I searched the sub but did not find an answer, sorry if it has already been asked.

I’m on the big 4 since the end of November. I know it’s too early to draw any conclusions but I already had very good results on top and front, managing to fill an area on the right temple that has been bald for 15 years!

However hair on the crown is still rather thin, as if it’s lagging behind. Does it take longer to regrow according to your experience?

My routine:

1. Finasteride 1 mg / day

2. Minoxidil 5% foam twice a day

3. Dermarolling 0.25 / 0.50 mm 3 times a week before applying Minox

4. DS Laboratories Revita shampoo 3-4 times a week (it contains ketoconazole, biotin, caffeine, etc.)

5. Biotin 5000 mcg / day

6. Vitamin D 5000 UI / day

The crown hair usually regrows faster than frontal hair with drugs like finasteride and/or minoxidil. I am not sure how the microneedling changes that. After a hair transplant, I believe that they grow at about the same rate.

Although this view is from the back of his head, someone who loves him should tell him to cut it all off.  Having it is worse than the alternative. I personally would rather be bald then be ridiculed by others who see what I could not see

It has come down to this, there is no doubt that I will lose all my hair, so I either get a transplant or go bald. The thing is that I live in Sweden and it’s kinda pricey here. I know “You get what you pay for” but I kinda want to look in at the opportunity of getting one in another country. I talked with a doctor that had gotten one, but he couldn’t say where he had gotten his. So just wanted to ask if anyone got any information that could help about where to get one maybe?

There are many good doctors in South America, Mexico and Europe (including easter Europe) where prices are less than the US so if you are going to consider traveling to save money, find some of these excellent doctors. In Turkey, there are also some excellent doctors but they are not the cheap ones so you will pay Eastern European prices for them but you can get good quality. The amount of money they charge tells you if they have delegated the surgery to non-physicians so that they can offer if for ridiculously low prices.

What does that tell you about my response to finasteride?

I don’t remember seeing anything written (published) that relate testosterone blood levels to finasteride effectiveness. There is some logic that suggests that high natural testosterone men might be less responsive to finasteride but I could not find that published. We do know, however, that higher testosterone levels might lead to earlier initiation of the balding genetics.

When doing a hair transplant, you must understand more than the technical issues of putting grafts into holes on the head.  The person doing this obviously didn’t understand this. It was done by a clinic in Turkey that had no surgeon, no artistry and no knowledge of what makes a good hair transplant. This picket fence can be seen coming from the post operative photo on the left

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6026438/

Although Recycling transplanted hair is a reasonable technology, the need for this obscures the fact that to move it means that it may have been done wrong in the first place.  Doing it right is better than doing it wrong and then having to move the hair as this article shows.