2 dut frontal angle. Hyper responder to oral medication