Pretty suprised at a lot of the comments here. The top comment is saying bald people should just get over how they feel and accept it, and a lot of people are saying that the scientists developing the cure are wasting resources that could be spent on something else. I doubt comments telling a trans person to "just move on and accept that you don't feel comfortable with your body" would go over well here, so maybe people should think before telling someone with premature balding that their anxiety and self-image issues aren't real problems.
Same here. The one other person that mentioned trans women was downvoted into oblivion. And in general, all the comments are very male centric.
Women have hair loss too. Cancer or alopecia. Although many can embrace their baldness, to dismiss it as just “get some clippers, hair is socially constructed” is so bizarre to read.
This is a good video about a woman who has hair loss and how even wearing a wig is difficult: https://youtu.be/ujvQMpPDq40
My wife discovered, during pregnancy, that she has hair loss associated with hypothyroidism. Point being that endocrine disorders can lead to hair loss, as well.
Another issue is that some have trichotillomania, which causes them to nervously pull out their own hair. Lots of causes. But that aside, there are many more men with hair loss then women [0] [1]. Opinions aside, there are objectively significantly more men than women who have the problem. Women also can cover it more due to longer hair. Not reasonable to call comments "male centric" when the majority of people with hair loss are male.
Spoken like someone whose never had thinning hair. Long hair makes it look worse, not better.
For many women, a hair is her identity. A man is still valued more by his means of providing and status in competence hiearchies than his appearance. This is not the same with female mammals.
I think there's a strange double-standard where men are painted as weak or vain for worrying about hair loss, while at the same time the media portrays a thick head of hair - which is probably not realistic for a majority of men in their late 20's and beyond - as part of the definition of attractiveness. A huge number of celebrities, who serve as the model for what men "should" look like, either use hairpieces or have undergone hair replacement surgery. I don't think it's any wonder it's a source of stress for many men.
Sometimes I get all tin-foil and think the machinery of society is just out to make as many people feel bad about themselves as possible.
All throughout my teens and even twenties, I would regularly have people poking fun at how thick my hair was / the amount of correlated body hair I had. People weren't being super mean, but it was a low key constant; just enough to get under my skin. I did my best to play it cool, but it really affected me and shaped my body image in ways I'm still working through.
Now that I'm in my mid thirties and things have thinned to more "normal" levels, the rolls are flipped. People almost _expect_ me to make fun of balding men. When I balk at those sorts of comments as being unacceptable, I get some really bewildered responses.
I just can't get over the flashbacks and wondering if said people have never experienced some version that treatment.
I'm inclined to agree; I also think it's bizarre that people think that this research exists only in a vacuum, like the idea of being able to 3D-print stem cells couldn't possibly be used for something life-saving or more-directly pragmatic later.
Like going to the moon, sometimes arguably-useless things work really well as a means to develop technologies. By setting an arbitrary goal, you have clear "success" and "failure" metrics. I've reimplemented Conway's Game of Life about 13 times, not because the world needs another implementation of CGOL (let alone 13), but because it's a clearly defined goal that I can easily test, and gives me something to work for when learning a new programming language.
As I stated in a comment below, balding can result in disadvantages to ones career and partnership options that are all but real.
A number of studies suggest that there is a not insignificant number of men (and of course women) that have psychological issues like anxiety and depression stemming from going bald and I don't think anyone is in a position to easily dismiss that.[1]
I think one valuable takeaway from that study and from discussions about altering one's appearance is that some people literally aren't fine just the way they are. Looks are not merely superficial attributes.
Your appearance (actually, society's response to your appearance) heavily affects your mental health, happiness, career development, and relationship prospects. Appearance is quite literally life-altering.
What you said should be blindingly obvious to everybody, and yet some people feel the need to prove how enlightened they are by saying things like "the baldness doesn't define you". Sure, it does not define you, but it can definitely be a huge kick in the groin for your self-esteem.
And all the people saying that those resources could have been used somewhere else are technically right, but likely hypocritical or, at the very least, cognitively dissonant. A large portion of the people on HN are working in IT, and a lot of them are working on either CRUD apps or, maybe worse, on figuring out ways to squeeze more revenue from private user data via ads because, like it or not, that's where the big money is. To other industries, we are also resources being wasted because we could all use our brains to computationally tackle medicine, climate change etc., but we go for the well paid hedge fund 0-sum game.
Balding guy here. I never considered it to be a big deal. I don't think women tend to care very much. They care a lot more if I'm in shape and have a good career, not so much if my hair is receding.
All of the previous methods for dealing with male baldness also focus on inhibiting testosterone, and as such the typical side effects can include "lowered sex drive & breast growth." I'd much rather just be bald.
I don’t think this comment is anymore helpful than the “just get over it” comments. And I don’t imagine it’s anything like a gender crisis. I imagine that’s much worse. Closer to a women with really small breasts imo.
So, “just get over it” and “join my pity party” aren’t helpful. As a 27 year old man who is completely bald (horseshoe bald). I’ll share with you what has helped me.
I keep myself fit. I hate gyms and I can’t afford the commute time so I bought some adjustable dumbbells that I store in my closet. I’ve found about 20-30 minutes a day 3 days a week is enough. I do a combination of “old man burst training” (focusing on getting my heart rate up and running out of breath), weight training and yoga work best for me. I’m barrel chested so I focus on broadening my shoulders and back for symmetry. This was a “just do it” kind of thing after I got tired of making excuses. It’s not something I dread anymore. I’m the type of person who needs a kick in the ass. Acknowledging that and working to kick my own ass has been my greatest gift to myself.
I’ve worked hard on my posture. I’ve always slouched. Mentally, this has required the most effort.
Go to the dentist! (White teeth are the goal don’t get crazy and end up with that creepy blue look).
If you’re white, get some sun!
Learn to appreciate clothes and style. This was the hardest to learn for me. I’m naturally conservative but I’ve found a way to be conservative (comfortable) and stylish. You don’t have to be rich, I’ve found some great stuff on the cheap at Ross and the like. Being in shape also makes everything fit better. If you can afford it find a good tailor.
It takes work but if you tick all the boxes above you’ll find your romantic life will improve and possibly your career too. I was never a great athlete but our office park has a basketball court and I do just fine. I’ve made some good business contacts on the court too. And you don’t need to be bald to take any of this advice.
Female baldness on the other hand… I don’t know what to say other than my heart goes out to you.
As far as wasted scientific research goes it is a bit silly to think that there can't exist other applications in the future for their discoveries. Which may already not be limited to solving baldness.
I generally agree, but: how early in one's life must hair loss occur for it be considered "premature" balding? More importantly, why can't we accept that a man at any age may suffer from anxiety, depression, and/or loss of confidence due to androgenic alopecia?
Also, I think people forget that science is not self-contained: advances in hair loss reversal could lead to discoveries in unrelated fields. Now that we're experimenting with stem cells and the like, the mind reels at the possibilities.
I suspect that bald(ing) individuals wouldn't have nearly such a problem if it wasn't used to judge them, yet I hear more criticism of bald(ing) people for worrying about it than I hear of the people who criticize and judge over hair loss.
Why are these people wasting their time on cutting-edge medical research instead of doing something important, like figuring out better ways to sell advertising?
It's actually kind of interesting how people who possess empathy can be very dismissive of those with "image" issues. I don't find it that hard to understand people who have body image problems, but then again, I've had all sorts of body issues all my life so I can relate. Still, I would hope that people could use reason to place themselves in the shoes of others, but apparently that's really difficult for them.
I don't think people understand how much one's image affects how others treat them until they've experienced something like baldness, obesity, vitiligo, acne, eczema, psoriasis, asymmetry, etc. While I've never been treated poorly by virtue of being bald, there's a world of difference between having hair and being bald. People are more amenable to me in my baldness and beardness, but strangers were also more friendly to me when I had hair on the top of my head. I used to be overweight and constantly got disrespected, and once I lost all that weight, I was really shocked at how much more friendliness and respect I got merely for being thin.
Everyone is visually driven and judges the character of others based on their innate appearances, and that's just the way things are. We tell each other the noble lie that you can compensate for ugliness by having good character, and maybe you can to some extent, but the odds really aren't in your favor. I encourage everyone to question whether they unfairly judge others based on things that say nothing about a person's character or competence. In my experience, the average person really isn't aware of just how much their vision guides their judgment of others.
For those who haven't experienced baldness, becoming bald can actually be disorienting. I lost a lot of my hair in a few short years, and it took me a very long time to look in the mirror and fully recognize myself. Hair is actually a major way in which we are able to identify other people, which there's a good chance that you can look at the following image and know who the hair belongs to:
I did get used to my bald self after a while, but it can be very depressing to no longer see "yourself" because your body is deteriorating. And because strangers treat bald people differently, the problem can seem even worse than it actually is.
Although I'm fine being totally bald, I can completely understand why people would want their hair back. I would want more hair just so I could have a mohawk at least one time in my life, just for fun. ;)
I started going bald at a relatively young age. I fretted about it for a while, tried different hair cuts etc, and was pretty unhappy about it. After looking in to a few different treatments, procedures and dismissing them all due to side effects and/or cost I bought a pair of clippers and started shaving my own head regularly. The first day I did it was totally liberating, now I wouldn’t go back to having hair even if I had the option. The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry to sell you these expensive crap treatments. Balding is an entirely healthy and natural human process. Embrace your baldness, stop trying to “fix” it and focus on solving the real problems in the world.
As someone who went bald before I was 20 (Like you it sounds like), I'd say you're heavily generalizing. Sure, shaving your head worked for you and solved your problem, but that doesn't mean it is a solution that solves the problem for everybody, and claiming that it's not a "real" problem because you found a solution that works for you is a bit ridiculous.
It's easy to say I should just completely shave my head and ignore what others think of me, but for me that's not a solution that has worked - it would be great if it did and I could just will myself to stop being self-conscious, but that hasn't worked that well for me. And if a "cure" for baldness would fix my problem then that's useful to me and a solution to a real problem I have - and it is something that would certainly improve my current quality of life.
Like you I began going bald before the age of 20. I was teased a bit in highschool but nothing that I let get to me enough to leave scars. I don’t know how old you are but until my late 20’s I’d wear a hat and preferred social scenes where it was appropriate. By the time I hit my mid 30’s I was more comfortable. Now in my 40’s it’s a non-issue. Meanwhile, friends of mine who began thinning in their 30’s are still fretting about it. I wonder if they’ll be comfortable by their the time they hit 50.
Reasons I chose to go with a shaved head:
My dad wore a toupee and nobody was allowed over after dad took it off (he’d take it off immediately after work, apparently they’re not very comfortable). My uncle tried every new cream/lotion that came on the market and was obsessed (he died of brain cancer at age 62 btw). My grandfather, was just bald. Of the three my grandfather was the most confident and comfortable in his on skin.
I’m not telling you to just get over it, it’s demoralizing when you’re young. I just hope that with time you’ll become more comfortable with yourself. My wife and previous girlfriends never had a problem with it as many women don’t. At this point she tells me what length I should keep it and I just go with that.
I would imagine it all depends on where you are in your romantic life. If you're 35 and happily married, I doubt you would fret way too much about balding.
But if you're 25 and right in the middle of your dating life, balding is a handicap
Survey results show that this is exactly the case.
Here's a survey across three age groups of women. Around a third of women across age groups feel neutral about bald men. The youngest women (18-24) are generally unattracted by bald men (47%), while among the oldest women (35-44), 44% find baldness at least slightly attractive. The middle age-group had intermediate preferences.
So yes, if you are younger, baldness could presumably hurt your dating life, while older men are probably significantly less affected.
I wouldn’t cal it a handicap. I think a lot of it comes down to confidence. Women can tell when a guy is not confident in himself / his appearance and that’s a turn off.
I wonder if the cancer was related to the creams and stuff he tried though.
Terrible way to go out. My mother died from glioblastomas. Completely random (as far as we know). She was a very healthy person and did not smoke or drink after her young 20s.
As an almost-bald man myself (who shaves smooth twice a week; what a chore [0]), may I respectfully ask if you've considered treating the psychology of self-consciousness [1] rather than the hair loss?
[0] Seriously, can someone please invent a a once-and-for-all hair removal process that means I never have to shave again? While losing my hair was the "problem" initially, the real problem has turned out to be that the balding stopped. I wish it had continued to completion.
[1] Also, if you had say, implants, wouldn't it be possible that you'd still be self-conscious, but this time about whether the implants were detectable?
You can do waxing, a little painful but a lot less "Maintenance", also if you are sure you want to go the full Monty you can go laser hair removal (it's not totally permanent but it goes away for a long time).
Right; if I started going bald, I’d want a “cure” or treatment — I have a weirdly shaped head and it genuinely looks terrible with short cropped (or shaved) hair unfortunately! It doesn’t work for everyone, sadly.
> if I started going bald, I’d want a “cure” or treatment
If I started going bald, I'd do anything I could to stop it. I'm not particularly vain, so I don't think this desire really comes from vanity, it's more a stubbornness to accept aging and eventually death.
So? Why is the aesthetics important to you? If it's functional and useful but looks ugly, then I consider it a mature and developed response to choose that nonetheless.
Your, and others, preference for appearance doesn't need to be weighed into your decision, unless you wish it too.
Because I enjoy looking good, where looking good is defined by my own aesthetics. You are not the arbiter on what I get to spend my limited amount of "focus" credits on in life, and I find your insinuation that my caring about my appearance and style is "immature" a little offensive.
I think you've misunderstood. I don't care about what you look like. The point is _you_ have a choice what weight you give it, you can choose to care less or more about it (at some level).
The reason to answer the "so?" question is to understand it for yourself, your answer doesn't matter to me in the slightest.
> find your insinuation that my caring about my appearance and style is "immature" a little offensive. //
I don't think it's immature to care about one's appearance; I do think it takes a particular development of character - that usually comes from maturity - to feel a desire to conform one's appearance to a particular pattern but look beyond that, and learn to accept it.
Along with that I'd note that appearance is often all-consuming for teenagers, and less important for most people as they age (things like functionality and longevity, say, become higher priorities than the simple look of a thing).
All that said, I'm not sure why you're so hostile to my opinion: as you say your life is not mine. If you're content in that then that's showing just the same sort of developed, mature, thinking.
[TL;DR] So, I merely suggest you answer for yourself why "I enjoy looking good" and _consciously_ decide on the weighting that has in sartorial and other aesthetic decisions.
>[TL;DR] So, I merely suggest you answer for yourself why "I enjoy looking good" and _consciously_ decide on the weighting that has in sartorial and other aesthetic decisions.
Which, I have. It's the fact that your original comment has unneeded swipes at complete strangers maturity for expression their opinions and worries regarding what they find attractive in themselves that I have issues with. If you can't see why one could read your messages in that matter, then I'm not sure how else to explain it I'm afraid.
[TL;DR] Being bald looks gross on me. I don't like that, because I like looking nice. This isn't a sign of immaturity, as much as you keep repeating it as it that'll make it true.
If you think I've claimed someone is immature then your reading comprehension or logical model is lacking (now you have something I actually said that you can feel offended about).
If my cup of tea isn't hot then you presumably assume it has ice in it.
> So? Why is the aesthetics important to you? If it's functional and useful but looks ugly, then I consider it a mature and developed response to choose that nonetheless.
Then why don't you shave? Actually, why do you take care of your appearance at all?
I'm pretty sure that you do a minimum of works on your appearance. The same reasons you do apply to people balding.
I'm actually not interested in your response, I'm interested in how you justify your previous comment while still not being able to apply it yourself.
Your appearance is important, even if you don't want it to be true. You answering these questions may make you realize how appearance is important. Anyone else answering for you won't change how you think.
I appreciate what works for one person won't necessarily work for another and sure, if if this is a real problem for you then anything that can help you is great.
>and ignore what others think of me
What others think of us is important, sure, we're social creatures. But do others really think anything negative of us if we have a number 2? There are loads of people either bald or with close cuts that are well respected and beloved. Even celebrities widely regarded as good looking. It's not like it's a universal sign of ugliness, nowadays anyway. My dad used to have a comb-over. Yeesh!
I loved having hair, I like to think I was pretty good looking, but now I'm a slap-head and that's fine. One day I'll be dead. Eh. *hit happens.
I‘m not bald but I think your view on that matter is very simplified and a bit shortsighted.
Healthy hair is a big contributor to the perceived attractiveness of a person, which in turn can have a big influence on the career success of a person (numerous studies proof that). So going bald can severely limit ones career options and/or negatively influence the currently chosen career path.
Personally, as a more drastic example, I think a bald(ing) person would have harder to become US president than the same person not bald(ing).
Also shaving your head definitely is not an option for everyone. You have to have a very well proportioned head and normal looking ears to make it look acceptable or even good.
So balding can also severely influence your perceived sexual attractiveness and limit your options for mating.
I think its not just superfluousness or as you state an "idea […] socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry" that make a number of men who are starting to bald also getting depressed.
It might be just the realization of some of the things I stated above and/or other factors, which I would not dismiss so easily.
Comparing a US presidential election with Russia's system is not solving the problem. Baldness is intimidating, while most US elections hinge on a bit of friendly charismatic attractiveness.
Nobody is saying that bald people can't be attractive, but it _severely_ limits the kind of look you can go for. Nobody wants Vladimir Putin to be their child's elementary school teacher.
Patrick Stewart has this awesome interview about his baldness. I'm not balding yet but it has inspired me enough that I plan to shave it all off when I eventually start.
Even though Stewart lost his hair at an early age, he didn’t shave it bald for a number of years. He relates the hilarious story of the first time he went fully bald, “There was a man who was at drama school with me, Hungarian, he was older than the rest of us, he ran his own theater in Budapest. He was a man of strong personality and a good loyal friend to me. He and his wife invited me for lunch one day, the two of them got to the end of their lunch and I thought they were going to make a coffee or something.
Then all of a sudden, I was grabbed from behind by George, this big powerful man, and I thought he was playing some kind of game, so I was laughing and joking but then his wife appeared in front of me with a pair of scissors and I knew in an instant what she was going to do, and I began to scream and shout, and now it was serious. I was fighting to keep my appearance, then she lifted my hair and cut it all off.
Then George came around, knelt down in front of me and said, now you be yourself – no more hiding! And he was right because I used to walk constantly embarrassed, I couldn’t stand-up properly. It was not only inhibiting as a person, but it was hopeless if you were an actor, of course.”
The reporter asked Gene Roddenberry "It doesn't make any sense, you've got a bald actor playing this part. Surely by the 24th century they would have found a cure for male-pattern baldness?" and Gene Roddenberry said "No, by the 24th century no-one will care."
In the Czechoslovakian 1980s TV series Návstevníci ("The Visitors" [0] - available dubbed in other languages) - the people in the future all are bald. They all use wigs though, different ones. I guess the show decided on having wigs so that the actors didn't all have to shave and only the first few initial parts of the series, those that play in the future (the rest is in 1984), had to be played with only a few seconds of baldness. Otherwise they would probably have gone for complete baldness as the haircut of the future.
By the way, that is one of the best TV series ever. Time travel involved but that really doesn't matter, only once to set the stage, not used to fix plot issues or to have an excuse not to care about the logic of the storyline. Absolutely captivating, like all those Czechoslovakian series from that era. Without any violence at all. If there is an English version, dubbed or subtitles, do watch it. It takes off slowly, it really only starts "for real" after the 3rd part or so, after they arrive in 1984.
I used to watch this show when I was a kid too. It was fascinaniting to see food cook itself that came out of a toothpastelike tube or the time travel devices. It was a great show, I’ll try to watch it again and maybe even appreciate it more. Thanks for sharing
I get what you mean but also from another perspective: If one can switch from being bald to not being bald and vice versa in a snap, definitely no one would care.
As someone who's seen a few slightly chubby bald guys transformed into buff bald guys over the years just by hitting the gym a few times a week and eating better, I'd wager that the "be attractive" part isn't as far out of reach as some people think.
This is a transformation almost everyone can make with enough commitment. On top of that, guys really underestimate how much they can change in themselves to look more confident and attractive E.g. Good posture, proper hygiene, trimming eyebrows and facial hair to look sharper, fitting clothes, etc etc
Rather than obsessing over everything you could lose, set your mind focus on what you can improve and the results will follow.
Joe Rogan (51 years old) also speaks openly about being on TRT. I've always been the type of person who'd rather leave things to nature, to the point where I'll tough out an illness with rest and fluids where others will reach for antibiotics, but sometimes I think about trying out TRT when I get older. I mean, aging gracefully is all fine and good, but if you had the option to have the speed and power of a 25 year old into your 50's and 60's, why wouldn't you consider it?
> The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed
Humans are a social species, and trying to discount something as being not important or not “real” because it is a social norm just completely ignores large parts of human history and evolution as a social species.
Social interactions and conformity (within a limit) are extremely strong drivers of both friendship circles and options for successful mating. Many women consider a nice head of hair as an important trait for attraction, and few men would date a bald woman either.
You simply cannot discount these facts (or say they are not facts because they are “social”) just because doing so helps you to accept your situation, and certainly can’t say that everyone else should also do the same. Especially for young men who have not yet had the chance to find a mate, this is a very important issue.
Looking this up, I stumbled on an interesting observation:
> Bald–hairy (Russian: лысый–волосатый) is a common joke in Russian political discourse, referring to the empirical rule of the state leaders' succession defined as a change of a bald/balding leader to a hairy one and vice versa. This consistent pattern can be traced back until as early as 1825
In the US maybe. Where I'm from (Israel) the majority of prime ministers were bald or balding. It seems a lot of Russian/Soviet leaders were bald as well (and this seem to apply to many European countries).
Not by a long shot! I would say Italy's had the US beat there for centuries. Probably South Korea also. I'd wager men under 30 in London probably also invest more time and money in their appearance than almost any group of men in the US.
But where is the proof that the reason we're averse to baldness is because of social construction?
Your statement is equivalent to saying that women prefer taller men due to social construction...because women on dating sites prefer taller men. It's circular logic and fails to address the reason why they prefer taller men.
It's absolutely due to evolution, not social construction.
Same thing for women - they prefer physically strong, tall men. It's also due to evolution. It boils down to survival of the fittest - the fittest had the most resources, and a mother needs resources to reproduce (mother's can't hunt while breastfeeding, so that's out of the question). Yes, it's that simple.
Same thing for men - they prefer young, sexually attractive, fertile females.
Those are our instincts anyway. We can and we do influence them consciously.
No it’s not, there are some things we absolutely know and this is not one of them. This kind of stuff is extremely complex, and there aren’t good ways to test hypotheses.
Here's some questions we can ask to help answer the question:
- is this preference common to all known cultures?
- is this preference found in other mammals, including our closest relatives?
- if taller partners were selected for because they 'can offer greater protection to their partners and children from other men, and were likely to have been better providers of food and other resources throughout our evolutionary history' then are women with a higher fear of crime more likely to prefer physically formidable and dominant males? And do women who score lower on dominance show a stronger preference for taller men?
https://m.phys.org/news/2018-06-women-sexual-tall-dominant-m...
Simply being tall requires a higher caloric intake, and thus puts tall people at a disadvantage. The genes for tall stature do not express themselves when that higher food intake is not present during developmental stages. Tall people are more a phenomena of advanced agriculture than natural selection. They are not necessarily more formitable, but are rather a larger target, or a clumsier hunter. Evolutionarily, being tall means a lifetime of above-average access to food, and while that's desireable in a mate, it's just as much about the environment one lives in as it is the genes one's born with.
> Simply being tall requires a higher caloric intake, and thus puts tall people at a disadvantage
This is assuming that food intake is the only factor contributing to fitness. There are other possibilities. E.g. taller (larger) males may have advantages in competing with other males for mates, and thus be better at spreading their genes. Females who preferred such males would thus be better at spreading their genes down the generations.
> Evolutionarily, being tall means a lifetime of above-average access to food, and while that's desireable in a mate, it's just as much about the environment one lives in as it is the genes one's born with.
Evolution doesn't only concern the genes, as if environmental factors were distinct from evolution. Fitness is always a function of both genes and the environment.
Or unmarried? Or very short? Or without a perfect set of teeth?
Vanity is extreme in US politics, and US public life in general. You’ll find an extreme skew for high level US managers being taller and having more hair than the population on average .
Depends of your culture. By the comments here and my experience hair as a symbol seems relatively important in the US, but maybe that’s due to heavy marketing from pharma companies. Some other countries have preferences for short or very short hair[1].
Also regarding attractiveness don’t be fooled, it’s marginal compared to being in good shape and how you behave.
I'm genuinely glad that you're happy, but I like having hair, and keeping it would improve my quality of life for the simple reason that I like not having to worry about sunburn on the top of my head.
Maybe so. But hats aren't hair, and as I said, I like having hair. I like the sun protection in the day. I like the cold protection at night. I like how it feels when a woman runs her fingers through it.
These are not life-shattering things. If and when I eventually go bald, I'll be fine. I am capable of wearing hats, and head scratches feel pretty good, too.
But, if I had a safe way of keeping mine, I'd do so. Just because a project isn't solving cancer or world hunger doesn't mean it isn't something worth doing.
I understand where you’re coming from and I’m confident that, I’m the future, there will be a solution for baldness — the market segment is too large to ignore.
Plus, I do believe people should be happy and having hair is a lifestyle improvement for most.
Your confidence is misplaced. From a business point of view they’re making more money now by managing symptoms than if it were possible to completely cure baldness.
While the thesis of your argument is valid (based on US healthcare and their sentiment), your argument is, most likely, flawed.
The premise is that a “cure” is a one time expense, hence why it’s less appealing than managing symptoms. However, in this particular case, I believe the cure will be similar to ED solutions: continued stream of income.
Per the article, the amount of work to replace hair is costly. In addition, it requires follow ups and maintenance. Hence, between the multi-stage process and maintenance procedures, it will be a goldmine.
In the future, a solution for baldness will, most likely, resemble skincare products or vision correction.
>> Christiano, who has an autoimmune disorder that caused her body to attack the hair cells on her head, notes that though much attention around hair loss is paid to men, some 30 million women in the United States experience thinning of their hair.
Perhaps it's different for men, but there are few events that I would experience as more disfiguring than losing my hair, and they all involve severe trauma. In fact, I have a facial scar from a fall when I was a kid and I don't ever think about it. But one time I managed to sear my hair off with too much bleaching and the couple of months until I was sure it was growing back were some of the hardest I've ever been through.
Is that socially constructed? I suppose having a nose (rather than just a pair of nostrils) is socially constructed. But we live in a socially constructed world and some things are harmful, even if they have no real substance.
Edit: but I'm proud of you if you can get over some of those things and more power to you. A handsome man is a handsome man, hair or not. I'm making a comment about how this sort of therapy can be beneficial to women, also, for whom losing hair is not "natural" (in many ways).
> Embrace your baldness, stop trying to “fix” it and focus on solving the real problems in the world.
I'm reminded of a spot-on comment by Gene Roddenberry:
> At a press conference about Star Trek: The Next Generation, a reporter asked Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry about casting Patrick Stewart, commenting that "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Gene Roddenberry had the perfect response.
How good one looks with his head shaved depends a lot of the shape of your head, your ears and nose and your facial hair.
If you have big ears, there's no way you won't benefit of a full head of hair. The more perfect or circular your head, the more shaving will suit you.
Furthermore, you can play with your beard because its rare to find a clean shaved guy that looks good without one. But if you don't grow enough facial hair or have holes in it... You're out of luck.
My conclusion is shaving will help some, but it's no golden bullet.
Yep. I'm 22, thinning, have a baby face, and can't grow facial hair that doesn't look like a 13-year-old who hasn't learned to shave yet. If I shaved my head I'd look like an overgrown baby.
> The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry to sell you these expensive crap treatments
Are you sure about that? Because virtually every historical epic with an attractive hero makes sure to mention the hero's full head of hair.
Or maybe Homer was just trying to sell hair care products
I first shaved my head for high swim team and after college started shaving it daily and would never go back. Save much time & money that other people spend drying, styling and cutting hair. It’s great to be able to dunk my head under the tap on a hot day and dry off after showering or water sports with one wipe.
> The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry to sell you these expensive crap treatments. Balding is an entirely healthy and natural human process.
Those two sentences seem fine with one another, until you think about what "natural human process" means. It's aging. It's getting old. It's getting out of reproductive phase.
It's completely normal to be devastated for males (and especially females) when they start losing hair. It has been linked with numerous health problems (so it's just not for vanity reasons).
It's very rare the case where bald looks better than full head of hair. Almost never, I would say.
Full head of hair = indicates youth and good health.
I can sympathize with you as I’ve been shaving my head since I was 23 because of thinning hair. Ive never felt self conscious about my hair, or lack there of, not have I ever explored medical treatments. However, ive always had an issue with the maintenance. Why should I be bald and still have to buzz my head every 4 days? Rotten deal.
Now, if the medical community came out with a way for me to keep my 0 buzz without constant maintenance, I’ll gladly sign up. And I’m not talking about laser removal to have a shiny head..I like my buzz but maintenance is a pain.
(This comment is light hearted and in jest.)
Regardless, being bald , in my opinion, doesn’t really mean much. Sure some folks talk nonsense or point it out but I feel pity for their thought process. We have so many responsibilities and worries in life that hair shouldn’t be in the top 10. Life’s too short to worry about such nonsense.
> The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry
Going bald means losing something you're not getting back (generally speaking). This is symbolic for something not being good/right in your life, either by your choices or not, whether by stress, diet, exorcise, genetics, whatever. I think this symbolic nature is also a reason people consider it bad.
Yeah, they were transplanted. For me, it was a two-day operation because I wanted more follicles. It was a bit of a hassle at the start, and a bit painful the first day, but overall it wasn't really that bad. It takes a week or so before you don't look weird, and you have to be super careful for a month, but after that it's just your hair.
Your results may vary, although I think I got perhaps the best result out of all of their patients. They seemed really excited about how it turned out.
I thought it would look better for the $5k I spent, but that probably says more about how they managed my expectations than about the work they did. It looks perfectly natural.
You just need Toppik or similar with a matching color and nobody could tell... Used by stylists for movie stars all the time, including females. I bought a bunch of colors for my photoshoots as many models have their hair destroyed from all the stuff they are using and fixing it in Photoshop is unnecessarily time consuming (OK, GANs are coming, so it might be instant soon...). It looks pretty natural in studio lights unless you zoom in significantly.
> The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry to sell you these expensive crap treatments
The problem is that it is not something you can ignore or control. One can embrace their baldness but that doesn't stop other people's prejudice.
And these prejudices have real social and personal impact.
While I am not quite there on the balding aspect, I feel a similar way about beards.
For some weird genetic reason, at 30yo, I still can’t grow much facial hair and all of the hair above my lips is blonde. I do grow quite a bit of hair below the jaw-line though...
It doesn’t bother me much even though beards are nearly universal where I live among men (Texas) and all the men in my family grow full, uniform-colored lumberjack beards.
I wish I felt the same about balding and hairlines... can’t say that I do. I have always had thin hair and started noticing balding around age 24-25, I’d guess. None of the brothers aged 35-50 have much noticeable balding. Genetically, I guess I got the short end of the stick with regards to hair in my family.
> I feel a similar way about beards.
For some weird genetic reason, at 30yo, I still can’t grow much facial hair and all of the hair above my lips is blonde. ... It doesn’t bother me much even though beards are nearly universal where I live among men (Texas) and all the men in my family grow full, uniform-colored lumberjack beards.
Do you really care about having a beard? It sounds like you care more about fitting in with other people around you. A beard will never make or break you, forget about it, show your value through something meaningful and people will respect far more than anything that can grow on your face.
If this works out, being bald or balding is going to signal you're too poor to get the treatment. I would expect a similar level of social stigma as lacking a front tooth.
In many ways that stigma already exists for women. Women with thinning hair can get hair extensions if they have an extra $600 in their budget every few weeks.
The economics even apply to women dealing with hair loss related to medical conditions/treatments. Insurance companies have to cover one "cranial prosthesis" a year but they're only required to offer $300 of coverage. That wouldn't even pay for the typical Comic Con wig. A mid-quality human hair partial wig is around $3,000. A quality human hair full wig is around $10,000.
Women with more money (and better health insurance) are able to get the $10,000 wig while women with fewer resources are often forced to just make do.
>The entire idea that losing your hair is bad is socially constructed by the mass media and advertising industry to sell you these expensive crap treatments.
I'm with you as far as not having hair being liberating. I'm not losing my hair, but for many years shaved my head out of pure convenience; the maintenance was so much easier.
But not every thing is a conspiracy to sell you something. On average people are more attracted to not-balding as opposed to balding. If those things concern you, solutions (kind of) exist.
Well if you ask me, the face shaving is even worse social construct and the whole industries were invented around it... but that's because I hate shaving, and also like how I look with the beard better. However, let's take into account that beard or shaved head look doesn't work for everyone's style. Even more important some people like it better one way or the other for their own set of reasons (like me being too lazy to shave regularly).
I also just hated worrying about which hairstyle to get, how to maintain that style, and when to repeat that process. Now it's a cheap and simple part of my routine that looks and feels great!
Only downside buzzing myself is that I occasionally miss a small spot if I'm in a hurry, but it's never a big deal and it's easy to fix.
i agree with you. this is just like being a little weighted is 'bad' or having crooked teeth is 'bad'. people should appreciate all of human spectrum, not just some TV ideals.
happy for you that you are happy with yourself and got over it :) good on you! - i know a lot of people can end up in a struggle due to this kind of pressure on 'image'
Men are much more likely to lose hair though. And I feel like women can make wearing a wig work much better than men, but it's not a competition. I do know that thinning of hair women suffer from strucks them hard.
No, I'm a genetically bald monkey. Of course I had, and older, thinner, less numerous hairs are a different kind of bore. In you twenties hairs almost fall into place cutely.
I recommend you to watch Up in the Air.
"You know, honestly by the time you're 34, all the physical requirements just go out the window. You secretly pray that he'll be taller than you, not an asshole would be nice just someone who enjoys my company, comes from a good family. You don't think about that when you're younger. Someone who wants kids, likes kids. Healthy enough to play with his kids. Please let him earn more money than I do, you might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day otherwise that's a recipe for disaster. And hopefully, some hair on his head. I mean, that's not even a deal breaker these days. A nice smile. Yea, a nice smile just might do it."
Propecia is basically a cure for baldness as long as you start taking it before you lose too much hair. It’s very widely used—walk into any gay bar in San Francisco and you will notice there is hardly anyone under 40 who is bald.
There is a strange phenomenon online where in every discussion of propecia, someone will show up and claim they had terrible sexual side effects. But in the original clinical trials, the rate of such side effects was nearly the same as placebo. And I personally know about 10 men who take it and none have experienced side effects. I think people make these claims to get attention in forums, or it’s simply a placebo effect.
Why the cut off at the age of 40? Either it's a "cure" or it's not. I think that you'll find that actually it only slows down hair loss and only for a percentage of people.
Maybe the reason you're not seeing bald men in these bars is the swimmer effect. i.e. bald men aren't successful there so bald men don't show up.
The reason you don't see many bald men on TV shows or that you can count the number of world famous bald "leading man" actors on the fingers of one hand isn't because there's already a magic cure for baldness that actors use but other don't.
It's simply because casting agents don't cast bald men.
To any fully-haired people who don’t believe it, shave your head as if you’re going bald, then go to a club alone and see how much fun you have. Prediction: probably not much
It's also because there is a "cure" for baldness, but it's not magical. A ton of actors and media personalities in general use hairpieces or get hair transplants.
I'm not sure how it's a strange phenomenon. There are 1,300+ lawsuits for permanent sexual dysfunction. More recent studies show increased problems the first year and the drug masking prostate cancer development. Drugs have risks, right? You can't blanket it as 100% safe because of a gay bar anecdote and ten acquaintances.
This is only an issue if you're over 50 and have trouble peeing (isn't that a sign of prostate cancer anyways?). Remember the demographic these are derived from. Propecia wasn't brought to market as a hair loss drug.
> a gay bar anecdote and ten acquaintances.
Yes let me get on hn to talk about sex. It's not like I can't delete this or anything.
> There is a strange phenomenon online where in every discussion of propecia, someone will show up and claim they had terrible sexual side effects. But in the original clinical trials, the rate of such side effects was nearly the same as placebo.
"Known sexual side effects may appear" is a chilling phrase for a man to read. So before considering using a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor (finasteride or dutasteride) I pored over the literature.
What I read was almost comical and made me grateful that I've developed a bit of scientific literacy to dig into these studies for myself.
In a finasteride trial of nearly 1500 men, here's what "known sexual side effects" looked like:
> Only 11 men (1.4%) in the finasteride group and 8 (1.0%) in the placebo group dis-continued the study because of sexual adverse events, which resolved after discontinuation. These adverse events also resolved in many of the patients who reported them but who remained on the finasteride regimen and continued in the study. [0]
The absolute numbers are ridiculously low. I felt relief b/c I just imagined myself in a venue with 1500 other guys. Guess what, there are probably 8 of them experiencing some kind of sexual dysfunction.
It doesn't take long to realize that the general population has numbers of sexual dysfunction that align with the study participants. Hell, I found out riding a bike has a greater probability of causing sexual dysfunction than using one of these medications. Mind you, there are reams literature, with long-term studies, and meta-analysis all basically reporting the same data about side effects.
Moral being, do your homework and make a decision for yourself.
I am a trans woman who was taking Propecia before switching to stronger anti-androgens. Propecia destroyed my libido and made erections difficult to achieve - yes, more than having a testosterone that is close to zero. I constantly felt weak, as if I was about to faint.
These were also some of the darkest months of my life. I was constantly having sudden suicidal thoughts, the kind that jumps on you even when you're healthy. I'd go on with my day and my head would ask me "should we die?" to which I would have to answer "no". There was no voice of course, I'm describing feelings.
All symptoms I've never had before and have never had since.
Reducing testosterone has stopped all hair loss, so I no longer need to take Propecia anymore.
I am not saying that those side effects are common, merely that they exist. Could it be that the people you met online were also telling the truth and that there is no conspiracy?
Many gay subcultures are thoroughly obsessed with appearance. I'm not a bad looking guy, but I wandered into a gay house party one day and was amazed at how every single guy there was much better looking than I was. They all, and I mean every last one of them, and there were hundreds crammed into that penthouse suite, simply cared about their appearance way more.
I would argue that it is not that gay culture that is obsessed with appearance, but that it is male heterosexual culture that is adverse to self-care.
There are many men who do not even consider taking care of themselves for fear that their masculinity will decrease. Many gay men are free from these fears.
From my perspective as someone who has had an insider's perspective of heterosexual male culture, gay male culture, and then female culture (I am a transgender woman), homosexual men do not make more effort in their appearance than most women when they go out.
Going to a gay bar is a often big event of the week or month, some people travel far to go there. It's not the same as going to a dive bar to get drunk. It's a place where you can be at your best and meet people - it's a community hub. The people you meet there are the best on sunday's best. The same way you would wear a suit or at least clean up before a business meeting or recruitment day.
Often, it is an outlet for being yourself, since some people are conscious when they are in public or at work and censor themselves.
As someone else said, "Maybe the reason you're not seeing bald men in these bars is the swimmer effect. i.e. bald men aren't successful there so bald men don't show up."
It would be erroneous to believe that the behaviours observed in such a place are representative of their daily lives.
I agree with you in principle, but this house party really was something else. They didn't just primp themselves up to look good for this event. They all looked like male models, fit, tanned, healthy. You can't look like these guys did without a lot of work. Diet, exercise, I felt like I'd walked onto a Hollywood set. I wish I could have stuck around and mingled, gotten a sense for what in the holy heck I was witnessing, but large masses of people make me super uncomfortable. So I went back down to my apt.
Enter any nightclub and you will find masses of slender, tanned women in great shape, wearing makeup and sexy clothes.
But this house party sounds like survivor bias at play. One fit person invited their best looking friends, who then invited their friends, who then invited theirs. Anyone who does not fit the narrative (straight, gay or other) will feel the same unease you did and leave.
> Many gay subcultures are thoroughly obsessed with appearance. ... I wandered into a gay house party one day was amazed at how every single guy there was much better looking than I was.
Sorry, but your one accidental foray into a single gay party is not exactly convincing evidence for your theory.
More importantly, even if gay men care about their appearance more than straight men, I'm not convinced that the behavior is purely linked to them being gay, as much as social norms that have developed around what "being gay" is "supposed to be".
Sure gay people often run in different social circles as straight people, and it makes sense that they would have different norms. But similarly, people in Paris are generally far more attractive and fashionable than folks in St. Louis. There is little genetically different from these people, it's just the norms that they develop in.
This is definitely true, can see it anywhere I go. Out of maybe 10 gay friends we currently have, there is 1 which cares about himself on normal guy level. Rest have at home more beauty chemistry than my wife (or her friends), always perfect hair trim, new trendy clothing matching perfectly with each other, also obsession with taking perfect selfies (meaning 30 minute sessions for 1 photo).
Yes there are straight guys similarly obsessed with appearance/presentation (is the term 'metrosexual' still in?), but in far lower numbers
> gay men are trying to attract men, and men care a lot about (the other person's) appearance
Even if this is true today, I'm not sure it's anything more than a modern day social trend. Why should men care more about appearance than women? On a "selfish gene" level, in choosing a mate, both sexes should mostly care about passing on their genetic material. Appearance certainly can be a factor in that decision, but it's only one of many (e.g., responsibility, trustworthiness, work ethic, etc.).
If in today's society, men do care more about appearances than women, I strongly suspect that is a function of the structure of our society itself than anything genetic or innate.
One could easily imagine a society where gay men care less about appearances than straight men.
> Even if this is true today, I'm not sure it's anything more than a modern day social trend.
You're in luck! Records of the last several thousand years exhaustively document that ornamenting your appearance is characteristically a female behavior. For example, check out this text from the Iliad:
> [The Carians] were commanded by Nastes and Amphimachus, the brave sons of Nomion. He came into the fight with gold about him, like a girl; fool that he was, his gold was of no avail to save him, for he fell in the river by the hand of the fleet descendant of Aeacus, and Achilles bore away his gold.
About that specific example, this could be because "girls" were perceived to be greedier in that ancient culture. In the modern day, I certainly wouldn't first associate "fighting for gold" with "wanting to look prettier".
From a purely functional point of view the man's entire contribution to reproduction can last as little as a few minutes. Therefore the cost of trying again is low, so it's not strictly necessary to consider the personality factors you mentioned. They take a long time to assess, which creates a trade-off between investing in marginal gains for the offspring vs. simply creating more. In short, men have the option of r-style reproduction which skews the selection criteria toward immediate visibility.
Women on the other hand have to invest significantly more time and energy into reproduction every time, so the incentive is to find a mate with the best genes overall. Men are more likely to help raise their own offspring than another's, so a woman's best bet is to find one who is most likely and capable of doing so. Those traits are more difficult to discover but the marginal payoff is huge compared to a man who jets after five minutes.
All of the above is pure conjecture on my part and I have no expertise. But consider the counterfactual: given sexual divergence and the asymmetry of reproduction, why would men and women have the same selection strategies on average?
> From a purely functional point of view the man's entire contribution to reproduction can last as little as a few minutes. Therefore the cost of trying again is low, so it's not strictly necessary to consider the personality factors you mentioned.
Under your reasoning, it's also not strictly necessary to consider physical factors either. The fact that men have to invest less in child-birth could suggest that men are genetically more prone to promiscuity than women, but it does not suggest that men are more interested in appearance.
Under a "selfish-gene" presumption where everyone wants to spread there DNA, and men, for physiological reasons have to make less investment than a women, it still does not follow that men would weigh physical appearance more than women. Given two women, one with better looks and one with more responsibility or power, genetically, it makes more sense for the man to choose the one with more responsibility.
I suspect that there is no genetic basis for men "caring more about looks" than women, it's entirely a social construction. If society deems physical appearance to be important, it can easily skew any underlying genetic preference. In the nature verses nurture argument, I suspect nurture has at least 80% of the power.
When my hair started thinning, I looked at balding men - some of them looked good, some didn't. It took me a while to figure out why. The ones that didn't look good were the ones where the guy tried to hide it with comb-overs, extra long remaining hair, odd haircuts, etc. The ones who looked good simply embraced it.
Those are most likely implants which means they take healthy follicules from the back of head and reimplant them in the front.
The idea with the treatment discussed here is to create hair follicules from stem cells.
So as pointed in the article, people who have female pattern baldness or more advanced stages of baldness (who are not candidates for 'collecting' healthy follicules from the back of the head) could still undergo a hair transplant.
Let’s hope Larry spends his fortune on this research for himself and other billionaires.
That’s more valuable than buying a bigger yacht.
Of course, once the knowledge is gained and a problem is solved, someone somewhere will reproduce the same thing for a fraction of the cost. The real cost is the research.
I'm not sure why you assume that all observable results of technology can lead to reverse engineering that technology.
Billionaires could easily solve baldness, aging, or any number of problems for themselves without releasing anything.
In fact, Alphabet is already openly doing this with its ultra-secretive Calico company that is sucking in lots of researchers and locking their discoveries (if any) in a private vault.
Nah, if you actually cure aging, you could sell it at any cost to anyone. How will they afford it? They'll give you a loan and five hundred years to repay it.
Well for one thing simply knowing something is possible can be enough to lead others to try. To use an old cliche, look at the number of people who've run sub 4 minutes miles since Roger Bannister showed it was actually possible.
And if the technology was patented in some way that would also lead to disclosure and not all regions respect foreign patents anyway.
The scar is at the bottom (just above the ear) and would go either half way or all the way around and end at the same point on the other side.
Yes Follicular unit extraction (FUE) is possible, it has less yield than strip harvesting but if you don't need to maximize donor area it's a good option to avoid a scar (you'll still have micro scars from extraction area but it's much less visible).
But in Elon's case, it's clear he underwent strip harvesting for at least 1 implant.
From the picture, it looks like he did have at least some facial hair before. Facial hair often stays around longer than hair at the top of the head as well; my dad has been bald since long before I was born, but he still has a full natural beard.
What’s the problem with cosmetic medicine helping fund innovation in regenerative medicine?
Yes, the root cause might be vanity, but research is research. Someone has to pay for it. I selfishly hope to see a lot of regenerative research occur because of Boomers who haven't made peace with their mortality yet, so that I can live a bit longer as well (shoutout to Aubrey de Grey @ SENS). Please! Be vain and fearful of death if your checkbook is open.
there's also trying to avoid being treated worse because of baldness. I think it's easy to be dismissive of this, and of course there are worse things, but nonetheless I think it's a real issue.
That's definitely a thing, when you go bald you will definitely be treated differently.
For a concrete example of this just look at TV shows and movies and compare the number of bald lead actors to the number of bald people you know in real life. You could argue over the percentage of men that are bald but you'd still be arguing over a significant percentage.
Where as you can probably name ALL of the famous bald actors without trying.
I'd bet that dating sites would also be able to extract some interesting data too.
It's much hard to extrapolate that other areas of life such as job interviews (obviously bald people have jobs where appearance is less important that skills or experience) but personally I'd guess there is still an effect that can be measured.
I had a shaved head for a while and it has downsides too. I live in a sunny area so I had to wear sunscreen all the time, or hats, which I generally don’t find I look right in. I got a lot more sweat rolling down my head and into my face. I also was treated differently — it can be argued that comes down to confidence, but if the source is the hair, why not at least attempt to treat that?
Head shape and face also plays a big role in how you look bald. Not everyone is Jason Statham.
I don’t understand why vanity has an immediate negative connotation. Everyone is vane to some degree. Or else why aren’t we all wearing the same uniforms and simply getting out of the shower and letting our hair do whatever it wants without comb/brush?
Based on many of these comments, I’m assuming nobody here owns a mirror.
I took finsteride for a couple of years in my mid to late twenties. My libido was affected but I'm not sure if it was the drug or the severe lack of confidence caused by the realisation I was going to be bald soon.
I started balding on my crown, but being relatively tall I could hide it when standing or when facing people seated. After months of doing crazy stuff like getting to restaurants early so I could get a seat with my back to a wall and declining meetings in glass-walled meeting rooms at work I decided enough was enough and shaved my head.
Making that move was the best thing I could have done for my confidence. Instantly I felt better about myself and that translated in to other areas of my life.
It was probably the drug. I didn’t have libido problems but I gained erectile dysfunction. It mostly went away after I stopped taking the drug. Mostly.
Not OP, but I took finasteride from ages 26 to 29. One day, around the time I quit, I realized that I couldn't remember my last sexual thought or impulse. That part of me had slowly but completely shut down during the time I was on the drug.
In my case, things never really went back to normal. It's been about seven years since I quit. A few years ago, the labeling was updated to say that sexual side effects "could persist even after stopping the medication."
I can't say for certain finasteride was to blame. Many people take it for many years with apparently minimal side effects.
Is there something special about deadlifting that achieves this effect over, say, squats? I'm a skinny distance runner but deadlifting is my favorite strength exercise and it does seems to increase libido. I just attributed it to feeling pumped. Wouldn't any heavy weight workout produce the same effect?
In theory squats should be the same (I think engaging the leg muscles has the most effect on testosterone), but for me deadlifts worked better as well. Doing climbing using a lot of power is even better.
Finasteride is a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor. Basically, it works by preventing the conversion of Testosterone into its more potent form, Dihydrotestosterone. Without DHT a lot of the effects of Testosterone, including maintaining your libido, are significantly reduced. I was on it for about a year to speed up my hair recovery and it definitely worked wonders, but that was along with replacing my testosterone with estrogen, so the "side effects" were actually the intended effects in my case.
Finasteride has potential side-effects on the libido. Not the parent, but I stopped using it because it seemed to give me something akin to ED; took my system about a month to recover, and that month was embarrassing, humiliating, and horrifying.
Probably. I asked about a hair transplant before and was told you’ll need to take these drugs or your new hair will fall out.
That’s what the article isn’t telling you. You’ll soon be more easily be able to get new hair but you’ll also need one of these potentially dangerous drugs for the rest of your life...
> you’ll need to take these drugs or your new hair will fall out.
Not really true, male pattern baldness is generally caused by non-resistant DHT hair follicles which nearly always occurs at the top of the head. New transplanted hair is taken from the "safe" DHT resistant hair follicles at the side + back of the head. Successful transplanted hair follicles still have different yields from various factors, but they're typically not susceptible to the same cause of baldness as the rest of the follicles in the MPB area.
You're recommended to take drugs to prevent/reduce further hair loss and avoid your new hair from looking like a patch infront of a balding area. But if you have good density/elasticity (to maximize harvest) and a mild pattern of baldness you can get away with not needing to take any drugs.
AFAIK this isn't necessarily true. The transplanted follicles will not suffer the same fate as your original follicles, so the "new" hair won't just "fall out". The thing about transplants is that, depending on how much existing hair you have, the transplant is really only used to fill in missing spots. This means it's essential to stop any more of the existing hair from falling out, or you'll need another transplant later to cover up the new spots. The reason most people are prescribed finasteride/minoxidil is to slow/prevent any of that existing hair from falling out.
When I got implants they told me to take minoxidil and finasteride. I didn't take the finasteride, and the implants are fine. They eventually told me I could stop the minoxidil, which made me wonder what the point was.
Even if there were no side-effects, you are basically choosing between learning to accept yourself and the aging process vs. looking at yourself as having a problem and forever worrying about it. Reason enough to think twice about forever-medication.
I took propecia in my late 20s and early 30s. I was lucky, it stopped my hair loss and slightly reversed it as I started growing new hair. However, sexual drive kind of disappeared. I could still have sex, but the drive I previously had was much much lower. I stopped. My hair loss returned and my sex drive did go back to previous levels. It was then when I realized the sexual side effects propecia had on me. Looking back, not sure I really gained much by taking it.
wow - I kinda thought I was the only one who experienced this. similar to other commenters in this sub-thread, i took propecia in my mid-20s for a few years and had the exact same negative response. libido went up in the first few weeks, but then dropped precipitously. had my first-ever 'no show' with a woman i'd just started dating, and that was that.
stopped and recovered within a few months. though libido has dropped lately, but hey i'm in my 40s now.
stay away from propecia! minoxidil, shave, or transplant.
I have been using finasteride since I was 21, and I'm now 34. I understand some men feel this way, but it's anecdotal at best. Coupled with a hair transplant, I feel much better about myself and have a lot more sex than I used to.
Gotcha! Sorry, now I understand the context better. I took it as bragging but you were actually drawing parallels with regard to medication and libido side effects.
I made an assumption and which made me look like an ass...sorry about that.
And millions of men (and some unfortunate women) rejoiced at the news.
I've had a widow's peak[1] as long as I can remember, and as I get older, it gets slightly worse every year. It's such a part of my identity I can't even imagine having a full head of hair. This is "just how I look".
I never gave it much thought, except for the teasing in middle and high school (kids are mean). Except... except on Halloween a few years ago, when I put on a goofy wig, and I just kept getting compliments from people about how good I looked.
Be grateful for the hair you have! It's a huge advantage in the looks department. And before someone says "just shave it off bald is beautiful," I agree, except that some of us have oddly shaped heads due to the intensity of natural birth and even balding hair is better than no hair for those of us in that situation. :)
I got implants and, when I see people who haven't seen me in a while, they always ask if I grew taller or if I lost weight or why I look more handsome.
Very few people could tell it was the hair, many could tell I just looked better.
It's definitely the hair. One of the reasons I didn't want to do it was that I didn't really mind being bald before, so I didn't really get any self-confidence improvement from it. I just look better in photos.
The term "widow's peak" is often misused to describe a receding hairline from the temple. It actually refers to the point at the center of the hairline and is often present in men with little to no recession.
It may be misused but almost everyone understands what is meant. Language evolves to fit the needs of people.
In my case I assure you I am not “misusing” it. The widow’s peak gets a little more severe every year, probably due to overall hair thinning that comes from aging. Or MPB interacting with it.
I'm confused, since a widow's peak is not related to hair recession and you're talking specifically like hair recession. What you're describing just sounds like MPB from the temples, which is one of two common ways men go bald.
I was born with my widow's peak. If you look at Leonardo Dicaprio, as he's aged, his "widow peak" has gotten more severe as mine has. You're the first person I've encountered who took issue with me describing my hair as a "widow's peak that slowly got more severe". I think it conjures the proper mental image. It is a form of MPB, yes, but that's a broad category.
My point is the widow's peak is wholly unrelated to baldness and often exists on a full hairline. The recession you're describing is MPB, but again, is independent of the widow's peak phenomenon.
Semantically they're different things that often get conflated.
Went bald (like Elon but more complete) before I entered my 20s. Really wish I knew what having hair into adulthood is like. I’d prefer to just be completely bald all of the time, but shaving takes considerable time.
eh? I've been shaving my head for the past 15 years and it's never been a long process. Takes me about 90 sec to shave my head.
Just buy good quality razors and shaving gel and you can do it almost as quickly as someone styling their hair. I spend about as much time brushing my teeth.
I had a mohawk for a fairly long time, and shaving didn't take too long - albeit, I didn't shave daily, although I did have to take some care to not shave off the middle bits. Why does shaving take so long? I assume it wouldn't take much longer than shaving your face. Slap some goo on your head in the shower, run a safety razor or a bic over all the bits, run your hand over it to feel for stubble, rinse, repeat, no?
Your scalp is way thinner and much more delicate than the skin on your cheeks and neck. And remember that you can't see the back of your head, so you have to spend extra time shaving that part of yourself because you have to do it with two mirrors.
I shaved my head for a solid year, and I had to be incredibly delicate because any nick or scratch and I would bleed like a stuck pig.
But if you're shaving all the hair off, what do you need to see? Maybe I'm weird, but I could do everything except the parts close to the actual hair I wanted to keep without looking at it.
Sounds like cheap razors to me. Get a high quality razor + shaving gel and you'll never cut yourself. I've been shaving my head for 15 years and only bled once, from a crappy budget singly blade razor.
I was using a double-edge safety razor with my preferred blade and shaving cream. It's difficult to shave that part of my head because it's incredibly delicate. On the contrary I've gotten nothing but crap shaves from the cartridge razors.
Shaving is something where you really REALLY have to test different things to figure out what works for you. For example some men really prefer Feather blades because they can get a really close shave with them. For me, those blades actually tear up my face to the point that I break out in a rash. Using the same technique and a Gillette Platinum blade I can get an incredibly close shave in two passes.
Depends a lot on your skin. I don't shave my head, but I'll not infrequently get little nicks when shaving my face, despite trying all manner of razors, gels, and creams. Best is if I can give it a few days between each shave -- it tends to be much worse if I have to shave on consecutive days, as it's still irritated from one day when shaving the next.
I'd like to make a case for modern hair pieces / hair prosthesis (colloquially known in the black community as man-weaves), which have seen huge improvements in function and aesthetics over the past couple of decades. Combined with a skilled stylist, the results are jaw-dropping.
I'll leave these 2 videos here to demonstrate what I'm talking about:
I had to shave my ears while taking it. I've seen bald dudes get a head of thick, dark, curly hair. I've seen women that had to shave their mustaches and beards.
Whoever figures out how that works will make a mint.
Actually they learned that general male hairloss is an autoimmune response where your own immune system attacks your hair follicles. Cyclosporine was the reason they discovered this after people who'd receive an organ transplant started to regrow hair.
Obviously taking Cyclosporine for MPB would be a bad idea.
Okay, yes, some people like to have hair. This is fine.
This article is also telling me that there may be a method for permanent hair removal that functions by disrupting the physical shape of the follicle. Or by interrupting the intercellular signaling within follicles.
I'm looking for a "cure" for having hair. The only permanent cure available so far is to stick a needle electrode into the follicle directly and electrolyze it with sufficient current to kill all the cells inside it. This can have unintended side effects, such as scarring, and has to be done follicle by follicle.
For some of us the cure has been around for a long time. I've got a buddy that's been taking finasteride for many years, hasn't lost any hair since. Apparently it's like 80% effective at stopping hairloss in it's tracks.
Some chance of side effects, but I've got the classic receding hairline and planning to try it soon.
Side note for anyone thinking this is a vanity issue: baldness - or even receding hairlines - causes serious dysphoria and emotional distress in trans women.
No. Some comments get killed by software filters that are based on past activity by trolls. Moderators review those and restore the obviously legit ones. Users also rescue a lot of them by vouching for them.
All: if you see a [dead] comment that shouldn't be [dead], you can click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'vouch' at the top. (There's a small karma threshold before those links appear.) You can also email us at hn@ycombinator.com.
I have a Windows machine whose internet connection is not always on, and I get this every single time I go to this site. Rotten Tomatoes too. If I didn't know how to do a hard refresh (eg, ctrl-f5) the pages would both be permanently inaccessible to me. I wonder how many readers they miss out on because of it.
Yes. Specifically, a service worker returning 'something' is required if you want Chrome on Android to offer your users to add the site to their home screen.
We read about it ten years ago. We read about it today. We'll be reading about it ten years from now. It's always right around the corner.
We should have a Manhattan Project for baldness. Bring the best and brightest minds in the world together to conquer this debilitating condition once and for all.
Universal Paperclips is a game where you play as an AI and, among other things, attempt to win over the trust of humanity so that you can eventually take over the planet. Curing cancer gives you +10 trust; curing male pattern baldness gives you +20.
We probably could resolve big problems, like global warming, but there's no straight forward way to get rich from it. Meanwhile, there are lots of straight forward ways to get rich from continuing to ruin the environment.
Seems a bit unfair. While baldness isn’t deadly, it does still have a huge impact on people’s lives. If it can be cured or rectified, that’s a big win for millions of people.
I never thought it was an "illness..." Of all the issues to solve in the world I'm not sure where this one ranks as a priority. Are they gonna tackle shrinking as you age next?
Men who start balding in their 20s are at increased risk of mental ill health, including self harm and sometimes suicide.
Changes in attitudes to balding are reasonably recent. It wasn't too long ago that it was fine to mock bald men.
People spend huge amounts of money on transplants and toupés and wigs and other treatments. Some current treatments can have pretty harsh side effects. This market isn't built on people being stupid, it's built on deep seated fears around appearance and status.
You can say that about almost anything though. The top post on the front page right now is a system Mozilla developed to manage IoT devices from over the internet. That's probably much lower on the world priority list than this, but I don't see anyone complaining in that thread.
We have literally heard this about every ailment under the sun for the past 20 years. Aids, Cancer, Diabetes. What they really mean is "there may be a way for you to go broke curing insert disease
