Hair Grows

 



From 1910 apparently...

If it didn't work in 1910...

One of the main reasons i dont buy all this manual methods being a cure. massage, heavy brushing and numerous contraptions to increase blood flow to the scalp have been tried b4 with bugger all results.

if u have the baldness genes and the androgen receptors are sensitive to androgens, increasing blood flow will just bring more DHT, and cause more baldness.

im all for ppl trying new things, but i have to draw the line when a treatment could potentially make it worse. e.g. heavy relentless brushing will cause trichotrillomania, too much massage could potentially cause traction alopecia.

for all we know massage could make baldness alot worse. And they wonder why i require proof before i try something new.

Aside from the case that manuals may not be the cure as you put it, they can likely be beneficial in some form or another to someone or another. Hair loss is huge as we are all finding out, the ability to know your own chemistry and listen to your own symptoms is overwhelming, not to mention tremendous sacrifice and commitment.

In saying this, if one can detect that an ambiguous friction applied to their scalp is resulting in good feelings or general positivity then in my experience I would continue doing so. Positivity can just as well grow hair as negativity cause hair to fall out.

I agree with you, Grub, about the benefits of positive impressions.

But I think that same principle makes just as good of a counterpoint. We're all aware by now from some of the posts here that the manual methods aren't quick fixes. They take time. So let's consider a time span of one year. Is the marginal benefit to hair growth in that time enough to surpass the negative growth from the stress you're having about your loss? In that tug of war, are the manual methods winning? Now that doesn't negate the positive of just maintaining, assuming that the methods can work at that rate.

But in the end it seems as if there are other negative growth factors that play in here such as fibrosis, hormonal patterns that only tend to work less in our favor as we age, and an aberrant immune response. I'm certainly not saying that the manual methods aren't based on good ideas, but just that it may be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

So at the center of most of these theories is the idea that the galea is tight. There are permutations, but I think that's generally agreed upon. So let's be generous and say you are massaging for 30 minutes daily. That's more than most are probably going to do long term, but we'll give the benefit of the doubt. Also, without knowing the real facts, we'll go ahead and say your galea maintains some slack for an hour after your massage. So your galea is still "tight" for over 22 hours out of your day. That might be unfair, because maybe after so long of doing massage you get a longer and longer period of laxity after the treatment. It might be that after so long you can do massage 3 times a week and the galea remains loose. Its possible. But to me, the galea wasn't tight initially from a lack of massage. If it is tight, we'd probably guess some neurology or myological reason for the tightness, which may be stress induced and would cause us to still remain tight for the better part of the day.

The idea of the strap is interesting. But being so visible, its not something most of us are going to wear for the better part of the day. Again, you might get an hour or two of it at night. If you had a job or lifestyle that allowed you to wear it all day, more power to you, let's see what you can do with it.

So at the end of the day, it just seems like these methods are a drop of water in the ocean. Its why I got interested in thinking about fat injections into the subcutaneous layer. With something like that, it would be operating all day long. It would be taking the brunt of the compression forces and might make a healthier environment for the arteries and hair itself all day long, rather than just an hour or so. But then again, the details aren't there either. How many times a year would we have to do it? Twice? Three times? Would it effect our appearances (nobody wants a weird bumpy scalp), and related how much and what method would be the best? Where do we source the material? Is this something that would require a derm/plastic surgeon to do properly? Could it be combined with botox therapy to completely take away scalp tension?

rofl wrote:heavy relentless brushing will cause trichotrillomania

No offense, but this is not accurate at all. trichotillomania is a condition in which an individual pulls hair out in an impulsive manner.  People who have this engage in this behavior because they derive physical and mental pleasure as well as an intense feeling of relief.

I believe it is caused by sociological factors and triggered by stress, anxiety, boredom, nervousness, ect. and has absolutely nothing to do with brushing your hair. It would be more of a coping mechanism in my opinion, but trichotillomania definitely has nothing to do with brushing your hair.  trichotillomaniacs  would use tweezers or their fingers to pull hair out, not a brush. They would derive pleasure out of it as well. MPB sufferers would be distressed at pulling out scalp hair from brushing as this is not their intent.

yes well, i know wat trichotrillomania is. but i see ur point and i agree i could have worded it better.

wat i was getting at is the end result might be the same. remember theyre talking about brushing for 5 minutes or more at a time. and u cant deny brushing does pull at the hair.

so i guess its a 'dosage' issue.

a little bit may promote blood flow, which i dont agree is neccessary good, but anyway...

a lot may pull out too much hair, more hair than can be replaced with new hairs.

wat worrys me, is it seems to be being promoted that the more brushing u do, the better off youll be. and i dont agree. e.g. ur typical noob here may go home and brush for an hour, a few times or for a week or so, until they realise they cant keep it up long term, lose some hair, and stop before the advertised supposed benefits of regrowth are realised

not that i believe there are benefits (related to treating mpb) to be found from brushing. ( i do believe that a quick brush now and then distributes oils and sebum, and is good for the scalp, i just dont believe brushing for long periods of time will do anything for mpb)

IWantOutOfThisMatrixNow wrote:

rofl wrote:heavy relentless brushing will cause trichotrillomania

No offense, but this is not accurate at all. trichotillomania is a condition in which an individual pulls hair out in an impulsive manner.  People who have this engage in this behavior because they derive physical and mental pleasure as well as an intense feeling of relief.

I believe it is caused by sociological factors and triggered by stress, anxiety, boredom, nervousness, ect. and has absolutely nothing to do with brushing your hair. It would be more of a coping mechanism in my opinion, but trichotillomania definitely has nothing to do with brushing your hair.  trichotillomaniacs  would use tweezers or their fingers to pull hair out, not a brush. They would derive pleasure out of it as well. MPB sufferers would be distressed at pulling out scalp hair from brushing as this is not their intent.

I don't even know why people waste their breath on rofl anymore.

I suspect (but cannot prove) that if most of us with a genetic tendency towards hairloss implemented very healthy diet AND manual methods at an early age (say, before or right at puberty), we could avoid most hair loss. But unfortunately, it won't ever be proven because vast majority of people aren't disciplined enough to eat well and use manual methods every day. Parents aren't disciplined enough to do it for their kids, and then the kids in their turn aren't disciplined enough to carry on with it once they reach the age of being able to choose for themselves.

Then there's the part that complacency/arrogance and ignorance play in hair loss. The "It won't happen to me" mindset.

I myself remarked to my mother several times over the years how I thought maybe my hair was getting a bit thinner, and she just pooh-poohed me. She said I had so much hair there was no way I'd ever lose enough to worry about it. I absorbed that attitude from her and didn't wake up until it was too late.

If you brush wrong it can wind up pulling out more hair. Do it right and it won't.

As for the brushing, well..I have been doing so the better part of a year and I would say it surely hasn't accelerated things and my hair and scalp do appear healthier. Then again I don't go crazy with it, just a few minutes of firm brushing a few times throughout the day and I notice my hair cleans up nice with just plain water. When I do wash I use baking soda and acv diluted heavily with filtered water.

My hair is still fairly thick and dense so I use caution and keep it short to make sure to penetrate down to the scalp as it pulls out less hair that way and all I lose are hairs that were bound to be shed soon anyways.

But the post above about brushing correct is great advice, it makes perfect sense why some people complain of worsening their condition because they shed faster than hair can be replaced with extreme brushing. It's best to just use common sense. I love what regular brushing and massage/stretching the scalp have done. I've just heard too much positive about brushing around the Internet and experienced positive things myself. I like having fresh looking hair many days after not washing. My days of excessive scalp sebum disappeared along with adding these treatments now I have the perfect amount of sebum as my hair is neither dried out like my shampoo days nor is it full of grease within a day anymore like when I didn't brush and used shampoo.

yeh i brush my hair to so dont get me wrong. it distributes oils, and stimulates the scalp, and is good for dermititis. like i said its a dosage issue.

the ferox method seems to advocate more is better. brush as much as possible to regrow hair, and i dont think thats accurate.

IWantOutOfThisMatrixNow wrote:

rofl wrote:heavy relentless brushing will cause trichotrillomania

No offense, but this is not accurate at all. trichotillomania is a condition in which an individual pulls hair out in an impulsive manner.  People who have this engage in this behavior because they derive physical and mental pleasure as well as an intense feeling of relief.

I believe it is caused by sociological factors and triggered by stress, anxiety, boredom, nervousness, ect. and has absolutely nothing to do with brushing your hair. It would be more of a coping mechanism in my opinion, but trichotillomania definitely has nothing to do with brushing your hair.  trichotillomaniacs  would use tweezers or their fingers to pull hair out, not a brush. They would derive pleasure out of it as well. MPB sufferers would be distressed at pulling out scalp hair from brushing as this is not their intent.

I don't wish to get into an an argument here, but rofl might have a point that relentless brushing may cause some short term traction / friction alopecia. If you are scratching the surface of the scalp very strongly, then IMO, it makes sense that hair will be uprooted from the follicle by the heavy pressure of the bristles as they will inevitably collide with the strands of hair at the skin surface. i actually think it's plausible to suggest that the 'shedding phase' of boar brushing is mainly down to the hair being pulled out. And if there is any regrowth success via this method, then the constant scratching may be uprooting new hairs.

I personally think that lightly stabbing the skin with the boar brush might be a better option to increase growth factors and minimize traction alopecia, but that's just my opinion.

'I don't even know why people waste their breath on rofl anymore.'


listen, i know it seems like im evil fro going against ur precious manual techniques, but ive been on this forum for several years, and other forums for many, many years before that, and ive seen the same things like massage, blood flow, and brushing come up many times before, and they always end in the same way, no proof.

if u guys were smart youd listen to the veterans, and save urself some heartache.

otherwise mpb treatment just goes round in circles.

peace.

It doesn't really matter what term you want to apply for the "type" of loss it might cause, but I think its pretty obvious that any type of wounding that goes overboard is going to be bad for hair. I think there is a fine line when it comes to the really abrasive brushes, and it would be easy to do more harm than good.
We shouldn't forget the immune component here. The immune system is like the body's cleanup crew when it comes to wounds, so if you are consistently creating that stimulus you are only going to cause more and more fibrous tissue to be laid down. Scarring is not a good thing. Massaging to increase blood flow is a different thing than actually irritating the skin, the latter being more of a histamine/prostaglandin reaction, which I don't believe is good for hair at all.