I realise that there's nothing medically confirmed to help regrow hair at the Temples (not even the big 3), but I'm willing to at least try something. Can anyone recommend anything? Any topicals?

at the moment I'm not prepared to use Minoxidil because it seems too unpredictable and risky.

cheers

There are plenty of products out there, it's just a shame that they're all scams!

You've already discounted minoxidil, which is the only approved topical. I'm not personally a fan of minoxidil, but there is a study on PubMed (Comparative efficacy of various treatment regimens for androgenetic alopecia in men Khandpur S, Suman M, Reddy BS. J Dermatol. 2002 Aug;29(8):489-98) which says that, of a range of treatments, "the best results [were] recorded with a combination of finasteride and minoxidil". Bryan Shelton has compared the hair counts in various trials of Propecia, Avodart and minoxidil and found - surprisingly - that minox came out on top in the regrowth stakes.

Seriously, if you've got money to burn, and you're really serious about improving your hairline, you should look into a HT. I've seen some impressive work at the temple by North American-based surgeons like Armani and Sanusi Umar.

even if I wanted a HT I wouldn't be able to afford it, but that strikes me as quite a last resort thing to go for. I hope it won't get to that stage.


I was thinking of things like Tricomin, Folligen, Revita etc... ones that supposedly stimulate hair growth rather than DHT inhibitors (which I don't need because I'm on Fin) I know there's no scientific evidence for things like copper peptides, but I'm willing to give them a shot as long as they're not outlandishly expensive, and use them on my temples only.

Problem is, I don't know which one to go for.

Like I said, minoxidil is the only proven hair stimulant (it's not a DHT inhibitor). Doctors don't take copper peptides seriously as a treatment for hair loss.

http://www.baldingblog.com/2006/06/01/copp...-for-hair-loss/

I found one study (a small 'phase II' trial) of copper peptides by ProCyte, the company behind Tricomin. This concluded that a 2.5% solution of CPs "resulted in a statistically significant increase in hair count" compared to placebo, but NO increase in hair weight.

I should point out that counting hair accurately has been a dodgy area for many studies. For example, Upjohn, the original manufacturer of minoxidil, was widely criticised for trials that seemed to vastly overstate the benefits of Regaine. So I'd conclude that the benefits of CPs for male pattern hair loss are somewhere between zero and minimal.

I guess Nanogaine is also a snake oil then? It doesn't contain Minox (it claims to be better than Minox) but says that shedding is a possibility, so I'm a bit ambivalent.

I might try Tricomin anyway.

By the way, do you think that using alledged DHT topical inhibitors (revivogen, Nanoguard etc) is pointless or even potentially detrimental to somebody already on finastreide? Or are there possible advantages to blocking as much DHT at the scalp as possible?

As far as I'm aware, so-called topical DHT inhibitors are not proven to reduce the levels of scalp DHT in vivo (i.e. in a living person) though some of them have been tested in vitro (in a test-tube), which is a different thing. There's even less evidence that any of these 'treatments' actually promote hair growth. Regrowth.com notes that Revivogen has not been subject to independent double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical testing yet - and it probably never will be tested like this, because trials of this sort are expensive, and why bother if people will pay $20 on the strength of marketing hype alone?

I've done some looking around - Tricomin isn't cheap. I don't think I can afford £40 a month.

Revita shampoo sounds interesting. If I wanted to try Revita, can it be used to compliment nizorelle or should it be used instead of nizorelle?

The main active ingredient in Revita is ketoconazole 1%, which is the same as Nizorelle. There's a lot of other stuff in Revita, but it probably doesn't do anything for hair when applied for a few moments, lathered and rinsed off.

I bought some Revita. I'm quite impressed at the detailed booklet that comes with it.

It's not going to last long if I have to use it 5 times a week though!

I read somewhere that once your hairline has receded at the front/temples it's impossible to get it back (bar a HT) because the hair follicles there are dead completely. Is this true, or are the follicles just miniturized?

I don't know Joe, balding usually reduces the size of follicles so that they produce fine vellus hairs instead of terminal hairs, but I've only seen anecdotal discussions of whether even those vellus hairs eventually 'die' completely.

Either way, the hairline is usually the first area affected by MPB (most men develop a 'mature hairline' in their late teens or 20s) and so the most 'far gone' area by the time someone starts treatments.