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Think he was basically saying he can't garuntie it will stop due to the fact accutane seems to cause some sort of immune system hairloss. Tbh as ive told blazed, i wasn't there just for hairloss, i was seeing him about my scars that form randomly... which he has never seen beforre and is very puzzled by...
ayelens
i put 2 tablespoons of vinegar in a water bottle, fill the bottle up almost to the top and then add one of the cystal light flavor pouches. it helps to hide the taste of the vinegar. the lemonade flavor works the best because it already has a tart taste.
i eat 1 or 2 tums afterwards to help neutralize the acid in my mouth because it can cause your tooth enamel to wear away
okay so i did a little research about the white crusty buildup on the scalp and this is what i discovered...
it is the result of excess sebum buidup on the scalp. this can be caused by not washing/brushing your hair frequently because the dead skin on the scalp is not removed. when this happens it clogs the hair follicle and can lead to premature hair loss because the hardened sebum deposits prevents the hair follicle from receiving nutrients.
Nizoral has been shown to help remove buildup on the scalp. It is important to gently massage the scalp during shampooing to remove the dead skin cells.
Another remedy is the use of apple cider vinegar. Make a mixture of 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of warm water and pour it on your hair in the shower before your shampoo. Allow it to saturate your hair and leave it on for about 10 minutes or longer. Then shampoo and condition as usual. This can also help with regular dandruff because it helps dissolve dead skin on the scalp. It may take couple weeks to see the desired results.
By removing dead skin cells on the scalp it helps to ensure that your hair follices are unclogged and receiving nutrients!
Guys who are worrying that this will effect them for a long time, and don't mind shaveing their hair short i recomend you do this. I have read backdated threads for YEARS on accutane side effect stories and one of the best things you can do for your accutane hairloss is shave it short, it puts less pressure on the hair follicle. I wish i knew what i would look like with a shaved head lol...
Shaved as in like grade 2-3 at the most i think... Well the general opinoin is that shedding cannot be stopped with your normal minoxodil or propecia if it is proper accutane induced prolonged TE... They feel if it carrys on for well over a year or so then it probably is that. Things such as emu oil, copper peptides and other anti inflamatory agents, or products that help maintain follicle health are of most interest.
My opinoin is that this massive shedding continues for years, and is mostly down to some form of inflamation at the hairfollicle, whether it be from our immune system attacking the hairs, or an alteration in DNH transcription... either way inflamation plays a role so trying to reduce that will help...
I also believe that in males and females when this shedding continues for such a long period of time, androgens become involved to a certain degree, even females have this floating around in their bodies so if they loose enough hair is will slowly miniturize the hair follicle. So maybe propecia wont stop the shedding but will prevent a certain amount of miniturization.... I plan on coninueing my use of emu oil and copper peptides, and possibley try xandrox if/when the appearance of my hair becomes bad enough. then as a final shot at preventing things from getting worse i will begin the use of a second topical anti DHT (which their are a few) and possibly in a year or so's time propecia.... if the situation becomes dire...
still shedding but not as much as before. i realized that most of the hairs im losing are short or medium length and the long hairs are intact which is why cosmetically it looks fine. i still search the net for ppl who are shedding from tane to see their progress but all of them stop updating their situation like some how they accepted their hair loss or maybe it got better for them.
i thought that mine was slowing down but nope, its still going strong, i think it has actually gotten worse. im feeling so hopeless. i had acne since the 5th grade, and when my skin cleared from accutane i actually felt good about myself for the first time. and now this. i cant win. i just want to be happy and tell myself thats its okay but i know its not, ive been losing hair for about 7 months now and my hair is complete crap, its so thin i dont want to wear it down anymore and now i just wear baseball caps all the time. im seriously losing hope, it doesnt seem that anyones hair actually ever gets any better... 
I'm considering starting propecia...heres why. Our hair is shedding, and the only time when hair can become thinner is when it is lost and new thinner one grows in. If during the bout of TE you loose 2 or even 3 hairs from the same follicle it could miniaturize as much as it normally would in 10-15 years. Taking propecia will stop this miniaturization, which is why I think its a good idea. Anyone else have thoughts on this?
i thought that mine was slowing down but nope, its still going strong, i think it has actually gotten worse. im feeling so hopeless. i had acne since the 5th grade, and when my skin cleared from accutane i actually felt good about myself for the first time. and now this. i cant win. i just want to be happy and tell myself thats its okay but i know its not, ive been losing hair for about 7 months now and my hair is complete crap, its so thin i dont want to wear it down anymore and now i just wear baseball caps all the time. im seriously losing hope, it doesnt seem that anyones hair actually ever gets any better...
i feel ya. it pisses me off even more because i only had mild acne that would of gone away with time. i also had no idea hair loss was a side effect. i would of never touched tane if i knew that. hair loss has been one of my biggest fears cause i love my damn hair. i thought i wouldn't ever have to worry about it cause i come from a family that has no real large history of it (dad and uncles have hair).
i'm glad that i started all this with a really thick head of hair.
I'm considering starting propecia...heres why. Our hair is shedding, and the only time when hair can become thinner is when it is lost and new thinner one grows in. If during the bout of TE you loose 2 or even 3 hairs from the same follicle it could miniaturize as much as it normally would in 10-15 years. Taking propecia will stop this miniaturization, which is why I think its a good idea. Anyone else have thoughts on this?
Sw, that is one of my main theories as to why people who were never destined to experience MPB in their lifetimes experience it due to tane shedding... BUT, derms say that you don't move towards MPB with each hair cycle, but more as a matter of time... I personally feel it's a slight combination of both, and that yes propecia would help even if it didn't stop the shedding...
I still shed in the region of 200 hairs a day atleast, and have been sheding for 7 months now...
I would personally use a topical anti DHT at the moment, i don't want to risk any more side effects after tane...
I've been reading this forum and looking at others like it for a couple months now and thought I would share my own experience with accutane and the resultant hair loss.
I'm a 20 year old male who took 40mg daily from June 2007 to July 2007 and then 80mg from July 2007 until I quit in mid-September 2007. My scalp started to itch a lot about a week into the drug, but it wasn't until mid-July that I started noticing lots of hair loss. My derm told me it was common and that it was "just my body getting used to the medication." When I came to him a month later pointing out the bald spot developing on top he blamed it on MPB and put me on propecia. Eventually I did some research (wish I did it a lot earlier...) and saw all the stuff about permenant hair loss and how the shedding can be prolonged for months after the medication is over. My derm of course told me that the shedding will stop six weeks after I stop taking the drug, but obviously this was long after the point where I stopped believing him. I have no history of MPB in my family and the hair loss (while definately noticible on top) is definately diffuse- its coming out from all parts of my head.
I talked to another derm who told me it would grow back, though it may take a bit longer for the shedding to stop than 6 weeks- she's only had two patients (one male, one female) experience this side effect and both of them recovered their hair. I've also read a study published by a derm who documented sixteen patients experience hair loss out of about 400, and all of them recovered their hair except for one who experienced "persistant hair loss." Moreover I've contacted a hair loss specialist who is going to take a look at me next week and agreed that accutane is probably the culprit (gee thanks for enlightening me...). I've been off the drug for about seven weeks now and continue to experience hair shedding, though it seems to be in the range of about 100 hairs per day- 20 or so on the pillow, another 30 to 40 lost during the day and maybe 50 in the shower. Its difficult to tell because my hair is short but I can definately see my scalp through my hair now and the balding spot on top is quite difficult to conceal.
I currently use nioxin system 2, propecia, biotin (5mg) and take vitamin c pills. I have been using this regimin for about 2 months now and my individual hairs seem to be a bit thicker than they were while I was taking the drug. I noticed this change when I got my hair cut short- however overall this thickening effect is not enough to overcome the hair loss cosmetically. My hair line doesn't seem to have receded much (thank god) but all around my hair is pretty thin. Moreover, after I got it cut short I noticed that it was much easier to pull it out. Whats been happening lately is that I'll have these itches on my scalp in very specific places- I have to scratch because it drives me crazy otherwise- and when I scratch the itch, a hair or two will usually come out with it. A simple light tug test on certain parts of my scalp (especially the back) will yield anywhere from 1 to 5 hairs.
I've attempted to contact some of the people who have posted on forums about their hair loss from years back and one fellow did reply, telling me that he simply ignored it after a while and about a year later he realized his hair was no longer falling out and was about 90% better overall so clearly it takes some time both for the shedding to stop and the hair to regrow. He also told me that his acne came back, which follows Andy's original post with his derm's answers saying that the return of acne is a sign that the hair will probably recover. My acne has started to come back a bit, so I'm hopeful the shedding will start to taper off soon.
I'm very interested in trying to put together some kind of study which actually gives folks like us some insight into this problem based on others experiences. I've had 2 derms and a pharmacist tell me that my hair will stop shedding and grow back eventually, but the stuff people have posted on the web is pretty frightening. Moreover a lot of them stop posting after a while, indicating they either recovered or stopped caring. I'd be very interested if it were possible to track a bunch of these folks down via email or some other way and put together a survey asking about their experiences, what the used to combat the hair loss, how long its lasted, etc so we have more than just people's frantic sob stories from five years ago and the (seemingly clueless) opinions of our dermatologists. I'll continue posting and checking things out here and perhaps upload some pics too. I've been taking monthly pictures of the top of my head to try and determine how much worse its been getting.
hey jnt,
thanks for giving us this information it's really useful. I hope you continue to post your results and updates. I will be starting minox(rogaine) on monday because im on my 7th month and my hair si sheddings like crazy still. but a good thing is its shedding alll around i dont have 1 place more thin than another so its all around whihch tells me its probbaly not mpb since mpb doesnt cause hair thining like that. But i really hope the minox will work.
Whats been happening lately is that I'll have these itches on my scalp in very specific places- I have to scratch because it drives me crazy otherwise- and when I scratch the itch, a hair or two will usually come out with it.
that Sounds just like some of us have described in the past... and i personally still experience this since i began sheding in may... One member has been diagnosed with diffuse Alopecia Arearta and i am also pretty sure i have this aswell... My derm mentioned it to me as being the reason why shedding sometimes persists, but it is treateable and often resolves it self over time anyway...but obviously in some people it does not and goes on miss diagnosed as simple TE.
Anyway, mention the fact you may feel you have alopeacea arearta and hopefully your derm will do a biopsy, i will be getting one done at my next appointment...
lamarr1986 said:jnt867 said:Whats been happening lately is that I'll have these itches on my scalp in very specific places- I have to scratch because it drives me crazy otherwise- and when I scratch the itch, a hair or two will usually come out with it.that Sounds just like some of us have described in the past... and i personally still experience this since i began sheding in may... One member has been diagnosed with diffuse Alopecia Arearta and i am also pretty sure i have this aswell... My derm mentioned it to me as being the reason why shedding sometimes persists, but it is treateable and often resolves it self over time anyway...but obviously in some people it does not and goes on miss diagnosed as simple TE.
Anyway, mention the fact you may feel you have alopeacea arearta and hopefully your derm will do a biopsy, i will be getting one done at my next appointment...
Thanks for the advice lamar, i'll do that when I get checked by the hair loss specialist this Friday. I think i'm also going to ask her the same printed list of questions than Andy asked his derm when creating this topic originally. Should be interesting to hear somebody else's answers to the same questions.
For those of you who are convinced you're going to keep shedding until you go bald... even if you do, they're going to be coming out with hair multiplication (sort of like cloning) in the not too distant future... the company pioneering the technique is already well into the clinical trial stage and they're at the point where all patients treated regrew a lot of hair. I've read estimates that it should be publically available by 2009. Though about a bajillion bald people will probably be cutting eachothers throats to get in line for it... but bottom line though is that there's hope even for folks like julius who seem to have gotten the really, really short end of the stick.
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