Mark - I didn't use the laser long enough to notice any difference. I had an increase in my shed (which i was told could happen) -i freaked out and stopped going.

What type of laser are you using?

I'm using one from ebay, it is similar to the ones you have in a salon, i have added my own laser diodes to it (doubled the original number), so i pretty much have the same power as the clinical ones aswell.

As i said, my hair has been shedding at a pretty mad rate since 18 months ago now (without treatment anyway), my hairline has only receeded about the length of my pinkys fingernail, which i don't think is that bad, i have about 70% of my original density aswell. My routine is pretty simple but i can understand why some of you don't want to use steroids.

heres the laser system i bought [Edited link out]

Have been using it for about three months now. I have double the number of diodes on that system though, and i have changed it so most of them are focused on my hairline.

Lamarr, you have any idea what it means when the tip of the hair is spear shaped and the root has no bulb?

Hard to say mate, could it be that the hair snapped off? that is commonly seen in AA. What happens is you get the formation of a club shaped hair like this [Edited link out] , then the hair breaks off at the point it has been weakened, resulting in a hair like u describe. Most of mine are like that picture, some have spear shaped tips i.e. they haven't been cut, then others are like the picture but with squared ends i.e. they have been cut at the hair dressers.

Hey guys, I am one of the original posters on this thread. My hair loss has been going on for 14 months now. It is not as much as it once was as I don't really get much hair in the shower drain anymore. However I still do shed more than normal. The funny thing is my hair seems to be just about as thick as it has always been as far as I can tell, and whenever I get my haircut the barber always comments on how thick it is. Nonetheless I still shed quite a bit, and whenever I run my hands through my hair I am garunteed to get a few hairs. I have taken propecia for a few months so maybe that is why it is so thick. I am very worried and frusturated that the shedding has continued for so long, but somewhat surprised my hair is not thinner than it is. I just wonder what the future has to hold for my hair.

hey everyone, I meant to make an update a while ago but i've been really busy since the summer started

unfortunately I don't have good news to report... whereas my hair loss seemed like it almost stopped for about three weeks in april/may, it picked up again dramatically about three weeks ago.

I'm pissed

Haha I went from a low about a month ago of losing about 40 hairs per day to about 150 now.... no hairs on the pillow have turned into about 10, no hairs when combing in the sink have turned into about 20, more lost during the day, in the shower, etc...

and the balding spot on top is more noticeable than it was three months ago which is a little heart-breaking.

I'm extremely confused as to why my hairloss seemed to pretty much stop like that, and then pick up again. I thought the regimin I was on had cured me... (maybe it did? i don't know)

Here are my theories:

1) The hairloss stopped shortly after I got a haircut in April. It's gotten really long now and perhaps the weight of the hairs/ increased exposure causes them to fall out more easily?

2) I recovered completely from mononucleosis in about april (as in, I felt completely better after 2 months of feeling like crap). While I take care of myself, eat healthy and get enough sleep and exercise, I do have a fairly stressful schedule. Stress maybe?

3) (my biggest suspicion) My body fat percentage went from about 10% to 19% from February to April (due to my sedentary lifestyle and forcing myself to eat a lot while I had mono). I started exercising and lifting weights again and my body fat% has certainly decreased again (i'm a pretty thin guy). Could losing body fat have possibly released the stored up accutane/ vitamin A into the system?

I'm going to see a hair specialist at Johns Hopkins July 2... doubt it'll do any good but at this point i'm looking into options for mitigation like a hair transplant or something.

I'm also taking my pills and using my shampoo/activ M/ etc (see my earlier posts for full regimin) religiously.

In addition, I've tried to get in touch with some of the authors of the study "Towards Dissecting the Pathogenesis of Retinoid-Induced Hairloss" which most of you are familiar with. Haven't heard anything back yet, but they are in Germany so i'm hoping the language barrier isn't going to complicate it.

Does anyone know of TGF beta antagonists besides reservatol, grapeseed extract, curcumin, carnitine, taurine, etc?

I went off propecia and rogaine and now am wondering if I should go back on them...

My only consolation here is that there are still baby/maturing hairs coming in on my hairline and every odd hair I lose is a short, stubby fat one. So i'm hoping to God I have a chance to regrow this naturally.

hey lamarr, sorry if this has been covered already, but the hair that sheds from my head has these tiny white pieces attached to the end...kind of like a bulb. What's that all about?

Lamarr - i just bought the laser. i mean i have already spent probably close to $5000 on my hair to date so what's another $400 at this point.

What are your thoughts about Revivogen? I seriously cannot bring myself to trying Rogaine (some bizarre mental block i'm having) so i thought i might try that.

hey lamarr, sorry if this has been covered already, but the hair that sheds from my head has these tiny white pieces attached to the end...kind of like a bulb. What's that all about?

The large bulb is a sign that the hair was in the anagen (growth) stage of the hair cycle, which means for some reason, whether it be Telogen effluvium or diffuse AA, The hair has been made to shed far earlier than it would of done naturally.

Lamarr - i just bought the laser. i mean i have already spent probably close to $5000 on my hair to date so what's another $400 at this point.

 

What are your thoughts about Revivogen? I seriously cannot bring myself to trying Rogaine (some bizarre mental block i'm having) so i thought i might try that.

I haven't read much good about revivogen, if you want some sort of topical that is likely to give benefit i would say one of the copper peptides compounds e.g. tricomin would be of more use than revivogen. The reason i say is that they are known to be good for inflammation, which is at the heart of our problem.

Minox can be very good for some people because it regulates the immune system. Why are you not keen on using it? you can always stop if you decide to become pregnant, unless ofcourse you are just waiting for it (pregnancy) to happen whenever, in which case i understand where your coming from. You obviously don't want to expose the baby in the early stages of development without knowing. I am sure if people from this thread used the 15% minoxidil preperations you can now get, they would achieve some great results... i wish i could use it!!

lamarr1986 said:

I'm using one from ebay, it is similar to the ones you have in a salon, i have added my own laser diodes to it (doubled the original number), so i pretty much have the same power as the clinical ones aswell.

As i said, my hair has been shedding at a pretty mad rate since 18 months ago now (without treatment anyway), my hairline has only receeded about the length of my pinkys fingernail, which i don't think is that bad, i have about 70% of my original density aswell. My routine is pretty simple but i can understand why some of you don't want to use steroids.

heres the laser system i bought [Edited link out]

Have been using it for about three months now. I have double the number of diodes on that system though, and i have changed it so most of them are focused on my hairline.

do you think the laser has helped you a lot?

man i had the thickest hair before tane, urhhh my hair is shedding like crazy and i'm freaking out now it's noticeably thin

nothing seems to be working and i don't wanna go on propecia

It is very hard for me to say wether it is working or not, i concentrate most of its power on my hairline, which does seem to have more regrowth on it than normal but i'm not going to say to much just yet, laser can be a bit of a slow process, but the results can be long lasting which is why i'm using it.

The good thing with the laser is that there are studies which prove it is anti inflammatory, which is just what we need!!

You got to remember that other than oral steroids or kenalog shots, not much is going to stop your shedding completely, you just have to aim to keep all the follicles alive and healthy so they continue to produce terminal hairs!!

thanks will eventually give this a try

I was talking to someone about steroids for the scalp and they said they can thin out the scalp which can be permanent. Man theirs not much options. urrhh tane.

okay reading through it seems like a lot of people are getting better and then 3 weeks later it sucks again, thats happening to me too. I think i have developed seborrheic dermatitis which is making the hair loss even worse. whenever i lose a hair there is a hard crusted bulb at the end. so i have a ton of buildup on my scalp and i like its clogging the hair follicle and killing it. ive been using jojoba oil on my scalp/hair for about 3 weeks now and its removed a ton of the buildup but im still losing hair. i was EXTREMELY stressed last week because of finals so that might be why the hair loss just kicked it up a notch. i just dont know anymore. i finished accutane may '07 and im still losing hair. this sucks ass. i was planning to rush a sorority in the fall, but now i feel so embarrased and ashamed about my hair that im having second thoughts. it sucks that this is affecting my social life now, im so done with this!

Have you guys see the infomercial about ScalpMed? From what I saw its like rogaine but has different ingredients and seems very convincing.

Still skeptical thought.

It looks like no one have had their problem solve as yet, and I would say don't even think of topical steriod and steriod injection because it ruin your scalp in the long run and the latter caused a dent on my dog skin who suffered from eczema who needed steriod injection every other month.

Skin thinning from steroids on the scalp is generally not even visable to the naked eye. The dents from kenalog shots is a possible issue though.

My hair is doing great, in part thanks to the steroids, i trust me new derm Dr Chu 100%.

Has anybody else tried getting in touch with the doctors/researchers who published that study about retinoid-induced hairloss?

I'm talking about [Edited link out] which I'm sure many of you have seen.

I read the rest of the study and looked into some of the other work being done by the researchers and yeah they're basically the ones to talk to about this issue... it mentions somewhere that they're continuing to explore possible TGFbeta antagonists as treatment for retinoid hairloss, etc.

I tried emailing both the hospital they work at and one of the doctors himself and am still waiting for a reply. Unfortunately I don't speak German so i'm hoping they send it to their translators...

Can anybody read and write in german? if there is anybody out there in the world who can give us definite answers about this issue, it is Kerstin Foitzik and the other researchers he works with at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany, They have been (and I think continue) to work on this exact issue.

At the very least, they might be able to give us a specific "best bet" treatment recommendation or something like that, so we don't have to speculate on various supplements, topicals, etc. I'll keep trying to get in touch with them on my end... I have a great aunt in Germany i'm going to try and get to translate for me...

lamarr: what do you know about TGF beta antagonists from your own research? Do you have a list or something of different topicals and/or supplements which would have TGF beta antagonistic properties? Anybody else want to chime in?

JNT -i think your last post is a GREAT idea. I will check around my work to see if anyone I know speaks German. I emailed a doc at UPenn who specializes in Accutane research and never heard back. I definitely think us speaking to the people who are involved in the day to day of this mess will be able to best advise those of us who are still struggling.

Bro, I didn't even understand the article they wrote in English. Do you have any other articles you found directly related to retnoid hair loss and treatment?

No, that is the only recent study which deals directly with trying to figure out why our hair is falling out and what could possibly help stop it that I've seen.

I was just doing some surfing and came across what I thought was an amazing article. For anyone that ever wants to go to a derm ever again in their life, please read this asshole's response. LMAO, he completely contradicted the shit out of himself in the first 2 sentences!

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/show/241686

or check this one

[Edited link out]

Dermatologists are payed to lie for roche. True story.

Well I've been off accutane for a little over a year and I don't lose hair anymore. As time went by I sort of stopped thinking about it and I'd say that my hair stopped falling out about 6-8 months after taking accutane. I'm pretty sure it all grew back, though not all at once, as my hair is quite thick now. Keep in mind I was only on the stuff for 2 months. I was losing a lot of hair at a certain point, it would block the drain in the shower and after I would wipe out a hair ball. Now I might lose one hair after rubbing my handing and pulling through my hair for like 2 minutes. After reading through some of these pages I'll mention that I also felt that tingling itchy sensation on my scalp at times during my hair loss, and itching during that time would cause a ton of hair to fall out.

As I posted in another thread my acne has become severe, worse then ever. My mom is tempting me to take a full course of accutane and I'm quite tempted, its like I'm forgetting how stressful and hopeless I felt when I was losing hair on accutane and after all this time I've sort of downplayed that experience as if I was making it out to be more than it was. If I lost hair before on accutane wouldn't it be certain that I would lose it again if I were to start another course, considering it would be way longer then the first time? Then again I'm trying to choose the lesser of two evils here, severe acne and potential scarring versus hair loss.

Again, back to what I was saying before. Does anybody know anyone who can translate into German? There are researchers who are working on this exact problem (retinoid-induced hairloss) and their last publication was in 2004. It's 2008 now and i'm interested in what's happened since then. If anybody can help, it's them.

Lamarr seems like he's got the most effective treatment regimen going on here, but there may be a more effective one, or a specific product, supplement, etc that would be most effective in stopping the inflammation/ whatever the hell is happening to our hair. Like I said before, my hairloss nearly stopped after about 6 weeks of the regimen I was on (see my previous posts for details)... it started again like crazy a few weeks ago but I'm suspicious it may be due to the release of stored isotretinoin in fat after starting to work out again or possibly stress from my busy summer schedule).

Lamarr-- sorry to keep asking but i'm not sure if you've noticed my question: what do you know about TGF-beta antagonists (what substances, supplements, etc?). Have you followed up on this stuff at all?

I'm also wondering if we can get a moderator for this forum or something so we can keep it professional...

On a side note, my face is doing wonderfully (lol...). I've been just using the clean and clear three step stuff and moisturizing with salicilic acid moisturizer in the morning (then sunscreen) and emu oil at night. My supplement regimen might be helping, who knows.

I've recently added small, safe amounts of iron (~15mg) and also green tea extract to my long list of supplements. Yeah, i'm popping a ton of pills every day now... but there is the possibility that I could be slightly anemic (frequently fatigued, etc) and so I wanted to cover that base. One difference between now and when my hair stopped falling out was that I was drinking a ton of this asian green tea in mineral water (good stuff). The mineral water is loaded with iron, so i figure why not replicate it. I'll continue reporting how things go...