Diclofenac gel to regrow hair on bald head and beard
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I ordered some diclofenac gel from Amazon. I'll let you guys know how it goes.
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update on diclofenac
i still got a terrible cough from using it and I think it triggered flu in me
no one else in the household got flu
it's powerful, dangerous stuff -
From topical?
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I just received my tube of diclofenac, but got terrible tinnitus after first application to the scalp. Then I found this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tinnitus/comments/u1hl53/im_an_idiot_i_may_have_just_made_my_tinnitus/
Ototoxicity associated with topical administration of diclofenac
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28583486/It might be a coincidence and not caused by the diclofenac, there is no reliable evidence of diclofenac being ototoxic when applied to the scalp. But there is evidence of general ototoxicity and n=2 reddit-post evidence of ototoxicity when applied to the scalp.
I prefer to be bald over being deaf so even if there is 0,01% chance of hearing damage I'm going to err to the side of caution
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@wester130 @BearWithMe
Thanks for the updates. That's too bad about the sides. If you guys get them, I'll definitely get them.@Hearthfire Please let us know how you do on it.
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That guy said he was using HANDFULS of it on his neck and rubbing it around his ears. He's a fucking retard. Overdosed himself.
The normal dosage for on the body is very small. He said for Voltaren it's a penny size. The directions on some of the others said a line as long as your first knuckle. For being applied to the head, the dose should be even smaller I think, which is what I already planned to do. The studies where the old men regrew hair, they were just using it on the spots with actinic keratosis. So not using very much I'd guess.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't those studies applying the diclofenac inside the ears? That's also how the gentamicin causes the damage too, no? Which is also reversible if stopped in half the cases, I read. Other NSAIDs, Aspirin (yes our beloved aspirin), Ibuprofen, Naproxen, Advil, etc. also cause ototoxicity at high doses, but it seems it's often transient from what I read.
How much did you apply to your head? How long did the tinnitus last?
I'm still going to try it, but I'll be even more cautious than I was planning to be. If I notice any side effects or tinnitus, I'll throw it in the trash.
I also key word searched through all the Amazon listings with lots of reviews, no one said anything about hearing loss or tinnitus. If I know one thing about Amazon reviewers, it is that they will complain about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in a review, if they even slightly perceive that it was caused by the product they bought. Millions of people use this stuff and it's sold without prescription, I think it's safe to say it's fairly safe as long as you don't overdose, but if you noticed sides at a normal dose, you personally probably shouldn't use it.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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@DavidPS said in Diclofenac gel to regrow hair on bald head and beard:
I started my experiment this morning on 2 small bald spots in my beard.
It has been 4 weeks and I have not noticed any changes (no new growth). I plan to continue for another month or more.
I have no hearing issues.
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@DavidPS
Well, no sides is good news. Hopefully another month will bring some good results. -
have you considered dermastamping (not rolling) once a week
about 2.5mm is a good length for once a week
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Picked up the diclofenac in the mail yesterday and tried the first dose.
I used about a third of what the dose card it comes with says to use on the upper body on my scalp.
No side effects noticed. No tinnitus. It felt "cooling" on the scalp, and no joke, almost like I could feel the anti-inflammatory action after 20 minutes. Scalp felt good.
That said, I'm going to be super cautious with this stuff. I probably won't use it every day. Maybe every other day, and take a week off every three weeks.
I'm also going to take oral castor oil after each dose, took some last night. 2.5 ml to 5 ml. Assuming PGD2 has a big role in hair loss, my PGD2 should be lowered significantly while PGE2 is boosted, allowing regrowth. I'm also using castor oil topically.
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@wester130 said in Diclofenac gel to regrow hair on bald head and beard:
have you considered dermastamping (not rolling) once a week
about 2.5mm is a good length for once a week
I'm a proponent of dermastamping (I have a Derminator) and have done it in the past, but I've never done 2.5mm. That's a little Medieval! I used to do 1.5mm once a week, and it left my scalp pretty torture chamber looking. Maybe I'll work my way up to 2.5mm. Really, I'm just attempting to establish a plan, with regard to how to approach hair loss. I've tried many things, over several decades, and nothing has kept me ahead of the curve. I'd have to say red light (laser), castor oil, and maybe copper peptides have helped keep what was there, but nothing for instance has given me the success this guy below has had.
P.S. Sorry for the large images. I've attempted to scale them down via markdown, but didn't have any luck.
He says:
"I started using the Derminator 2 to microneedle my scalp along with Minoxidil around the end of March. I go once a week at 1.5mm. My results are really good. The befores are from March 18th of this year, about a week before starting the microneedling, and the afters are from Sept. 29 of this year."
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@Hearthfire
Very nice. Also interesting that you're implementing your PGD2 down, and PGE2 up strategy, with the castor oil. Will be good to see how that does. -
I do 3mm once a week
strangely, 1mm hurts more and produces more blood
i think the deeper it goes - the less it hurts - it's a psychological phenomenon
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Luckily found out that 0.5mm is the most effective needle depth. Super easy and painless to do enough passes at that length. Explained here by Perfect Hair Health: https://youtu.be/LxHNpkIKW0E?feature=shared&t=601
This dude Rob from Perfect Hair Health is kinda becoming the defacto expert on hair regrowth. He's very open minded and actually studies esoteric methods of regrowth with his company. Wheras people in general still think only fin + min works because that's what mainstream research/science tells them. I think he became popular by studying and posting about scalp massaging as a legitimate method of regrowth.
His website is a great resource for people posting their before and afters, and exactly what they did to achieve it.
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That is quite a contrast: 3mm vs .5mm. I'm all for less pain, so I may try the .5mm approach. And I hear you, @wester130, where the deeper penetration may not equal more pain, but I think I'm going to try this .5mm for 3 months.
Some things worth pointing out are that the participants in the study were primarily women: 14 men, 31 women, and maybe even more surprising, they only microneedled every 2 weeks. That kind of blows my mind. All the years I've researched microneedling, the general consensus was to microneedle as frequently as you can get away with. This new approach is really the best of both worlds — less pain, less work.
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I have vellus hairs growing all over the areas where I've microneedled very sporadically, where it was totally bare skin before, so throw in another case into that pool.
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you are almost there guys, just one more months of microneedling...
Youtube Video – [10:35..] -
@Hearthfire I have microneedled at least 15 times already, at various depths and I have never seen even one vellus hair sprout...what am I doing wrong?
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You need to pair it with other things. I'm doing a whole routine....
Microneedling, homemade growth shampoo, minoxidil, ketoconazole shampoo, rosemary/castor oil/tea tree oil topical massages, oral castor oil.Just last month added (will take a 1-2 months or more to determine if these are helping): Diclofenac, regrowth vitamins, gua sha stone as a tool to better massage and move blood around in the scalp, probably will help relax any tight head muscles which can cause hairloss. The gua sha stone is amazing, anyone going the scalp massages route should definitely get one.
And only microneedle at 0.5mm, it's been studied and the depth with the most benefit is 0.5mm. Check out that Youtube video by Perfect Hair Health I linked above.
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Used the diclofenac 4 times now, no side effects whatsoever. Using 1/4 - 1/2 the upper body dose amount from the dose card.
