It’s a sense of relief in that your hair is not the focal point for the person you’re talking to, your friends, your boss…. your girl. I’m planning on going in to lower the hair line a wee bit more and bring the temples in to take it to the level where I feel is a bit less conservative, a bit more bold. I’m looking forward to it and will chronicle it here in detail.

In the meantime, I wanted to update you on what I’ve been taking from a treatment perspective over the past year and a half. I have been taking 1.25mg of finasteride 3 times a week. I consider this to be the minimum required to give my existing hairs a good shot of staying on my head. Other than that, I’ve changed my lifestyle and diet in a way that has had unforeseen effects on my hair. By making certain improvements I have seen thicker more dense hair overall, an improvement in texture, an increase in styling options, and faster growth than before. I’m very pleasantly surprised. I used to have folliculitis and irritation. These have been completely eliminated, as far as I can sense or tell anyway.

It’s 3:24AM. I’m tired as hell. Gonna hit the sack, but check back here tomorrow for a series of fresh articles on how I have successfully fought my hair loss. Also, join my forums to start a discussion, ask a question, and help build a great community for the discussion of hair loss and its treatment.

Here’s the URL to the forum: http://www.morphollica.com/forums

Bye for now.

One coworker recently asked me if I had shaved my goatee from last week.  The thing is — I haven’t had a goatee for over 6 months.  This coworker sees me every day.  He simply did not believe me when I told him I hadn’t had a goatee for 6 months.

A female friend of mine, completely out of the blue, asked me why I “looked younger”.

Nobody equated the change in my appearance to my hair.

I am both encouranged and saddened a bit at the same time over this.  On the one hand, it’s nice to know my appearance has improved since getting the HT.  But on the other hand, I am disheartened by what this implies.  It implies that hair loss definitely has a negative effect on your appearance.  People must think you look older, or chubbier, or just plain less attractive with less hair.

Anyway, personally I am glad I went for the HT as it has improved how I feel about my look.   Primarily I am just happy to look closer to my actual age than I did before the HT.  That’s really all I wanted.

The only difference between last month and this month is that the frontal hair line has really started to take shape in the fourth month after my hair transplant.  And this has enabled me to comb it back for the first time in a long, long time.

I’m hoping that by next month the crown will start improving.

By now, some of the transplants have started to grow back, but I estimate only about 10% of them.  Also, due to the fact that I had hair transplanted between existing hair, I have had some shock loss of the existing hair, so in fact at this time my hair looks thinner than it has ever looked before.

I’ll post my month 2 pics in the next few days.

I am not alarmed at all at this point  because it is still way too early to tell what the final result will be.  I fully expect that it will turn out great.

It’s still just a waiting game.

Dr. Wong told me to go back for another checkup in about 3 weeks.

I don’t have anything new to report in terms of any growth of the transplanted hair.  Still nothing, but it’s also still too early.  I’ll post pictures on Monday at the sixth-week mark.

Today, I noticed that a big zit was forming right smack dab in the middle of my hair line at the point of the V-shape.  I am very worried about this particular zit because it is right on the hair line and if the acne destroys the follicles there I’ll have a bald spot in a very awkward location.  I’m going to try to get in and see Dr. Wong as soon as possible again to get some anti-biotics if he’s willing to prescribe them.  Damn acne.

I have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Wong so he can take a look at it.  In addition to that, I am getting some acne in the scar as well.  I called Hasson and Wong and spoke to Christine about this and she said that it may just be ingrown hairs from the trichophytic closure technique.  Because hair is supposed to grow out of the scar with this technique, it can apparently cause some ingrowns.

Still haven’t had any regrowth of the lost transplanted hairs at this point. 

For those that don’t know, this is perfectly normal.  The vast majority of people shed all of the transplanted hair at some point a few days to a few weeks after the hair transplant.  These start growing back in from about the 2nd month on average, and only really get to their full thickness and density by about a year or so after the transplant.

Still, I can’t help but wish I was one of the lucky few that didn’t have the sheds.

Oh well.  Can’t complain though.  I am certain the HT is going to look great.  Even with the lost hair, the density is looking really good under normal lighting conditions.

If you follow my column regularly, or my story in the forums, then you know that my scalp is hyper-sensitive and gets inflamed very easily. I won’t go into all the details in the post. Suffice it to say that I am always keeping an eye open for a good topical anti-inflammatory.

Apparantly, Evodia Rutaecarpa extract is one. And it has interesting properties to boot that may be helpful in the fight against hair loss.

One product that I have talked about in the past that did a good job in helping me with the inflammation of my scalp is InFlamil, a product from Lipoxidil. I am going to ask them about Evodia Rutaecarpa. Based on the above-mentioned study, it may worthwhile to pursue this as an additional ingredient, or for a new product.

I will also discuss this with Dr. Yechiel (a member of our experts panel) to see if he may be interested in creating a new product with Evodia Rutaecarpa.

Of course, whether it is feasible that a good topical cosmeceutical or natural treatment product can be produced depends on many factors, but I think it’s worth asking Lipoxidil and Dr. Yechiel what they think.   Who knows, this may be a great adjunct as a topical to counter the effects of PPG or alcohol from the run-of-the-mill topical Minoxidil treatments (in those of us like myself that are sensitive to PPG and/or alcohol).

Will keep you posted.  Stay tuned.

It ruined the first half of my 20’s completely.  During this time, it completely robbed me of my self-esteem with the opposite sex.  I was very self-conscious about how I looked and this basically ruined my social life for several years.
Call it vanity if you want to, but I don’t think that’s what it was.  When you’re in your early 20s you’re dealing with a lot of change in your life, and most people at that age have their fair share of stresses.  The last thing one needs at this time, when they’re essentially transitioning into adulthood, is to feel like they are less attractive than they otherwise would be, because of hair loss.
When I look back now, at the age of 32, I realize that the way I handled my hair loss was a mistake.  I cared too much about what superficial and insecure people thought about how I looked, and I passed up a lot of opportunities.

But I know what it’s like to have to live with hair loss day in and day out. I have learned not to let it bother me as much as it did when I was in my 20s but it still bothers me.

However, I do feel now that I am less effected by it.  I don’t feel that it really effects my social life all that much any more.  I am a lot more confident that I was.  Partly I think this is just me growing up, and partly its because the people I interact with on a daily basis in my life have grown up too!

All I know is that for me, even though my hair loss has increase with time, my confidence as increased and that’s all that matters really when you can’t control the situation.

Will I continue to fight my hair loss?

You bet.  I may even go for a hair transplant at some point.

I just won’t fret over it as much as I used to.

Moral of the story: if you’re young and losing your hair, you can do things to improve your confidence and your appearance, and this will have a positive impact on your life.  You may not be able to control your hair loss very much, but you can control how it impacts your life.  You have a choice.

Curis Reaches First Preclinical Milestone in Hair Growth Program with Procter & Gamble
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 21, 2006–Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRIS), a therapeutic drug development company, today announced that it has reached the first preclinical milestone in a hair growth program with Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, a division of The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG). The program is focused upon the potential development of a topical Hedgehog agonist for hair growth disorders, such as male pattern baldness and female pattern hair loss. As part of the initial agreement signed in September of 2005, P&G agreed to pay Curis up to $2.8 million in preclinical milestones. The first of two preclinical milestones has now been successfully completed.

“This first preclinical milestone represents the successful completion of several initial steps toward our goal of bringing a topical Hedgehog agonist into the clinic for the treatment of hair growth disorders,” said Daniel R. Passeri, President and Chief Executive Officer of Curis, Inc. “We are pleased by the progress that the joint research team has made, particularly since our collaboration with Procter & Gamble began only five months ago. We are hopeful that this will be the first of several development achievements that will allow Curis and Procter & Gamble to advance a Hedgehog agonist into clinical development and ultimately succeed in providing an effective treatment for hair growth disorders. Under our collaboration with P&G, Curis has retained an option to co-develop this product from IND filing through Phase II trials. We believe that this co-development structure provides an opportunity for Curis to create additional value for our shareholders.”

It is not clear exactly what the first milestone was, but presumably we are now one step closer to a new treatment for hair loss.

Fingers crossed.