TBH – I have been watching your pics for years John… it is definitely too slow for me in this lifetime - even on rapamycin. 
Keep at it bud.
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Definitely. I could probably have bought another house on what I spent on oral and topical products in the last 50 years.
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Hahaha - I know without insurance I would be paying about $32,000 per year - with insurance about $3,000 yearly. Much better.
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The only medication for hair that’s worth it long term is finasteride/dutasteride and only if you actually have any hair left worth protecting. Luckily it is getting cheaper with time and demand.
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Fin is literally a few bucks a month without insurance on Amazon pharmacy
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Very true and effective but they chemically castrate you, so no thanks not something I’d consider. I actually did it a while back (for couple months) and sure enough It dried me out, there was nothing coming out, if you know what I mean. Stopped it and couple months later back to normal. Yeah, if I ever wanted more hair its easy and simply just do a transplant. While here in US the price is very steep for major work, like $10-20K, you can also hop on a plane to Turkey and have a nice vacation while you get the transplant for $3000-$5000 all inclusive. Know couple people that did that and their hair turned excellent.
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You wrote: “:Very true and effective but they chemically castrate you, so no thanks not something I’d consider.”
Not marginalizing your reaction to fin… but it is not typical. Try it, if fin causes problems stop - should return to normal.
Here is a vid on Finasteride SIDE EFFECTS To Know Before You Start!
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I cannot wait until we innovate our way out of this debate. Non-5ARi hair loss drugs without serious side effects will be a massive game changer.
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They don’t and we have thirty years of clinical use proving otherwise. Even the couple of case reports where it did impact fertility were resolved within three months of cessation.
Yeah, if I ever wanted more hair its easy and simply just do a transplant.
How convenient that you have infinite donor hair at your disposal. Most men don’t have more than 6,000-10,000 grafts and even that thins over time.
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There won’t be any because addressing 5ar is addressing the root cause of hairloss. PP405 is gearing up to be another bust and the only effective thing coming soon is just safer oral minoxidil. Any balding man still waiting for better treatments will be bald this century.
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Its like going bald in reverse, the bits that went last return first. However, they don’t have the same hair density. For example.
I prefer it because a lot of the interventions are systemic and hence I can be comfortable that the systemic interventions are having the desired effect.
There is a real Doctor Gary Linkov and the video looks like him, but it strikes me as an AI generated image and voice with lots of repeated expressions and gestures as well as a rhythmic monotone presentation. I did not investigate this, but it does remind me of the fake Dr. David Sinclair and fake Dr. William Lee YouTube videos I’ve seen.
As for as the information presented is concerned, it sounds right to me.
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It’s an incredibly broad brush. It is too upstream.
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5ar converts to DHT locally and binds to the androgen receptor and the GPR133 receptor, thereby miniaturizing and eventually destroying the hair follicle.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70153-4
You’d need something that blocks or degrades both receptors at once (or reduces expression of both) without going systemic. Incredibly hard to do. And less convenient than taking a single pill per day or every other day. Moreover, even such a treatment wouldn’t regrow hair that’s already been lost.
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I am using a bit of topical fin, but even before that I was managing (really slowly) to regrow hair that’s been lost. The primary route is through improving mitochondrial function.
DHT is like a wildfire for you hair and cups of water aren’t going to counter that. There is a reason you started topical fin after all.
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I get your point but by the looks of it would take 100 years (this method) to get any real noticeable improvements in the hairline. When you post magnified pics, it makes it look as if there are somewhat significant amount of hair coming out/being restored but I remember a while back you posted couple pics from afar and you were as bold today as you were 2-3 years ago. So, as it stands now there is simply no way you can regrow lost hair from baldness. But you always can hop on plane to Turkey LOL.
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Well, if you are bald even at the back of your head then just forget about it, there isn’t a way you can restore your hair, but for about 99% of people that have plenty of hair left in the back there is easy to get anywhere from 3000-5000 graft and that is plenty to make one’s baldness disappear, perhaps not the thickest hair in the room but enough to cover your baldness. Have a family member from complete baldness (top of head) to full head of hair with 4500 done in Turkey three years ago. His hair is curly naturally so I’m guessing might require maybe a bit less, but his hair looks same as I remember him at 20 years old.
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I am, however, interested in the systemic aspects as that is a visible sign as to what is happening in other tissues. I am not really interested in things which are purely cosmetic. Hence I would not use botox. Also I am able to learn what accelerates things. However, as my rapamycin cycle is at least each 6 weeks that inherently slows things down.
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I was referring to my own personal experience. Finasteride made me go dry ejaculate and I don’t think I need to care what 30 years of clinical research says if I try something and have a specific outcome (this case very negative and scary initially but returned to normal within two-three months of stopping it.)
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