Does HRT reverse male patterned baldness
Like the title says. Does your hair grow back when you start HRT or do you keep balding in the same way?
Posted Sep 29, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC
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If you have male pattern baldness:
As hair follicles shrink they stop growing hair and eventually die. The ones that are still alive and not growing hair can come back with HRT. Once your DHT is lowered by reduction in Testosterone than the cause of the hair loss will be treated and you should see some growth, the amount varies as some hair follicles may be dead.
Many people take finasteride for hair loss, but it has a major problem in reducing allopregnanolone as well which is important for healthy nuerological function. I do not recommend taking finasteride as the risks are very high for trans women for depression and finasteride makes it worse. What does work is use minoxidil until your testosterone is supressed and you are on progesterone(which is normally good to start after awhile, may doctors start it at 1 year) Progesterone will help protect your scalp hair, but using it too early in the process may not be ideal.
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Yes. Results vary. If you look at r/transtimelines you can see some pretty good examples of it being reversed.
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looking at r/transtimelines is what brought about the question, it seemed like a lot of people had more hair when they transitioned to female. so i got curious if HRT had any effect on that or if it was a matter of hair transplants/hairstyles to cover up the baldness
Now i'm curious if people going f2m ever get male pattern baldness when they transition to male.
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I have some extensive hair loss (major monk spot). The hair that is gone is gone forever, and there's no way HRT is going to make the remaining hair thick enough to ever cover it.
That's okay. Synthetic wigs have come a long way, and wearing a wig gives me some choices that natural hair wouldn't - it was hot last week, so I wore short hair. It's cool this week, so I can wear long hair. I can change the color and style as often as I want (Eleora wigs aren't that expensive - I have 3 currently, just bought another one that hasn't arrived yet and I see one or two more in my near future, they're between $15 and $40 each).
I will be wearing wigs for the rest of my life, and I'm okay with it.
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My friend had a 1000 dollar wig that was super real and gorgeous. But at that price I would be thinking transplants lol
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Totally not willing to put in the blood that transplants require. I have a friend who works at a transplant place, she swears by it. Says she sees it transform peoples' lives all the time.
...but I really don't want my scalp to bleed and go through all that pain for hair. I'll stick with my inexpensive realistic-enough wigs (haven't had anyone call me out on it yet)!
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Me too, the monk spot. I am looking at ARTAS. Spendy though. (Like 15K! ouch)
The lit for the ARTAS shows it's a one day procedure. removal in the morning, placement in the afternoon, you can drive a couple hours later. Shower the next day.
You or your friend have thoughts on the ARTAS process?
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According to my doctor, there's no evidence past antidotal to suggest that hair regrowth happens with male pattern baldness. However she has seen some cases where some hair (often quite thin) does come back. It does slow, or possibly eliminate its progression, as male pattern baldness is influenced through testosterone.
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Once a follicle shrinks past a certain point it is gone. "Regrowth" are actually just the hairs that are shed but not quite dead coming back. If someone has a lot of hair that is in that phase they may see a good amount of "regrowth".
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I am not on Finasteride, I am on spiro and estradiol, my hair was thinning, it was basically bald at the corners and back, and now it's grown back though my doctor said it wouldn't, but it did, now the bald spots are thick with hair and you cannot see my scalp.
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I have extremely minimal knowledge about this but im only on spiro and E, and at 11 months. My hairline has grown out a bit, and where I part my hair used to be a bit thinner than it is now. So I think some regrowth is possible without changing your meds or getting procedures done but keep in mind I'm 21 and wasn't having any really excessive problems beforehand.
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Been using minoxidil for about 9 months then started hrt 4 months ago including finesteride. Anecdotally I can report that my male pattern baldness has gone into retreat. I still wear a hat but to my disbelief it looks like I will have enough hair to style and appear confidently in public as a woman. Women can have pattern baldness too. I hear its about genetics. I will eventually post some sort of timeline.
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A lot of wannabe endo's regurgitating bullshit. Don't take your medical advice from random people in the forums, ask your physician.
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It significantly slows things down, and existing hair may begin to thicken. Regrowth is brought on by combining Finasteride with your HRT.
Finasteride is not a safe drug to take as part of HRT. For the vast majority of people who have male pattern baldness before HRT, once their testosterone is lowered than the DHT levels will be low enough without finasteride anyway and thus useless for most people and anyone taking it will be at high risk of mental health related side effects.
Minoxidil is effective and is a good stop gap measure until a trans woman has been stable on HRT for awhile and no longer has to worry about DHT induced thinning.
Won't minoxidil interfere with actual HRT-based hair regrowth? Cause once you stop minoxidil everything that grew back from it will fall out. And then suddenly I'm a full-time trans woman with a hideous hairline. That's my worry.
I don't think they interfere...as the mechanisms are different, but I can't really know for sure.
Minox is a vasodilator. The regrowth you get, if you stop, will not fall out unless that hair relies on the extra blood flow. For example, hair transplant surgeons prescribe minox to patients to regrow their transplanted hair quicker. There's a lot of bullshit around hair loss/regrowth. Don't believe everything you gear, and try to find scientific data before resorting to anecdotals.
Isn't that the problem though? That the blood flow will cease once you stop minoxidil? I mean, if there was natural blood flow then it wouldn't require minoxidil in the first place, right? Or am I not understanding correctly? Thanks
Uhm.. source? I find this hard to believe. Sounds a lot like the post-finasteride syndrome stuff that circulates other places that has no medical backing.
The reason it does this is that it reduces conversion of progesterone into allopregnanolone. Finasteride inhibits 5α-reductase which is what is responsible for both DHT and allopregnanolone. I've done most if my research through NCBI and medical textbooks.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Steroidogenesis.svg