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What is Minoxidil…?

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Rogaine's 3 month treatment costs 53 dollars in one of the U.S. more popular pharmacies (Walgreens), compared to the 16 dollars I paid for the same amount under the generic Kirkland brand.

Rogaine’s 3 month treatment costs 53 dollars in one of the U.S. more popular pharmacies (Walgreens), compared to the 16 dollars I paid for the same amount under the generic Kirkland brand.

Well it turns out that the magical power that Minoxidil has to re-grow hair was found by accident. Yes, by accident!

Reading through the internet I found that Minoxidil (the generic name of the drug) was sold first with the commercial name of Loniten as a medication to treat high blood pressure. Nevertheless the patients taking this medication started to notice that their hair was growing, or re-growing, or an excess of hair in parts of the body other than the scalp (such as facial hair).

Minoxidil is hardly the only medication found by accident; drugs such as valium, penicillin and even Viagra were also discovered by accident.

After being approved to treat hair loss in the U.S. Minoxidil was commercialized with the name of Rogaine, the treatment was somewhat expensive but in the mid 90s the patent expired and nowadays one can find Minoxidil in a generic version for less than half of what Rogaine used to charge.

The treatment is only recommended for people with hereditary hair loss (androgenic alopecia), and as said in the last post the label says that one should not use it if the hair loss is patchy and sudden (as it is in the case of alopecia areata). Nevertheless I have found on the Internet (and with my own dermatologist) that Minoxidil tends to work in order to stimulate hair grow in cases of alopecia areata.

Most of the documents I read that talk about this drug and its use for androgenic alopecia, say that in order to maintain the hair one has to continue to use it indefinitely. It is stopped the hair loss will return. But I have also read that this is not the case for alopecia areata. Once the follicles have been stimulated and they start to produce hair again one can stop the medication and the hair won’t fall out.

I have to say that I don’t feel comfortable stopping the Minoxidil anytime soon. I am starting to see some re-grow of very fine white hair and I don’t want to loose the little I have gained! Not now and not ever.

Penicillin… could it be an infection?

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On the day of the first cryospray therapy I got the results of the blood tests the doctor had ordered. It turns out that everything came back normal, everything but a throat culture test that revealed the high presence of streptococcus. It is true that my usually healthy self had been fighting a lingering cough for a big part of 2012 and the whole month of January of 2013. It started on March last year (more than a year ago) and it has been going on an off.

Back then I would have cough fits that would keep me awake, something really unusual for me. Still I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it and treated it mostly with over the counter cough syrup and medication that would at least let me sleep. The cough went away after two months or so, but not totally, and then in came back in January. Well, apparently it was due to a sinus infection caused by these bacteria.

I asked the doctor if this could also be the cause of my Alopecia Areata. She said that the lingering infection could have caused stress to my body and contributed to the onset of the Alopecia. That is, she said, on top of any other stress that is present in my life right now.

In any case she prescribed three penicillin injections, one each month. I have already had two and, I don’t know if it is because of that, but the cough is over (for good, it seems); I am also combining that with sinus saline washes.

Probably this won’t cure the Alopecia, but at least it would help me get healthy overall, and that can only be good.

Cryotherapy

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432px-Cryogun

Cryotherapy bottle, like the one used by my doctor. (Photo: Warfieldian)

The following Thursday after the first visit with my dermatologist, Dr. Silvia, I went back to her for my first cryotherapy. It is and odd concept, at least for me. She puts liquid nitrogen in an aerosol device, while pouring it you can see something like a white gas coming out of the containers and if you stand by it you can feel the very cold sensation that such gas gives to your feet and legs. Once the liquid nitrogen is in the can, the doctor sprayed it over my scalp for about 2 or 3 minutes, moving my hair around and making sure that the whole head had been spray with the freezing gas.

The sensation went from refreshing, to good, then cold and, finally, almost painfully freezing. It is really cold, like when you leave an ice over your skin for a long time. I was just hoping that the rest of my hair wouldn’t freeze up and fall down as a result. It didn’t.

The purpose of this therapy, my doctor explained, is to stimulate the follicle. With Alopecia Areata the follicle usually stops producing hair for some time because of an autoimmune reaction (a mistake from you immune cells, basically), and the objective is to keep that follicle alive through stimulation so when the immune attack is over, the follicle would be ready to produce hair again.

I read some studies published on the Internet and they mentioned a success rate of the cryotherapy for Alopecia Areata, they were of less than 50%. So, I think it is worth it to keep it going. So far I have had 5 treatments and no hair has re-grown yet. There are many other things that I am doing in order to stop this disease and get my hair back. I am convinced something has to work.

Relaxing at the beach

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Sunday March the 10th, the next day after the discovery of the bald
spots I decided to go to the beach. It was a beautiful day and every Sunday a
group of friends go over there. So I figured out that if what I needed was toNothing more ralaxing.
relax there was no better way to do it than sitting by water to contemplate the
waves, enjoy the breeze and talk to my friends.

Sure enough it was really helpful. I first talked to my friend Yolanda and told her about the newly discovered problem. She told me about a friend that has the same thing: alopecia areata. In the case of her friends she has bald spots that come and go constantly depending on her level of stress. It was reassuring to know that those spots “go,” but not so reassuring to know that they may come back.

Then Francesca, another friend at the beach, told me about a friend of hers that also had a bald spot once, a really big one. “What you have is nothing compared to what she had,” Francesca said, and most important “the hair eventually grew back.” I thought at that moment that I would focus all my energy in that: in knowing and believing that my hair will eventually grow back.

And then there was Carlos, another friend that usually goes to the beach on Sundays and who is a psychiatrist (officially MY psychiatrist, now). He told me he has had several patients with the same problem, and that they all eventually recover their hair.

He also told me that he would prepare for me a concoction of Bach Flowers to help me relax. According to Wikipedia, these flower dilutions were developed by a bacteriologist called Edward Bach and are believe to have healing properties, primarily for conditions such as depression, anxiety and stress.

That day, the second day of my life with Alopecia Areata, was good day. I came back from the beach relaxed, optimistic and tanned!