Getting worse with medication ..

[DavidFrancis]

Hi, friends, 
I'm almost 2 years on oral minoxidil 2.5mg, and finasteride 1mg every other day. But I haven't had any slowing down of the hair loss, nor any regrowth. Here's a before and after. 

In view of some side effects with finasteride, I plan to switch to topical finasteride 0.025%, but I doubt it will be enough. I'm far too scared to take the plunge with topical dutasteride. 

What's more, my hair is very oily after one day, which accentuates hair loss even more quickly.

I did already a bad hair transplant, and im in repair procedure. I need your advice...
What's the scalp dhr reduction for 1mg 1/2 day of finasteride ? What can i do ? 

Edited yesterday at 12:11 PM by DavidFrancis

[Berba11]

45 minutes ago, DavidFrancis said:

I did already a bad hair transplant, and im in repair procedure. I need your advice...

Could you give us a little more detail? 

• How old are you?
• How many grafts from your first surgery? FUE or FUT?
• What aspect of the first surgery needs repair/what went wrong first time around?
• How is your donor area looking and do you have a decent beard?
• Is your finasteride brand name or generic? And have you tried 0.5mg every day rather than 1mg every other day?
• Is the first photo from two years ago and the second more recent? Picture one looks better than picture two but the second photo is under very harsh lighting conditions

Whether the medication is effective in slowing down the progression of your hair loss or not, the key will ultimately be your donor area. If you have the donor capacities (scalp, beard and chest if absolutely necessary) to meet the needs of a higher NW then that will take some of the stress off of needing the medication to be 100% effective for you.

[DavidFrancis]

- Im 26 yo 
- I did 2500 FUE on the hairline 
- Im in repair procedure for my hairline. I removed 500 grafts, and maybe 500 grafts again tu put them in the middle. 
- I never shaved my donor, but i think i have always density ( a doctor told me maybe between 5000-6000). 
- I tried finasteride 0.5 mg every day, and then 1mg other day. No results. 
- Yes, the first photos is two years ago. Yes, the second photo is on the sun, but even, im feeling less density even at dark. 

I have a big beard, and a lot of chest hair. But i dont know if chest hair is strong for hair transplant

[Berba11]

19 minutes ago, DavidFrancis said:

- Im 26 yo 
- I did 2500 FUE on the hairline 
- Im in repair procedure for my hairline. I removed 500 grafts, and maybe 500 grafts again tu put them in the middle. 
- I never shaved my donor, but i think i have always density ( a doctor told me maybe between 5000-6000). 
- I tried finasteride 0.5 mg every day, and then 1mg other day. No results. 
- Yes, the first photos is two years ago. Yes, the second photo is on the sun, but even, im feeling less density even at dark. 

I have a big beard, and a lot of chest hair. But i dont know if chest hair is strong for hair transplant

Ok that's useful.

Being in your 20's means your hair loss is likely in its most aggressive phase. It's quite possible that the medication is working, and that if you were not on the medication you'd have lost a lot more ground. I would stick to the medication as long as you can tolerate it. Are you taking brand name finasteride or generic? There's some debate on the merits of either, and I think there are some good reasons to choose brand over generic due to consistency of compounding versus possible changes in generic medications. It may make no difference whatsoever but if you are using a generic, switching to brand name at least eliminates one more possible variable.

I've looked at your profile and I remember your case now. I think taking grafts from the hairline was a very good idea and means you have saved those grafts to be used further back which will help to preserve your donor area.

Chest hair is a last resort once you've used your scalp and beard, but it sounds like you have good donor reserves so longer term there's no reason to worry just yet.

[DavidFrancis]

5 minutes ago, Berba11 said:

Ok that's useful.

Being in your 20's means your hair loss is likely in its most aggressive phase. It's quite possible that the medication is working, and that if you were not on the medication you'd have lost a lot more ground. I would stick to the medication as long as you can tolerate it. Are you taking brand name finasteride or generic? There's some debate on the merits of either, and I think there are some good reasons to choose brand over generic due to consistency of compounding versus possible changes in generic medications. It may make no difference whatsoever but if you are using a generic, switching to brand name at least eliminates one more possible variable.

I've looked at your profile and I remember your case now. I think taking grafts from the hairline was a very good idea and means you have saved those grafts to be used further back which will help to preserve your donor area.

Chest hair is a last resort once you've used your scalp and beard, but it sounds like you have good donor reserves so longer term there's no reason to worry just yet.

Thank you for this advice. I'm currently on a generic, but I'm thinking of switching to finasteride topical 0.025%. Topical dutasteride scares me a bit, but I'd like to try it too. 
I dont know if my donor is good, but not the worse. Here are some photos with flash.
I'm also planning to do a 2000-graft middle graft, as it's very, very thin anyway.

About oily hair, it's a serious problem for me, i need to wash every 20 hours, even keto and special shampoo did anything