I’d just shave it off. I went bald at 17 and I’m now 70 - in my experience some people will be more into you if you’re bald, some won’t be. Don’t get too worried about it, it’ll all be fine.

:fidel-salute-big:

:lenin-cat: went bald very early in his life and he looked great

Join me in the samurai cut.

If you can grow a bear, bald-beard is A Look :lenin-sure:

finasteride

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hair isn’t actually that important

True, but also there is nothing wrong with caring about your appearance. A lot of masculinity in western cultures is about performative apathy, and it is generally socially acceptable to dunk on men who try to keep their hair as some kind of vanity thing because we're taught to believe that they aren't supposed to care about it, but that shit is every bit as fake and toxic as dunking on men for having feelings and shit. My family is lucky enough to have full hair all the way to the eighties so I can't offer much more than that, I hope you find a solution that you're totally satisfied with.

get on dutasteride and do it quick, kid :shrug-outta-hecks:

my advice is just to shave your head. bald men look great and take far longer to visibly age.

I cannot emphasise enough how much better bald men look compared to balding men

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Started losing hair at like ~17. Finasteride and minoxidil helped prevent my hair from falling off and helped cover up a bald spot, but my hairline never recovered. Also tried some bougie plasma infusion thingy, was hella expensive and I don't know if it helped tbh.

Should I just shave my head and get it over with?

In my 20s - I started to go bald so I cut my hair short. Then it got worse so I cut my hair very short. By my 30s I started shaving my head. It wasn't fun but I think it's the only sane trajectory - short, very short, shaved.

I took the "you can't fire me I quit" approach to balding at the age of 21. Best decision of my life. Just such a relief not worrying about it anymore, and you get used to it incredibly quickly. My only regret was not doing it sooner, because all that anxiety and heart ache was for nothing. Some people are tall some are short, some people have round faces some narrow, some people are Bald and some have hair. It literally does not matter and you'll wonder why you ever worried so much.

:lenin-da: or :lenin-sure: both are beautiful

My 0.02: It's easy to say "shave it off", and just acknowledge that there's a lot of industry built around image/beauty standards which is probably huge factor in why you are uncomfortable going bald. But the standards are there, the compounds that can definitely allow you to keep your hair for a long time are pretty well tolerated and don't depend on extractive exploitation to be available. They are definitely treats that might not exist in a sustainable world, but I work in drug development and clinical trial consulting and really doubt there would be any strain on resources to produce any of the shit.

And then my definitely not medical advice: You can get blood tests for markers that indicate your risk factors for the treatments for hair loss and that can reverse hair loss. There's not a lot of doctors that are equipped to read them though, most "hair loss" docs are just going to do a blood test for iron/zinc/vitamin D deficiency and then prescribe finasteride or dutasteride. I consider the side effects of these oral drugs to be common enough, and severe/long-lasting/permanent enough that this kind of testing is inexcusable to me. Most endocrinologists are not going to know how to read the results you could use to determine whether you're likely to develop, for instance, gynecomastia (painful breast tissue swelling that's way worse to deal with than just being bald) or sexual issues. Because these oral drugs are anti-androgens, they're going to mess with your hormone profile. The only people who are going to order blood tests and interpret the results as they relate to hair loss med risk are pretty boutique, usually offices that specialize in "longevity" and "life extension" shit.

There are treatments that have incredibly low risk, mostly topicals, and there are treatments that do definitely have some risks for some people. They are kind of laborious and personally I am a lazy man so just being bald is preferable for me. Getting baseline bloodwork for hormones that can be affected and follow-up bloodwork is essential to any effort to reverse or stymie hair loss though, even topicals which aren't expected to go systemic.

• Localized DHT blockers, essentially doing what oral finasteride can do, but local to the scalp and hair follicles rather than being orally ingested and affecting everything in your body. I believe there's topical formulations of those pharmaceuticals in some countries. There's also compounds like RU58841 which have limited studies demonstrating tolerance and effectiveness. Some azole family anti-fungals like ketoconazole also have a similar effect. Again, any of this stuff can go systemic and affect liver function.
• Topical minoxidil, like Rogaine, but there's plenty of formulations nowadays. These just increase hair growth rates and do bring back some follicles that have shrunk. It's well regarded as efficacious and tolerable, but you have to continue using it because the hair growth it enables is virtually always dependent on the exogenous agent, once you discontinue use all the follicles producing hair/thicker hair because of the topical revert to miniaturizing. Honestly does work much better with microneedling of the scalp, obviously not using any topicals with systemic risks in the subsequent day or two. Again this is trading your time for hair. Is it worth it? I'd say no, but it's just your own time and the equipment to microneedle your scalp once a week isn't unsustainable or unaffordable. It's just a bloody and potentially painful process.

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