| Author | Message | ||
     Kelly |
jpj, Wow! It's great to get a basic summary of everything regarding hair loss in one place. I have a couple of questions for you regarding your post from a while back. I've been thinning all over, but mainly on the crown for about 9 months now. For the past 5 months I've been on 1.25 mg Proscar. I've been doing the S.E. twice a day for 10 minutes, taking Brewer's Yeast, Flax Seed capsules, and a multi-vitamin. For about 3 months I've been using Nizoral 1% every 3 to 4 days. I wash my hair every other day. I don't wet my hair on the off days. On the days I don't use Nizoral, I was using Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo or an Emu Oil Shampoo. During the third or fourth month my shedding seemed to increase and then suddenly slowed down. I thought the proscar was finally working. After reading your post, I ordered the American Crew thinning hair products: shampoo, conditioner, serum, and spray. All contain the copper peptides you mentioned in your post. I've been using them for about 3 weeks now. I'm still shampooing every other day, but have swapped out the j&j baby shampoo and emu shampoo for the american crew products. I use the spray in the mornings and the serum at night. Within the past week, though, it seems as if my shedding has increased again. Is it possible that this is caused by the new products? How would you recommend that I use the spray and serum seeing as how I only wash my hair every other day (and don't get it wet on the off days)? Is it bad to leave the serum on over night and then not wash it off in the morning? Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. I was really excited that the shedding seemed to be decreasing, but now I'm getting depressed again. Thanks, Kelly | ||
| RHM |
Why do you not even get your hair wet? In my case I have to wash my hair everyday and use Nizoral almost every other day because my hair gets so oily and weak otherwise, thus falling out much more. I am positive that an oily scalp increases hairloss! | ||
| Gabe |
RHM: The causes of you’re oily skin could be that you wash/shampoo you’re hair almost everyday, causing an increase in sebum production, try washing it 2x a week instead you might notice a difference after just a couple of weeks... | ||
| Kelly |
Yeah. I had heard that after a while your body will regulate itself. If you don't wash your hair so often your scalp will eventually start producing less oil. I also have longer hair, so it's kind of a pain to get it wet and style it every day. | ||
| jpj |
http://www.hairlosstalk.com/photogallery/pgjonr.htm Thats a pic of Jon from hairlosstalk.com. He did "the big three" with propecia, minoxidil, and nizoral. I was always particularily impressed with his case because he is an older guy and grew back quite a bit of hair, even in the front. Kelly, I wouldnt be afraid of shampoo that much. You can quickly wash your hair.....or you can even fingercomb your hair in the shower, close your fingers, and wash the hair thats against the back of your hand. This way, shampoo doesnt touch the scalp so much, and you still get to have clean hair. Kevin Rands, the moderator of hairlosstalk.com, did an interview with some gal who is the head of the American Crew line a while back. American Crew is owned by the same company that owns Graftcyte and Tricomin. The whole roster of copper peptide products are Folligen, American Crew, Tricomin, Graftcyte, Dr.Proctor (prox-n), and a nanotechnology company of Britan called nanosal. Tricomin has been through FDA phase 1 and 2 trials with good results, but the parent company decided not to pay for the very expensive phase 3 trials (the last phase). The other products really have not been tested systematically on humans. They have grown hair in mice though. Back to Kevin Rands and the American Crew lady.....she said all the AC peptide products (revitalize spray and serum) were old stuff as they were going to rework the formula. Kevin posted that in his opinion American Crew basically watered the peptide complex down too much. Tricomin, Graftcyte, American Crew all use the same copper complex to my knowledge. Dr. Proctor includes other superoxide dismutases with his Product. Loren Pickart (folligen) basically throws a brick of cupric sulfate in soy protien and takes the several different copper peptides that result and puts it in folligen. IF you just started losing hair though......."the big 3" has worked for alot of people. Ive been of the opinion for a long time that adding just ONE topical anti-androgen to the big three would really help it further. That would be spironolactone (read about it at minoxidil.com) first, fluridil second, and revivogen third. Spiro and minoxidil can be applied TOGETHER, as they slowly react with each other, but dont store them together because they will REALLY stink if you do. THere is a mixed preperation of this with a fragrant additive at physicianshairgrowth.com (Dr. Oscar Klein). Can be had for about 50 a month. But you can just buy WalMart 2% minoxidl and spriro from minoxidil.com (cheapest, and scentless), lipoxidil (expensive, minty smell) or genhair.com (I dont know if they put a fragrance with theirs or not). Its cheaper. Lots of guys mix their own sprio by buying the tablets and crushing them in dermovan cream. There are recipies for this on hairsite, etc. Im way to lazy for this personally. My reasoning for believing that adding spiro helping the big three is that minox has been proven to be a very good growth stimulant, nizoral helps remove some immune inflammatory cells and is something of a growth stimulant and weak anti-androgen, and propecia stops about 65-70% of DHT production. However, spiro slows testosterone production in the scalp down period......low testosterone=very low DHT. It blocks androgen receptors for several hours. Used twice a day with propecia......your hair would be seeing very little male hormone. You mentioned oily hair. Sebocytes in the skin and sebaceous glands in the hair are androgenically stimulated. Blocking the receptors with spiro or fluridil will lead to dryer skin in the scalp. It did with me, Ive fooled around with them both. Spiro is cheaper. Men with hairloss often complain of oily scalp.....the sebaceous glands stay the same size even though the hairs they service are miniaturizing......they still pump out the same amount of sebum. The researcher Klingman tested people who shamppooed every day with those who didnt shampoo for a measured period of time and measured the sebum output.....its the same. Even after washing the hair with alchohol several times.......there are still small amounts of sebum on the scalp. The glands pump out sebum almost no matter what. You can decrease their stimulation by lessening the androgens that get to em' with a receptor blocker are DHT inhibitor (DHT is proboably the hormone that simulates them the most, but other male hormones get them to pump out oil too, as dutasteride users still have some oil in the hair...which is good by the way, it would be bad not to have any oil). ON the shampoo thingy again......Dr. Pickart suggests using a small amount of shampoo, washing briefly, and rinsing with cold water. Cold water is a great anti-inflammatory, soothes the scalp, helps the lymphatic fluids and toxins drain back down the lymph system. George Michael of the George Michael Long Hair Salons (now retired) believes in this also. Stephen Foote believes it helps according to his hydraulic theory. I think the human hair cycle is so hypnotically complicated that I dont know what to believe, but Im taking their word for it anyway. Youre supplementation seems good. There are threads on here about hair healthy nutrition. The one additive that alot of the hairloss forum folks might suggest would be MSM. Sulfur, for whatever reason, seems to help hair. It might be in your multivitamin, or not. Its in onions if you eat them regularly. Onions can make chili better and beans palatable. "Is it bad to leave the serum in overnight?" Its fine. If you do the minoxidil by the way....you might wait about 30 minutes between the minox application and any copper peptide application. For some reason, a biproduct when these two react called peroxynitrite forms. Its a vasoconstricter. It makes the blood vessels that feed your hair constrict. Thats not a good thingy. Minox is the cheapest, and proboably most effective "stimulant" out there in all proboablility. Tricomin supposedly slightly outdid it in ONE study. But If I had to choose between the two.....those $6 dollar bottles of minox have been proven over and over to work. Hope this helps and good luck. Hopefully in five years of so, cloning will have defeated baldness for us if Mr. Bush hasnt gotten us into World War 4 by then. | ||
| kelly |
jpj, Thanks a lot for the great info. As my hair loss isn't extremely noticeable at this point, I wanted to hold off trying Minoxidil until it's really necessary. Trying Spiro seems like a good idea, though. I checked it out at minoxidil.com. Would you recommend the 2% liquid or the 5% lotion? The lotion is a bit more expensive. Two more years and we'll be free of one Mr. Bush. We'll just need to worry about Jeb at that point. | ||
| jpj |
5% lotion to be safe. Klein proboably sells a "just spiro" concoction also. Genhair's is the cheapest, 3 and a half months for 45 bucks. Thats cheap. Copper peptides or proanthocyanidrins are other groth stimulants. Proanthocyandrins are in apple cider vinegar, but the smell is kinda strong. Ive seen some recipies on making them yourself out of apple juice on hairsite (but Im lazy). So if you were looking for another "growth stimulant" besides minoxidil......tricomin, prox-n, proanthocyanidrins might help I honestly think in 5-6 years, hair multiplication from Anderans or Intercytex will be available and topical anti-androgens will be nanosomally put in shampoo's for people prone to lose hair as science improves in this area. |
