“For androgenic alopecia, minoxidil (Rogaine) is the only FDA-approved medical treatment for both men and women,” Krejci says. It's a liquid or foam that you put on your scalp. Krejci says it can “help slow down or reverse hair loss in 75% of patients.”
It depends. “If a follicle has closed, disappeared, scarred, or not generated a new hair in years, then a new hair wouldn't be able to grow,” Fusco says. But if the follicle is still intact, yes, it is possible to regrow the hair—or to improve the health of the existing thinner hairs.
It can be the result of heredity, hormonal changes, medical conditions or a normal part of aging. Anyone can lose hair on their head, but it's more common in men. Baldness typically refers to excessive hair loss from your scalp. Hereditary hair loss with age is the most common cause of baldness.
This type of hair loss often looks like a receding hairline that runs along the front and sides of your head. Frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) tends to start slowly, often causing a thin band of balding skin that runs along the front and sides of the hairline.
Regrowing hair on a bald spot is often possible. You may need to try more than one type of treatment to get the results you want. Be patient and consider all your options as you approach this very common concern.
In general, minoxidil is considered to be capable of growing hair anywhere; however, the region where the medication is least effective is the front of the head. Despite this, some evidence suggests that 5% topical minoxidil foam can be effective for hair regrowth in the frontal region of the scalp.
Can Minoxidil Work on Frontal Baldness? Although minoxidil can cause hair to grow anywhere, it is least effective on frontal baldness. Many users do not experience satisfactory improvements to their frontal baldness from using minoxidil.
Minoxidil will only work if there are hairs roots present in your scalp. On a bald area, this medication will be of no use. If there are no roots on the scalp or there is complete baldness, then minoxidil will not be able to convert the hairs into the telogen phase.
If you've had a receding hairline for some time, or if you've already lost a lot of hair around your hairline, finasteride may not completely restore it. However, using finasteride could cause some amount of hair regrowth in the areas of your scalp where you've only recently started to notice thinning and recession.
Results: There was a significant increase in hair count in the frontal scalp of finasteride-treated patients (P < . 001), as well as significant improvements in patient, investigator, and global photographic assessments.
For those parts of the front that are completely bald, minoxidil will not give regrowth. This means that minoxidil cannot restore a receded hairline. What it can do is increase density in the areas behind the hairline that are in the process of thinning.
When applied to the scalp, the topical solution is absorbed into the skin, where it works in the hair follicle. Researchers believe minoxidil increases how long the follicle is in an active growth phase. This can improve the receding hairline by decreasing hair loss while promoting hair regrowth (Suchonwanit, 2019).
A hair transplant can also be an option for people with naturally large foreheads. Although these people often do not have a thin and uneven hairline, they can still consider a hair grafting procedure to add hairs to the front of their head to have a narrower forehead.
The main cause of a receding hairline in women is Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia. This is a condition thought to be due to hormonal and immune system changes. This condition presents itself as slow and progressive hair loss and scarring of the scalp around the forehead area.
Hiding the Hair Loss or Thinning Hair
A smooth bald shave is much better than outgrowing hair around bald patches. Shaving the head is the easiest thing to do and easier than trying to cover up bald spots. It, nonetheless, requires frequent shaving to keep the clean shave look as hair grows pretty fast.
A: In many patients we have found finasteride to hold on to a patient's hair for at least 15 years. We don't have much longer data than that since it was approved for hair loss in 1998. Although finasteride will usually continue to work as long as you take it, it may lose some of its efficacy over time.
3. Who can and cannot use finasteride. Finasteride can be taken by men aged 18 years or over. It's generally not recommended for women or children.
There isn't a cure for frontal fibrosing alopecia. But treatments can help to slow its progression. Your healthcare provider may suggest a combination of medications, including: Antibiotics, such as doxycycline or minocycline, to reduce inflammation.
Finasteride helps stop hair loss and grows new hair by blocking DHT. Minoxidil doesn't stop hair loss, but it does help grow new hair thicker and faster than before.
Rogaine works best in people with hereditary hair loss at the vertex of the scalp (the area at the back of the head, just under the crown) or for women with general thinning of hair on the top of the scalp. However, a 2014 study also showed that it may work for the front of the scalp as well in men.
The short answer is, no, your Rogaine treatment is not causing you to lose more hair than before, and it will not make it worse than it would be in the future. To understand why it's not causing your hair loss to get worse, let's take a look at what Rogaine is and how it works.