My LHR history (male) / Need help

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
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dfahey mentioned Rogaine growing body hair, which is true, but be careful, as Rogaine gets absorbed into your body through the skin and affects your blood pressure (that was its original intention, but people noticed an added side effect of minimal scalp hair regrowth.

Since I started applying Rogaine to my scalp to regrow head hair, I also grew tiny forehead hair, longer eyelashes, longer eyebrow hair and possibly faster beard growth. The reason Rogaine does this is because it gets absorbed into the bloodstream and possibly also because some of it could rub on your pillow and then onto your face if you sleep right after applying it (which I do not do).

http://jefffsbeardboard.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/862

Anyway, the above is an incredibly timewasting but entertaining and possibly useful thread where people apply Rogaine (primarily to their faces) to get more facial hair and look older. As they say, “the grass is always greener on the other side”.

Look at the middle of page 394 (!) for recent pictures of one guy who had success.

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Coincidence! I stumbled onto this unusually long Rogaine thread yesterday. After reading people claiming positive results, I ordered “Rogaine foam” 3 months supply online. I have lost 2/3 of my scalp hair, however I am reserving Rogaine to experimentally use on a few bald patches on my arms and hands. Since the area is relatively small compared to scalp area, I don’t expect it stimulate other body hair, eyebrow, eyelash, forehead hair etc. growth. By the way, I already have fairly long eyebrows and eyelashes. How bad can it go wrong? I am curious to see the results.

Oh, when I click on the link I can only see 199 pages. How many posts do you view on a page?

I’ve just noticed that they also talk about a drug called “Xandrax”. It may be a more potent type of Rogaine.

rsuryase:
I don’t think hair transplants on body looks natural. Just an opinion. As ‘lagirl’ said, it also does not sound practical to me.

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Its strange that I also see 199 pages now. However, some of the posters mention that they don’t want to read 397 pages, and on page 397 (that I read yesterday), someone mentioned the pictures on page 394. Something strange going on!

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I don’t think anything will work since the bulb is dead, the drug will not revitalize the dead bulb. It’ll just make the existing surrounding hair grow more but not the dead hair. Laser hair removal is permanent. Maybe it’s time to leave your arm hair alone, it doesn’t look bad, it looks normal.

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Is there a lotion or powder to make a shaved arm or leg look less shiny?

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Do you have hair follicles so thick that when you pluck it, it bleeds?

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rsuryase:
I think, we can’t be sure if there are any dormant follicles under the skin, so I’ giving it a try.

There are a lot of cosmetic products out there to help shininess. I think ladies can help us out here.

Do I have hair follicles bleeds when plucked? Only on beard. Sometimes it is so tightly attached to the skin, when I pluck, the pore is filled a little spot of blood. But, it can easily be rubbed off.

Today, in the morning, I received my “Rogaine Foam”. I applied it onto bald patches on my wrists and hands. In the instructions, we are told not to use it on body. It is only allowed to be used on scalp. I don’t think they put this warning because it may have much more adverse effects when used on body. It seems to me they didn’t conduct sufficient clinical research on body. So, it’s better and convenient for them to leave the body off.

Since the areas I applied Rogaine is very small compared to scalp area, I expect side-effects to occur less likely. I don’t know about the earlier “Rogaine minoxidil %5 topical solution”, but I can say this “Rogaine Foam” is convenient to apply and have a decent deodorant smell. However, the foam melts down in a few seconds and the product transforms into high viscosity liquid. So, you have to be swift to spread onto intended areas. It is also fascinatingly absorbed by the skin.

Even it only causes vellus hairs to appear, I will consider the experiment to be successful. I am expecting to see the first results within 3-4 weeks. Just a reminder for those who are not familiar with my history; I am applying “Rogaine Foam” to an area which is treated with Laser Hair Removal for a couple of times. The area is on wrists and hands, and only have sparsely spaced coarse and some fine hairs.

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Some photos I took today. These are the areas I am applying the Rogaine for. This is day #1.

Left hand:

Right hand:

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Good luck but remember to give up when it’s not successful, your arm looks normal. You shouldn’t be messing with it anymore. Laser is permanent.

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Vklepil - Dude, you look fine, who cares about the patches, your thinking way too much - I would say your done - Why use Rogaine??? Once you stop it falls out anyways, are you going to put rogaine on your arms for the rest of your life???

I say - Call it a Success, accept the way you are now and move on…

Curious tho, you said you’ve lost 2/3 of your scalp hair…

Did you have a full head of hair before starting laser hair removal??

curious if Laser hair removal has anything to do with hair thinning on your scalp?

Anyone experience this?

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vklepil,

I think you perception of the patchiness might be a little dramatic (no offense). Plenty of men have patchier growth, and I must be missing something because I essentially see no patchiness in the beard. Hell that’s how my beard looks naturally.

Based on your precise documentation of the whole process I take it you might be a tad bit obsessive, which is no big deal, I am obsessive in certain aspects as well. Again I see nothing in your photos that would warrant any worry or extra thought into the matter.

If the Rogaine doesn’t work you can always feather in the hair with electrologist as Dee stated.

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Male pattern baldness is not caused by LHR.

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LHR has nothing to do with baldness. However, there are certain conditions that cause both baldness on the head and hairiness on the rest of the body.

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haireverywhere:

Thanks for the compliments :). Who cares about the patches? I care, and that’s enough reason for me to dive in these waters. I don’t know, maybe I am cursed or something.

I am not going to put Rogaine on for the rest of my life. If once the hair sprouts on the arms, it will probably stay there without requiring maintenance. I know, discontinued use on the scalp leads scalp area to get back to its original thinned-out state, however it should not be true for the rest of the body. The main mechanism behind Rogaine’s success is that it increases blood supply to hair follicles. Blood supply to scalp follicles tends to decrease as aging advances. Rogaine keeps the blood supply lively. Once you stop using Rogaine, the blood supply begins to wither which shrinks follicles. But, that’s not the same for the rest of the body. For hair follicles blood supply in the rest of the body, there is no inclination in regressing over time. If you once succeed in setting up the blood network, you are probably fine. That’s what I am trying if there are any dormant hair follicles left out there.

About the scalp hair loss: No, it is not related to LHR. It is just the way it is; male pattern baldness. I started losing my scalp hair long before I started LHR.

caliagent:

I know, it is over-drama for most of us here and honestly I think I am exaggerating it a bit. People reading and writing on these forums are hairier then the rest of the people outside, and my condition here may be well normal from the perspective of the community here. However, that’s not the same outside. Statistically, people outside will find my condition a little bizarre to be natural.

Yes, I accept I am being obsessive and I probably would not care if I had the same pattern naturally (not having LHR at all but born with it). This is what makes me uneasy. I ended up in this condition thtough LHR and that was with my own will. I mean, I wasn’t happy with my original condition and it was better than now; which basically means, LHR was a pathetic attempt to improve my condition, and this can easily be read looking at my body and beard.

I am doing good on overcoming my obsession with the beard, I can at least shave it and minimize the LHR effect. But, I can’t do the same for the arms. So, my obsession on arms builds up.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your opinion. By the way, what do you mean by the following:

If the Rogaine doesn’t work you can always feather in the hair with electrologist as Dee stated.

Hair transplants??

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Fair enough.

As far as the feathering in the hair, it is a good technique in thinning out patchy or darker areas so that they can transition or “feather” into the less condense area of hair. A good electrologist should be able to do this since they are hitting individual hairs and can target say some darker hairs in a particular area so the hair is more gradual and natural looking.

I never really knew about this until my electrologist showed me pictures of clients that she had done this on. The photos that she had showed the “feather” technique was transitioning upper arm hair to lower arm hair and also a male beard where she gave the guy a natural gradual beard from neck up. Looked pretty good, I would have never known otherwise.

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So, they just eliminate some of the hairs in hair-centric areas to match the density of relatively less hairy areas, to make it look like natural transition from hair-centric to less hairy. That’s what I understood, absolutely no means of transplanting hair.

This sounds intriguing and on the down side it seems like this can’t be managed by all the electrologist. Because, this feathering technique must also require artistic merit.

I’ll check on this. Do you have any links that presents photos on this technique?

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Any skilled pro should be able to do it, they have to shape eyebrows, beard lines, and hair lines. I mean in essence you are just thinning an area out but more gradually but if you find someone who has a little more expertise in shaping and has an eye for aesthetics it could be an option for you.

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A little update:

It has been 8 days since I started using Rogaine. As expected, there is no hair growth yet. However, after taking a hot shower, I am noticing reddish spots possibly corresponding to hair follicle sites. These spots particularly appear at zones I apply Rogaine. Here is one photo displaying this:

Left one is the original photo. On the right one I adjusted color levels to make it stand out.

Can these be attributed to follicle activity?

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Maybe its follicle growth, or maybe its a rash. Only time will tell.

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Rogaine isn’t meant to be used on large areas of the body, and it has never been approved (or to my knowledge, even studied) for use on areas other than the scalp. In fact, even when using it for the male pattern baldness, it only seems to be effective for the crown and does very little for the hairline. I think you’re assuming a lot when you say that any hair growth stimulated would remain after discontinuing treatment.

Furthermore, I’m not sure you should treat hair loss due to DHT (the mechanism of which is still unknown) and hair loss due to destroying follicles with a laser to be the same. You’re increasing blood flow to something that should by all counts be dead. In male pattern baldness, the follicles don’t necessarily die–and rogaine doesn’t produce growth in those areas in which follicles are already dead. It generally only works to stimulate miniaturized hairs (but existing) hairs into coarser hair. I don’t think it is going to be an effective treatment for you.

You’re also putting yourself at risk for more side effects given the significantly higher dosage if you’re actually treating both full arms.
(http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/minoxidil.jsp)

As an aside, Rogaine doesn’t show noticable regrowth any earlier than two months of treatment–and it can take up to a year. Given that, I would say it’s highly unlikely those spots are related to growth. Many people experience skin irritation when they use Rogaine.