Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

My order of the acid arrived today. I tried it on my arm and chest with no visible reaction. I applied a little bit on the corner of my forehead near my hairline using Q-tips. And washed it away a minute later

In the evening I'm going to use cotton balls and apply it on my scalp (hopefully it will get through the hair) and let it soak for an hour or two and them shower.

I'll keep people posted.

Again I call out can we make this a sticky

MisterE,
what is your opinion about finasteride?
Currently I can't completely shave my hair for important work-related reasons. I'll be able to do that in a year, but absolutely not now.
In the meanwhile, is a low fat high carb raw vegan diet sufficient to stop androgenic hairloss? Or is finasteride needed?
In other words, In your opinion, can the McDougall diet alone, completely stop the progression of male pattern baldness?
And can finasteride give an help? Or it is unnecessary? Or even dangerous?

blueyesvegan wrote:MisterE,
what is your opinion about finasteride?
Currently I can't completely shave my hair for important work-related reasons. I'll be able to do that in a year, but absolutely not now.
In the meanwhile, is a low fat high carb raw vegan diet sufficient to stop androgenic hairloss? Or is finasteride needed?
In other words, In your opinion, can the McDougall diet alone, completely stop the progression of male pattern baldness?
And can finasteride give an help? Or it is unnecessary? Or even dangerous?

Have you seen the list of side affects?! all related to your wang...

Conz wrote:

blueyesvegan wrote:MisterE,
what is your opinion about finasteride?
Currently I can't completely shave my hair for important work-related reasons. I'll be able to do that in a year, but absolutely not now.
In the meanwhile, is a low fat high carb raw vegan diet sufficient to stop androgenic hairloss? Or is finasteride needed?
In other words, In your opinion, can the McDougall diet alone, completely stop the progression of male pattern baldness?
And can finasteride give an help? Or it is unnecessary? Or even dangerous?

Have you seen the list of side affects?! all related to your wang...

I perfectly know the sides. But I don't want to discuss them.
I only want to know if diet is sufficient, or finasteride can give a great help in stopping male pattern baldness. Obviously I'm not speaking about reversing hairloss: this has already been very well explained here.

blueyesvegan wrote:MisterE,
what is your opinion about finasteride?
Currently I can't completely shave my hair for important work-related reasons. I'll be able to do that in a year, but absolutely not now.
In the meanwhile, is a low fat high carb raw vegan diet sufficient to stop androgenic hairloss? Or is finasteride needed?
In other words, In your opinion, can the McDougall diet alone, completely stop the progression of male pattern baldness?
And can finasteride give an help? Or it is unnecessary? Or even dangerous?

Finasteride doesn't work... if it did, no one would be bald. Finasteride works by inhibiting the 5-alpha-reductase enzyme that converts free-testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT stimulates sebum production. The solution (in my opinion) would be not to inhibit 5-alpha-reductase, but to lower free-testosterone (by increasing SHBG).

The McDougall diet completely halted my hairloss. And my hairloss was extremely rapid (I lost nearly 75% of my hair within 2-years)! I contribute this beneficial effect to an increase in SHBG, which increases with low intakes of fat and protein and high intakes of carbohydrate and fiber.

Also another side-note, I never really believed that DHT was the guilty hormone in the pathogenesis of baldness or prostate problems. I suspect that estrogen is the guilty hormone in regards to hair and prostate. There is pretty good evidence that estrogen is harmful to the prostate, but there is less evidence that estrogen is bad for the hair. However, I did read a few studies showing that estradiol caused the hair-follicles to enter (prematurely) into catagen-phase and reduced anagen (the growing) phase. More research needs to be done on estrogens effects of hair-growth/hair-cycles, but I have always believed that (excess) estrogen is bad for the hair (just like it is with the prostate or breast).

Perhaps an aromatase inhibitor would work better. The Pritikin-diet was shown to reduce estradiol by 50%, so maybe a starch-based diet, combined with an aromatase-inhibitor would work better for the hair. Finasteride, targets the wrong hormone in my opinion. Men need DHT for libido, sex-drive, erections, sperm, etc.

Ok, so I've used this "treatment" once a week for eight weeks and the results are...



Nothing.

No change.

I don't see it being worth the effort to try anymore. I'm still a bit perplexed by the idea of a baldness treatment that requires you to shave your head bald every six months, or whatever it was.

And I can't believe I just posted a picture of my balding head on the internet.

maybe because you are tan in the second picture, but honestly it looks like you've gained 1/4" or more from the before, your receeding line doesn't go as far back on the U shapes, compare the peak of the U. You should probably have measured before. Even in the front it appears to have filled in a little bit, could just be the skin tone.

Sorry, just not seeing it.

I did manage to get some sun over the summer. And the angle of my head isn't quite the same in the 'after' image, either. That might be making it look a bit different.

Rick,

how often were you putting the acid on? I have had it for some time but have been hesitant to really try it. I did tonight though. My head is not shaved, but hair is short. I can feel it burning. I've had it on now for at least 20 minutes. In about 10 more minutes, i'll wash it out with copious amounts of water.

But, when should I run the comb through to collect the dead skin? Tonight after washing? Tomorrow?

Also, when should the next application be? Tomorrow? Next week?

I know you said it wasn't working for you....but I figure i'll try to stick to this regime for at least a few months to see if a difference occurs.

I was using it once per week. Just let it dry after rinsing and then exfoliate it the following morning.

The thing with my scalp is that I could exfoliate it midweek and get just as much flakiness off of it as I did the morning after the acid wash. So I didn't really see a difference there.

Good luck. Let us know if you get any results. I'm not going to say it doesn't work, just that I didn't see any difference in my particular case.

And you can see that misterE never bothered to come back and comment on my post.

Thanks Rick,

I just put the acid on for about an hour then I rinsed and washed. Next time ill just rinse and go to bed. I'll exfoliate tomorrow and see how it goes. I'm skeptical of the acid, but then again I don't know what else to try.

I also might try to use a cotton swab to apply the acid. I used my hands this time and they feel pretty dry.