How Many People Have Had Some Success With Manuals/Brushing?

Hi,

I am curious. I would like to find out how many people have had some success with manuals and brushing? I mean everything from maintaining, thickening and regrowth. I think brushing and manuals are helping me but im also worried they could be making my hairline worse.

Is there any way to track this? It just seems hard to tell if the regrowth is "left overs" from my old hairline or actually regrowth. I just would be happy to maintain at this point. So the last thing I want to do is speed up my hair loss with brushing or manuals and make it recede quicker. Any encouragement and I would be thankful

You haven't seen the pics that have been posted?

You're only going to get answers from the same people that have already said it's working for them, which was back in the other thread.

I saw some pics. But I am also curious to hear from people who hair has gotten worse since doing this too. Just like a "report in" thread

What you've put is exactly how I feel. I'm curious to see what people reply. But yes I don't want to speed up my loss, when I can't tell if there new hairs or less of my hairline.

I'm in the same position. My hair health has improved dramatically since brushing and really focusing on taking care of it, yet those little hairs at my hairline make me reluctant.

hairisthickening and growdamnit,

I will re-post this, as it doesn't seem either of you two read it before.

"This has been mentioned several times in this forum and for those of you really trying to gauge progress via "counting hairs", eg seeing what sprouts up along the hairline, then take pictures. Reevaluate at least 6 months down the road. If your camera cannot pick up fine hairs in the picture, then draw out your hair line and literally map out markers (eg a freckle, wrinkle, mole etc.) or individual, freestanding hairs that you recognize. Plot these things like you would on a map, then re-plot 6 months after. If you're still having trouble after, you're obviously not making much progress. At this point, try and gauge if you've at least stabilized. Also note overall hair quality, as some "brushers" have noticed good improvement in overall (preexisting) hair quality.

If you're really uncertain about your regimen, and you're not doing the above, you'll probably mind fuck yourself out of something that could be working, or the opposite. "

It seems to be common that people who end up being successful at regenerating some amount of hair, or really stabilizing, go through a shed or period of fairly significant loss beforehand.

We know the manual methods are working for some people, as is proven by some really great pictures posted recently. You either need to keep up with your regimen and quit worrying about it making your condition worse, or stop the manual methods altogether. Re-posting these "how many people have had success with manuals" threads aren't doing any good. You seem to be looking for a clear-cut answer as to whether this works or not with each new thread post, but you're likely not going to get any new answers. I think just about everyone who has seen some result has already posted their experience pretty thoroughly.

I've read that before, but I feel as if I'm just mind-fucking myself. Yet, I digress, the act of taking pictures makes me see my hair loss and worry even more. I don't feel like worrying too much about all of it and just hope for these methods to work.

Growdamnit wrote:I've read that before, but I feel as if I'm just mind-fucking myself. Yet, I digress, the act of taking pictures makes me see my hair loss and worry even more. I don't feel like worrying too much about all of it and just hope for these methods to work.

Just save 20 bucks a week or so in a hair transplant fund and if 5 years down the road its worse git-r-done

Here is my hairline over the past couple months...Appears to be getting better, but much more slowly than my crown

Heree I highlighted an sdditional area where increased hair thickness is apparent

when I was out in the sun yesterday, I noticed, in the window reflection, how shiny the bald areas of skin are. When I pushed the skin upwards it became looser and the shininess disappeared.

The shininess must be caused by a marked degree of tightness, and I can only conclude that the scalp muscles are responsible for this. Either gravity is pushing these muscles down and they, in turn, are pulling the scalp down, or they are in a considerably tense state.

Xenon wrote:when I was out in the sun yesterday, I noticed, in the window reflection, how shiny the bald areas of skin are. When I pushed the skin upwards it became looser and the shininess disappeared.

The shininess must be caused by a marked degree of tightness, and I can only conclude that the scalp muscles are responsible for this. Either gravity is pushing these muscles down and they, in turn, are pulling the scalp down, or they are in a considerably tense state.

Yeah I noticed the same thing.

Based on the results of the Botox experiment (scalp muscles were paralyzed and hairloss stopped for all involved/ regrowth to 18% average), it appears as though constant scalp tension is the leading cause of MPB

^^wonder why this doesn't affect women? Maybe DHT causes these muscles to grow bigger and stronger?

Going off topic a bit, but I remember reading about a woman who developed a masculine square jaw because she had a habit of clenching her teeth, which caused her jaw muscles to grow. Her doctor cured her condition by injecting her jaw muscles with botox.

So I can imagine that constant tension in scalp muscles would cause them to grow and make skin become tighter.

Xenon wrote:^^wonder why this doesn't affect women? Maybe DHT causes these muscles to grow bigger and stronger?

Going off topic a bit, but I remember reading about a woman who developed a masculine square jaw because she had a habit of clenching her teeth, which caused her jaw muscles to grow. Her doctor cured her condition by injecting her jaw muscles with botox.

So I can imagine that constant tension in scalp muscles would cause them to grow and make skin become tighter.

It does! As soon as their androgen levels get above a certain level + low scalp oxygen, they lose hair!

I always wanted to know this about brushing

I have medium length hair and enough of it to disguise most of my hair loss and when I look at those boar bristle brushes I cant see how I could brush through my hair with it, it just looks like it would all tangle in the brush and maybe pull out some of my hairs? Are they easy to brush with and do they still scratch the scalp even if you have alot of hair coverage?

After being skeptical about manual methods I decided to try to "loosen up" the scalp last week and I've definitely noticed a difference. I try to stretch out the frontalis by grabbing my hair in the front and pulling up (not enough to pull the hair out) and furrowing my brow while opening my jaw making a deep frown to really stretch everything out. I hold the stretch for about 30 seconds only. After 10-20 seconds the pain when pulling the hair subsides. The first time I did it I got some soreness in the tendons around my eyebrows for a couple days which means the frontalis was tight. I worked around the sides, and then tried to stretch the occipitals by grabbing the hair on the back of my head and pulling forward while tilting my head forward. I'm just kind of experimenting with different things since I haven't seen these methods anywhere else. I bought Maliniaks book and the Tom Hagerty video also. I don't think massaging will do much or maybe just not as much as stretching. If you have tight muscles the best thing to do is to stretch them and take them through their full range of motion. Every muscle in your entire body wants to be loose and strong and if you don't use it it will get weak and tight. I'm also skeptical of the brushing and towelling. I think there might be something to LLLT and perhaps violet ray and I'm thinking of trying that. Just an aside, the violet ray Maliniak uses you can only buy from some really kinky sex site (Rupert Huse and Son). I guess the violet ray is mostly used for this nowadays so if you buy one and it doesn't work you can always use it for that. Anyway, yesterday I had to drive for 3 hours and the whole time I was doing Tom Hagerty's exercises and I got really good at it. I also did some face exercises and stretches. Apparantly "face yoga" is getting popular. Holding a smile for a few minutes until it got sore, just moving my face in different crazy positions and feeling the muscles tighten and stretch. I tried to stretch out my jaw and tongue as well by just sticking my tongue out really far in different directions and feeling the stretch. I could feel it in my jaw. Anyway, today I washed my hair and put in some hair gel and I usually get a nice clump of hair when applying the sticky gel. I'm a NW1 I guess so no one even notices I'm starting to recede and thin so I can still style my hair any way I want. Today there were like 2 hairs instead of dozens like usual. I have been eating healthy lately (no grains, dairy, sugar, etc.) but I would attribute this to the stretching and exercising and I plan on doing it for at least a year to see if I can get some regrowth. I had some fast food on the road yesterday too. Can some other people try to do the stretches (be careful not to pull to hard so you get traction alopecia) I'm talking about and maybe a really long session (over 1 hour) of the Tom Hagerty exercises to see if you start to lose less hair? If you can't grab your hair maybe you can get those sticky football gloves to try to get some friction. They also sell these rubber fingers at office supply stores that might do the same thing. I'm thinking of trying this since I'm not sure if pulling the hair will damage it after a while. Also, am I missing any method to consider (not including topicals, I'm skeptical of those as well)?

Toweling
Brushing
LLLT
Violet Ray
Maliniak massages
Tom Hagerty exercises
Stretching

I find stretching helps much more than massaging as well

SlowMoe wrote:I find stretching helps much more than massaging as well

Do you have any specific techniques? Is there a program or do you just do your own thing? Also, the nice thing about stretching is it takes a lot less time and isn't as hard on your fingers.

The reason I was skeptical of the manual methods is because I thought people were massaging the scalp, not the muscles around the scalp. I'm still skeptical of the towelling and brushing for this reason (unless toweling really is another way to stretch the muscles).

ngb wrote:The reason I was skeptical of the manual methods is because I thought people were massaging the scalp, not the muscles around the scalp. I'm still skeptical of the towelling and brushing for this reason (unless toweling really is another way to stretch the muscles).

people are massaging the scalp right? I am.

Massage the scalp MUSCLES frontalis temporalis occipitalis (sp?)

I bunch up the skin on the front of my scalp from side to side, and also the back, then i push both hands towards the center of my scalp and hold for a few seconds at a time.

hairisthickening wrote:

ngb wrote:The reason I was skeptical of the manual methods is because I thought people were massaging the scalp, not the muscles around the scalp. I'm still skeptical of the towelling and brushing for this reason (unless toweling really is another way to stretch the muscles).

people are massaging the scalp right? I am.

I don't think that does anything and that is Maliniak's theory as well so he massages the forehead (frontalis muscle), sides, and back (occipital muscles), not the scalp itself, which isn't a muscle. Tom Hagerty exercises are moving your scalp forward and backward by raising your eyebrow to pull the scalp forward and then flexing the occipitals to pull it back (like wiggling your ears). I did this for over an hour yesterday. If you order his video it's pretty crazy how much motion he gets after decades of doing this. I think this strengthens the muscles but also stretches the opposing muscles and also gets some good blood flow to the scalp. I added in some stretches of the frontalis like I said and I'm getting less hair falling out.

SlowMoe wrote:Massage the scalp MUSCLES frontalis temporalis occipitalis (sp?)

I bunch up the skin on the front of my scalp from side to side, and also the back, then i push both hands towards the center of my scalp and hold for a few seconds at a time.

I actually "bunch up" the island piece in the center of my hairline. I am about a NW 2.5...maybe a little higher. I also put both hands above my ears and "bunch up" or "squeeze" making the skin on top of my scalp get loose. I am guessing this is what you are talking about? I also hold for about 10 seconds.

I love this but im really fearing the long term effects of wrinkles on at least my forehead. When I "bunch/squeeze" the island piece of my hair in the middle it makes my forehead wrinkle vertically which is a very unnatural wrinkle pattern. Do you worry about this?

Also are we suppose to be massaging the forehead too??

I dont think it will leave any perm wrinkles. Yeadforehead muscles should be massaged too, probably not as important tho

For those using the bunch up method I would suggest getting some football receiver gloves or maybe those sticky working gloves from Home Depot (cheaper). It would help get a better grip. I tried that method and found I couldn't get a good stretch because my hands kept slipping. I just lightly pull my hair but this won't work for people who have lost it or have really short hair. I would also hold the stretch longer, at least 30 seconds up to a minute or more. I was told by a physical therapist that stretches should be held for at least 30 seconds and up to 3 to 5 minutes. You can kind of ease into it for few seconds, then back off. Active Isolated Stretching is taking a muscle through it's full range of motion and stretching it for a couple seconds, that might be something to consider as well. You can also flex the opposing muscle to stretch it more. It you are stretching the frontalis then flex your occipitals. If you are stretching your occipitals raise your eyebrows. You can also move your jaw, face and neck around since these muscles are all connected. If you want to stretch the frontalis flex your occipitals, furrow your brow, open your jaw, frown deeply and put your head back and to one side or the other while gently pulling your hair back. I took a few minutes to do this and the tendons of my frontalis got pretty sore but it went away after a couple days. I'm losing a lot less hair now that I'm doing those stretches and the Tom Hagerty exercise for hours a day while driving or just watching TV. With the Tom Hagerty exercises you can also add resistance. Pull your hair forward and flex your occipitals, opposite for the frontalis.