Folks:
Here is a picture finally comparing my crown before and after I started taking 1/4 Proscar a day.
Make your own judgements on the effectiveness of the drug in my case.

vocor1
Knowledge is Power
If the worst question is the one never asked, then the worst answer is the one never shared.

smallerCrownComp.jpg (71 Kb, 1217 downloads)

Vocor
Take a victory lap, then give yourself a high-five. You are in good shape.

Hopefully you will never need another surgery.

Here's to "continued success" with your medications.

arfy

HOLY TOLEDO! those are amazing results, dude. i guess your the small percentage of propecia/proscar users that get great results. way to go!!

Vocor,

I believe you caught your crown MPB just in time...lucky Dawg !!! it looks pretty damn good.

NW

It looks good but you sure cannot tell what the proscar did or didn't do. The length of the hair is different in the pics and therefore the coverage of scalp is different. I wonder at times if some of you people just see what you want to see. The emperor's new cloths. Objectivity and honesty are the things that give this site value.

well his hair is shorter in the first pic, and therefore I think it blends in better with his scalp. I know when I get a hair cut my crown looks almost perfect if its short enough. Also you can still see the thinning area, so if it grew out I am guessing it would look a lot worse. In the second picture it is grown out. So I am assuming all his hair is back so good for him. It gets me pretty excited because I just started proscar. My crown isn't very bad, but I can't have it getting worse, and if it improves, even better!

none

Picts with the hair at equal lengths are coming in the future. That will provide the best comparison.
I wish I had a pict of my crown pre-Proscar where it was longer. Everyone would see how thin it was.
When you have longer hair that is thinning, it looks like complete crap. That is what my crown looked like. It looked like a "crown combover".
Try to envision that and then you'd know what my crown looked like with longer hair.
Dishonesty and hype is something I'd like to squash. I hoped the picts would help substantiate my claims. Clearly, at least to one poster, the picts refute what I claimed. That is totally fine because at least you made your own judgement on the case. But still, I really can't see how this type of exchange of information curtails objectivity or honesty.

vocor1
Knowledge is Power
If the worst question is the one never asked, then the worst answer is the one never shared.

Mel Gibson
The pics are nine months apart (according to the date printed on the photos). At the very worst, Vocor did not get any worse.

At best, he's improved over 9 months. I think that's a good thing.

I do know what you mean about different hair lengths changing the equation. It's good to be skeptical. Lets see his matching haircut pics... should be interesting. Personally, I think he has shown some improvement already.

If he can stay where he is, he should be able to avoid any further surgery. That would be a victory.

vocor1, your results are superb. Congrats!
Did you also gain any thickness?
You did have decent hair count pre-proscar.
Wonder if that's a prerequisite for good result, that is, you should catch it in initial stages.
Also, how long should one wait to see if proscar is working or it's results are tapering off? 1, 2, 3 years?

quote:

---

Wonder if that's a prerequisite for good result, that is, you should catch it in initial stages.

---

I've always heard that the more recent the hair loss, the better your odds are for responding well to Propecia. It works better at stopping the progression, and is less effective at reviving long-gone hair. So it pays to act earlier, rather than later.

quote:

---

Also, how long should one wait to see if proscar is working or it's results are tapering off? 1, 2, 3 years?

---

I don't know about that. Supposedly Merck did a 5 year test that showed guys maintained the benefits of Propecia after 5 years. But a doctor recently posted (somewhere, maybe not here) that there is an approximate 10 year window, and that after that you start to lose ground. Even if that's true, I wouldn't quit using the drugs. If you are responding in some way, try to milk that for as long as possible. If you start running out of results, then think about upping your dose to a half-Proscar (2.5 mg) or maybe switching to Dutasteride, or whatever powerful DHT inhibitor is available.

This is just my 2 cents...

Very nice results that you realized there, Vocor1. Pretty identical to my regrowth from Propecia as well!

Congrats!
HarryLemon

GUYS,
Don't get me wrong. I think the second pic looks great !!! But if you look closely at the first pic
(shorter cut) there is a hell of a lot of hair there too. It has been my experience that while a short hair cut is usually better for giving a thining head a fuller look, there is a point of diminishing return and it is probably different for everyone. In other words the phrase "shorter is better" is only true to a certain extent.
As for the effectiveness of proscar/propecia, I give the stuff rave reviews. My crop has thinkened dramatically over the 20 mos. I've been a "user" and a couple of my buddys have had similiar results. Good stuff!

My crown is similar to the before picture. I just started on 1/4 proscar on May 2nd. I'm really hoping that I caught things early enough. I'll make sure to post my before and afters somewhere at the 6 month mark.

--Blake

rblakec
If you can avoid grafting in the crown by retaining your hair with Proscar, that is a very very good thing.

Your crown would require a ton of grafts if you needed to transplant it, and most guys don't have enough donor hair to really restore it all the way. In fact a lot of guys have had to leave the crown bare, and use all their grafts towards the front.

Good luck with that!!!

Those results speak volumes! excellent results. You are just fine!

Vocor1,

Your results look great!!!

I wish I knew about Proscar 18 months ago, as I might have saved my crown. It has thinned considerably over that time, but I started Proscar a few months ago and will see if it helps... hopefully as well as yours!

Mr. T

AH!!!! I been on proscar for a week now and I'm starting to think about having a full head of hair all the time. I hope I'm not gonna be disappointed. My crown is at the stage where it only looks bad if it is wet or I part it in the thin spot. How was yours vocor? How long did it take before you started seeing results? I've been on rogaine for about 2 months, I had major results, except the crown is still thinner then the rest. I was on rogaine for about a year but I stopped for 6 months to try 2% and I ended up loosing a ton of hair. I am so anxious it is driving me nuts, just wish me luck, I'd love to have your crown!

none

none:
Thanks for the words.
I have picts posted somewhere else in this subject area showing my response at 4 months.
At 4 months, Propecia had worked well on the lower 3/4 of my crown, but the upper 1/4 was still thin. If I combed my crown spirally, I could cover it.
Now, maybe the top-1eft 1/8th of the crown is still a little thinner than the rest. Very hard to tell in the pict and in real life. If I scrutinize the area, I can find it oh so slightly thinner. I'll certainly give Propecia more time on that, as I've been on it almost 10 months now.
My folks were utterly amazed when they saw the crown regrowth. In my other thread "wonder drug", I had a similar reaction when I first noticed the balding had reversed.
Very exciting. I'm only using Propecia for now, and nothing else.
Thanks for the support and I wish you and everyone else using Propecia similar or better results.

vocor1
Knowledge is Power
If the worst question is the one never asked, then the worst answer is the one never shared.

Hi group,

I'm new here. I've come to this site many times before. I wish to know where you purchased your Prscar and at what price (and how long do the pill stay good?). The lowest price I found was on this site:

http://www.healthworldpharmacy.com/products.cfm?cat=Proscar

It's $58 + $12H&H = $70 for 30 pills. I was ready to buy from them. But they ignored my question as to how I can protect myself from mail loss (their agreement stipulates that the purchaser is responsible for the merchandise as soon as it leaves their warehouse).

Then today, I see the Spanish gentleman's site, selliing Proscar at $150.6 for 84 pills (after currency conversion and including S&H). I posted a question for him (and anyone who may have purchased from that site) in the other thread and hope to get a positive response.

Now here's my history with the drug:

I used propecia in early 1999 for about 6 months. I started to see obvious result after about 3 months. Before that, I had been able to see my scalp when looking into the mirror with the light above. After three months I noticed that I wasn't able to see the scalp (or not as easily). I didn't experience any side effects whatsoever. Then I noticed, not sure if it was real, that after three months, the effects seem to start fade. I don't remember what made me think it was fading. Probably it was that I started to see fallen hairs on the pillow in the morning again. Oh, I had fallen hair on the pillow every morning since decades ago. But it had never been a concern until 7 or 8 years ago. And it is a huge concern now (that I can see my scalp anytime under any lighting).

Thanks for any insight or comment.

D:
Propecia/Proscar packaged in 28s is overseas made pills. May or may not be up to US standards and law. So you roll the dice a bit for a better price.
US made Proscar is only in bottle of 30 or 100. That's it.
I paid $340 for 100 Proscar from prescriptionskeywest. They ship fast and I'm happy with the results, so I'll stick with them.
I'm not necesarily saying I have found the cheapest US-made Proscar, just conveying a system that has worked for me personally.
Best of luck.

vocor1
Knowledge is Power
If the worst question is the one never asked, then the worst answer is the one never shared.