"THE EXPENSE OF IGNORANCE"

Let this tale of ignorance and poor judgement be a warning to anyone in
Australia considering approaching so called local experts for the treatment of
male pattern baldness (MPB).

Australia is clearly one place on the globe where total stupidity and greed
are the primary
Ingredients for setting up a clinic to treat MPB patients, In the two years now
that I have been treating mine I have come across some total dickheads that
have expected me to pay for their time & ignorance.....

Because Australia has some very wanky defamation laws I have little choice but
to remain anonymous to avoid being served writs by those who I criticise in
this document, fortunately the internet provides a place of freedom and self
expression, allowing the truth to be published for all to see.

"WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS"

My stats I here you say.........

31 year old Caucasian, a normally high hair line of fine dark blonde hair, there
is a history of some MPB in my family, but several males do not exhibit any.
In particular my father at the age of 78 still has (what appears to me) an
intact head of grey hair (lucky bastard), I also have a brother 4 years older
than myself who is showing the advanced stages of MPB. He ironically started
suffering the general symptoms around the same age as myself, effectively
providing me with a yard stick to measure any future progress by.

"A BACKGROUND HELPS"

My problems first began back around 96 when a change in my frontal scalp density at the temples
became noticeable, before this my scalp seemed fine, Girls I met
from time to time even commented upon how fine and soft my hair was before this. Now the only
comments I were getting centred around the humour of my colleagues at work.....
time to do something..... but what??????????????
I had just turned 30 and decided to look at all available options, unfortunately
for me at the time I had no internet access and hence had to rely upon the local
medical scene which would prove in time to be my first big mistake.

In the end I had four possible courses of action:

(1) Drug therapy - this scared me the least and hence it held promise.
(2) Transplants  - The idea of someone carving up my scalp made me sick.
(3) Wear a wig   - Another thing I couldn't bring myself to do.
(4) Do nothing   - (not for me) If I go down it will be fighting all the way.

In the end I chose drug therapy..... gee whiz huh?, bet you couldn't see that
one coming. The question was who. where, and how???????... time to pick up the
phone book and check out where help is available - my second big mistake.
I flipped page by page through the section titled hair, after passing through
every hair dresser add in town I came to the hair restoration section which
featured many slick adds ranging from wigs and implants to transplants and drug
treatments. The phone book scared me in a way too, there were many photos showing
guys wearing wigs..... guys having hair sewn to their heads, transplants, ....dam I
felt like treatment was worse than loss.

Several phone calls later and a promise of a free consultation to "expertly
determine what's best for you" (how could you turn that down?) I decided to
visit a place called "Ashley & Martin" (A&M). Later I would regret this this....

Interestingly at the end of the phone conversation with A&M I was told to
bring a blank cheque with me. Gee they must really wana help me bad.

Two weeks prior to my appointment I also visited my family doctor who simply
replied "your aging.... get used to it", with this comment echoing in my head
I ignored his only suggestion of transplants and promptly left. The remaining
spare time till my A&M visit was then spent reading up on medical journals and
anything else I could find that might provide some more plausible treatment.

It was two days before my visit that I finally came across the word "Minoxidil",
using this word as a search key I found information that at last gave me some
possible hope for keeping the turf up stairs. Eventually I learned of Upjohn's
Regaine (that's what it's called here in Oz) 2% minox solution. The stuff was only
available on prescription here so I looked for another doctor local to my area,
and who was around my age..... I figured a younger doctor would have a slightly
more understanding view upon what I wanted to try and achieve.

Three days later I rushed with excitment down to a chemist (= Drug store in US)
with my prescription in hand to get my first bottle of this magical fluid.
The chemist looked at the prescription and then at me, my brief excitement
gave way to embarrassment as he spoke aloud to his 16 year old female assistant
concerning the product to be ordered...... this was to be only the first
instalment of the terrible feelings that plague many an MPB sufferer who seeks
treatment. At $55 US ($75 Aust) the 2% solution was not cheap, but I had high
hopes it would help my condition by at least stemming the tide of damage.
I came back to collect the solution the next day.... she handed it over in a
brown paper bag, it made me feel like I was buying some porno mag.

I hurried home to make my first application of the drug. I figured with this
and my A&M treatment things might improve in the future.

"NOT WORTH THE BUS FARE"

The day for my first visit to A&M had come.... by now I had been applying the Upjohn formula for
several days, checking my head's progress in the mirror hoping for some sign
of a loss reversal, none so far. It was 10am in the morning and I rolled up to
A&M's local premises anticipating some kind of medical type building populated
with staff in white coats using medical terminology like "Minoxidil", in reality
it was a rather small sub let section of a 2 storey building with a weight watch
centre next door and an employment agency below.... great I thought, while I'm loosing my scalp I can drop a
few pounds at the same time and get another job while my esteem is so high.

Like a secret agent on the job I tried to slip into A&M un-noticed, but bumped
into the female receptionist from the employment agency below as I made for the
stairs.... dammm

I entered A&M and looked around..... I saw

..... trendy furniture.... a clock/radio blaring out rock music.... a table with a
pile of magazines.... a couple of Wemen in their early 20's wearing extremely
short white uniforms, one with her boyfriend sitting on the desk. Not exactly
the "professional" medical type environment I had expected, more of a put-off
to getting treatment really than anything else.

I walked in and explained that I had an appointment, after which I asked if
they use minoxidil in their treatment... the response "I'm sorry but I'm not
qualified to answer that" did nothing to build my confidence in the place.

Interestingly the statement "I'm sorry but I'm not qualified to answer that"
was to become the basic reply for all and anything I asked..... ignorance is
bliss (as a uni lecturer once told me), particularly if you just want to take
people's money and give stuff all in return.

Eventually I was greeted by a dude in a suit who led me into his office. I sat
down as he brought over a light equipped magnifying lens to look at my scalp
with. I was proclaimed to be balding on the crown (in reality I wasn't) as well
as at the temples (this was true to a point but not in the manner I was told).
At this stage I was introduced to their 4 month treatment program for a mere
$2400 Aust dollars. This program involved the use shampoos, vitamin treatments,
and a home made 5% minoxidil/ret A solution - which was so thick and greasy
you could fry chips in it.

These items were expensive too, a 200ml bottle of their home made shampoo was
$12!!!!!, the 200ml bottles of the 5% minoxidil solution cost $200 each!!!!!
(Aust dollars) this meant that the minimum cost of keeping your hair - sorry I
mean attempting to keep your hair would have cost around $1000 a year for minox
plus the other bits, this is a minimum remember folks, it does not include the
the $50 price tag on each of the vitamin tablet bottles you also had to buy.

Anyway - back to the story...... after being told about their program and that
it was my only hope for the future I was offered a small discount for signing
up right away, also I brought up the subject of finasteride, this new drug I
had heard about on the news the week before. It only took them about two 
minutes to shoot it down in flames proclaiming that my testicles would "shrink"
and that my general health would deteriorate with the use of this witch doctor's
pill.

Finally I was led out the back where some photos of my head at various angles
were taken along with a questionnaire that enquires why I want to save my hair
and who pushed me on the decision - hell, like I just thought it might be 
something to do when I'm bored!. After the photo session I was led back round
to the front counter where all the over-priced crap was wrapped up fish'n'chips
style in paper..... it's weird because it was fairly obvious which dudes were
going to A&M in that building cause you'd see them all walking out with wrapped
up packages under their arms...almost sad really.

Well that was the end of my initial contact... now began the treatment program
that cost me a fortune and delivered F**K all.

When I think about that first day I felt sorry for some of the other first 
timers I saw in the waiting room... several were really balding badly, much 
worse than myself, and based on the serious medical articles I have since seen
concerning hair loss, these people were almost beyond drug related due to how
far their scalp damage had progressed prior to being able to get any treatment.
In the end they were given false hopes and lies - and financially bled into the
bargain.

Sooooo I drove home...... them I looked at all the crap I'd bought and read
the instructions concerning their patented treatment plan.

"LET THE GAMES BEGIN"

Every morning I'd take a couple of the tablets and rub the fish'n'chip oil into
my scalp before going to work. By lunch time the suff had dried - and glued my
hair together. Each night before bed I'd shower and use the shampoos, 
antiseptic treatment plus the acid solution they called "presol" to remove a
layer of skin of my scalp, a very painful process in it's self. Finally I'd
rub in more fish'n'chip oil and then retire, waking next morning to a stain
from the solution on my pillow because I was too tired to stay up for 4 hours or
so to let it dry.

But this was not the worst problem, the product they called "antiseptol" which
was some kind of scalp disinfectant, caused severe chemical burns to my scalp
that lasted for 3 weeks. My scalp would ooze oil and blister from this solution
causing great pain. I went back and asked to get my money back for just the
antiseptol because I could not use it, they refused (suprise suprise).

I ceased using this stuff and cleaned the toilet with what I had left (which 
was 90% of the bottle). I then went and fronted up for my first treatment 
session back at A&M - from memory I think you get 12, but I'm not sure cause I
never went back for further treatment after the initial visits ran out.
The treatments would alternate.... one visit you go there and they would rub
fish'n'chip oil in your scalp and then massage it in, the next you'd have some
vitamin gel rubbed all over your head and a humidifier was then used to make your
follicles pores open up and allow all those great vitamins in - Christ!.

After using up my visits they took some more photos, game me another
questionnaire to say I was cured and then tried to convince me to continue
ordering more minoxidil solution from them.... like hell I would.
In their eyes (kept mostly shut) I had made a remarkable recovery in 4 months,
any real doctor will tell you that success in the hair growth game takes years
and not months.

I walked out of there (now 2.7 years ago) and never went back.

"KNOWLEDGE IS POWER"

Having liked my wounds both physical and financial I decided there must be
some dam place I could look for information on how to treat this affliction.
Initially I looked through medical books in libraries and from friends with
only minor success, nothing but blurbs concerning the minimal results of 2%
minoxidil solutions.

One day while net surfing I just decided to do a search on "hair" for the
hell of it..... I as amazed by the amount of info I found. No big deal, but most of the info contained on several sites directly contradicted each other, only serving to confuse me more and introduce further distrust in those offering solutions to my moulting process.

Persisting with my surfing eventually led me to two sites, namely regrowth.com and minoxidil.com, the first because of the wealth of information and chat forums, the second because of one thing, the site did not make any outrages promises of success using their products, plus they listed medical journals and papers to backup the medications sold. I decided to bite the bullet and examined their product pricing.

WOW!, these dugs were around a 1/4 the price of the same items sold in Australia. Figuring it was worth the risk as the cost was so low I ordered a day/nite pack and some proscar, commencing treatment as soon as the stuff arrived. From time to time I would email the site's doctor, Richard Lee and ask him questions, which he'd happily answer, including my concerns over criticisms of his products.

Well it's now 2 years since I switched to using what I believe are one of the best cost effective selection of products on the net and my results?, well at the very least I am no longer progressing closer to a basket ball, instead I have had what seemed like dead hair slowly progress back to what it used to be like. One VERY important point, don't believe what many internet sites say, hair restoration is measured in years, NOT 6 months. Every once in a while another hair becomes terminal, and in the end they all add up, time is the key here. Only about a month ago I started on Dr Lee's 12.5% minoxidil cream, with the increase in minoxidil I'm looking forward to improved hair response, but only time will tell, and again I'd say a year or two.