Minoxidil and Hair Loss - If I Discontinue Minoxidil Will My Hair Fall Out?
For years I have been fighting the battle against hair loss, and if I don't say so myself, quite successfully. One of the tools I have been using to stave off the inevitable, is one of the very popular 5 percent minoxidil solutions that you may have seen advertised on television or the internet.
The downside to this product it has to applied twice a day, may burn a little, causes flaking of the scalp on occasion, and costs about 50 dollars for what the manufacturers claims to be a three month supply, though it only last me at eight weeks.
So in a recent stroke of brilliance I thought why don't I do away with the hassle and expense of this topical twice a day solution, after all I still will be taking my saw palmetto to block harmful DHT (dihydrotestosterone) which is the known root cause of male pattern baldness. Let me explain.
DHT is a more powerful version of the androgen hormone testosterone. DHT is produced when testosterone comes in contact with the enzyme 5 alpha reductase type 2 residing in the hair cell. Once converted it then binds with receptors deep within a small sac like pouch called a follicle. The more DHT produced, combined with amount of binding and accumulation which has taken place over time, will shrink the hair follicle and determine the pattern and severity of hair loss.
My rationale was that since most of my follicles seemed to be open and producing healthy hair why not discontinue the minoxidil and stay with the saw palmetto along with a few other things like B12 supplementation and an aloe vera scalp massage once in a while.
Well that is just what I decided to do and to my chagrin only after a few days I started to see some subtle signs that the benefits I had worked so hard to achieve over the years were starting to slip away.
The first signs of impending doom was my scalp hair starting to feel more brittle, despite increased conditioning efforts. The next thing was even more disturbing; a visible and noticeable amount of hair loss. This all happened within a two week period with those problem spots, such as on the crown and on the top of the head starting to magically reappear.
As minoxidil was discontinued the follicles began to rapidly close depriving the hair of the essential components of growth. But the one thing that surprised me the most was how quickly the whole hair re-growth cycle thing went downhill. In fact, I would say that within a few days the benefits achieved over the years were quickly starting to disappear.
In conclusion, there are no easy answers for stopping the march of male pattern baldness, and seemingly topical minoxidil is one of the better tools for holding it a bay. That said, there are also some very good topical (and oral) herbal and homeopathic remedies for thinning hair that have done wonders for some of those who are not onboard with the whole minoxidil treatment approach.
The bottom line in hair loss is that once it is gone, short of expensive hair transplant surgery, there are as of yet no treatment options that can turn a bald head, or for that matter a large bald area, into a full head of hair. Furthermore, discontinuing treatment options such as minoxidil will result in almost immediate hair loss leaving you with a lot less hair to work with next time around.
The downside to this product it has to applied twice a day, may burn a little, causes flaking of the scalp on occasion, and costs about 50 dollars for what the manufacturers claims to be a three month supply, though it only last me at eight weeks.
So in a recent stroke of brilliance I thought why don't I do away with the hassle and expense of this topical twice a day solution, after all I still will be taking my saw palmetto to block harmful DHT (dihydrotestosterone) which is the known root cause of male pattern baldness. Let me explain.
DHT is a more powerful version of the androgen hormone testosterone. DHT is produced when testosterone comes in contact with the enzyme 5 alpha reductase type 2 residing in the hair cell. Once converted it then binds with receptors deep within a small sac like pouch called a follicle. The more DHT produced, combined with amount of binding and accumulation which has taken place over time, will shrink the hair follicle and determine the pattern and severity of hair loss.
My rationale was that since most of my follicles seemed to be open and producing healthy hair why not discontinue the minoxidil and stay with the saw palmetto along with a few other things like B12 supplementation and an aloe vera scalp massage once in a while.
Well that is just what I decided to do and to my chagrin only after a few days I started to see some subtle signs that the benefits I had worked so hard to achieve over the years were starting to slip away.
The first signs of impending doom was my scalp hair starting to feel more brittle, despite increased conditioning efforts. The next thing was even more disturbing; a visible and noticeable amount of hair loss. This all happened within a two week period with those problem spots, such as on the crown and on the top of the head starting to magically reappear.
As minoxidil was discontinued the follicles began to rapidly close depriving the hair of the essential components of growth. But the one thing that surprised me the most was how quickly the whole hair re-growth cycle thing went downhill. In fact, I would say that within a few days the benefits achieved over the years were quickly starting to disappear.
In conclusion, there are no easy answers for stopping the march of male pattern baldness, and seemingly topical minoxidil is one of the better tools for holding it a bay. That said, there are also some very good topical (and oral) herbal and homeopathic remedies for thinning hair that have done wonders for some of those who are not onboard with the whole minoxidil treatment approach.
The bottom line in hair loss is that once it is gone, short of expensive hair transplant surgery, there are as of yet no treatment options that can turn a bald head, or for that matter a large bald area, into a full head of hair. Furthermore, discontinuing treatment options such as minoxidil will result in almost immediate hair loss leaving you with a lot less hair to work with next time around.
