What DO we think are the strongest ways to improve scalp circulation?

I kinda wanted to liberate this topic from any one individual and try to get to the core of it, as it does seem to have potential.

The top methods I seem to come across seem to be certain kinds of massages (not sure on specifics), lowering the head (e.g. handstands or hanging it off of a bed), VEGF, rosemary, cayenne, minoxidil and copper peptides.

I'd love to explore this a bit further and determine the strongest methods. One would imagine that if we determine a strong enough one, it should be a good (IMO quick fix / band-aid) treatment for everyone.

I hope this thread proves useful!

Hoppi!

i don't know how much circulation it improves, but i have just started putting aloe vera gel and also apple cider vinegar and rubbing it into my head. i'm planning on buying an inversion table quite soon... depending on my car situation (this one i think is huge to improve blood flow after i read it in another thread here) . i also recently purchased emu oil and coconut oil and will be applying both those to my head as well. i'm hoping one of the aloe vera gel, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, or emu oil proves itself useful in hair growth/stop falling out.. might be overdue though.. but i really want to keep my hair.

since we are talking topical here.. i'm new to topical. if one experiences scalp itch from using a topical, can this be seen as a good sign or a bad sign?

Hi Hoppi,

The strongest method by far is the one that was discussed by Papillia Power. You joined in the thread at the time but seemed rather sceptical. I can assure you it does work and does make a difference.

To summarise:

Vellus hair - has no capillary loop to the papillia
Terminal hair - thickness depends on the number of cells (size) of the top of the papillia
Blood flow to some extent determines the number of those cells.

We lose capiliary loops each time a hair goes through the anagen phase.

If the hair is prevented from growing back - by DHT / pathogens / a faulty liver / space aliens - it doesn't matter which - the loop does not form - and the network infrastructure that would deliver that connection - no longer exists.

As such - I think that one of the reasons that hair does not grow back as fast as we like is that regardless of the cause of hairloss - once the network is no longer needed - it atrophies and hair only gets diffused blood through the tissues.

No capillary loop = permenant vellus.

Like much of the human body - mechanisms tend to work both ways. EG smile to be happy. Be happy because you smile.

Force blood to overwhelm capillaries - and loops develop as a way to distribute the extra blood. In other words supply can create demand, not just demand drive supply in terms of the body.

I hope that this is of some use to you. I am still having slow but steady progress - but at the rate of a few hairs a week, I will be here a long time.

Anyway we can accelerate temporary hypoxia (aniogenisis) - eg headstands, skull expansion exercises, massage - and increase the flow of blood, massage, Papilla power etc - will regenerate the network.

I am not nearly smart enough to optimise this process - but I am convinced with others help we can discover very effective ways to increase blood flow.

I think this is going to be a very helpful thread!

I have made a topical for when I'm on the exercise bike:
Groganics'gro-n-wild, azelaic acid, zinc sulphate, B6 pyridoxine, vitamin C... The sensation is unbelievable, like needles are being pushed under my scalp, especially when my scalp starts to sweat!
And a topical for night time, with a shower cap:
Olive oil, fresh rosemary, cayenne pepper, zinc sulphate... This is great to massage with and something easy to help with hair loss while I sleep!

I will update in a few months of use with a conclusion...

* Is the weird twitchy/tingly feeling after scalp massages "increased blood flow"?

gbp2000 - Yeah sorry I was so closed off to this before. As you know I wasn't huge on PP's "business model" approach, and additionally since then I have learned so much more about how circulation ties into hair loss. I always knew that androgens, inflammation and infection were all core parts of it, but only recently did I fully understand how (probably through those mechanisms) blood flow is disrupted, and that seems to be the last link in the chain to follicle death. Therefore by forcing blood flow back through, even though the underlying cause of your MPB might still be there (such as dysbiosis, hormonal imbalance, inflammation, etc), the hair loss is patched up simply because the hair is still getting it's required blood flow.

I saw a study once saying that balding men had 2.6x lower blood flow to the scalp than men with healthy hair. That was the wake-up call to me that this was definitely a part of the equation (and a very measurable one at that).

You may well be right that the Papilla Power method is the strongest, it certainly seems strong from the success stories I have heard.

That's fascinating as well the idea that supply generates demand - I literally never thought of that! Although I knew that angiogenesis could be encouraged with things like VEGF (such as in Nanogen's Serum VEGF), and blood flow increased with (for example) things like cayenne pepper, it never occured to me that the latter might encourage the former anyway, so one needn't have to do both!

Also, it does seem that increasing circulation is considerably easier and cheaper than encouraging angiogenesis, so that's definitely a good thing!

FATE? - Definitely let us know about what success you have there! Back on HLT this guy I used to chat to got success with using minoxidil, copper peptides (Folligen) and a product called Mega-Tek. Now I think back, perhaps what he was successfully doing is increasing blood flow to his follicles so strongly, that it was basically having the same effect as what we are all trying now.

Additionally, it's cool I'm not the only one who had the rosemary and cayenne combination idea! In the time I've been researching and learning about hair loss, those two are the natural remedies that consistently come up for circulation. We also used to talk a lot about peripheral blood flow increasers like ginkgo biloba and gotu kola. Some herbs/remedies also have healing properties such as calendula, comfrey and colostrum.

Joke is... one would imagine that you can get very strong topical circulation boosters somewhere... like a drug or something like that.. they simply MUST exist... maybe that's worth doing some research into as well!

I do think that somewhere out there is a simple, effective circulation boosting method that would work for everyone, and would at least see us through at least until internal methods (such as the Ray Peat approach of primarily digestive and thyroid optimization) show success.

Sanderson - Well done on your efforts And scalp itch... to be honest I think it can be caused by several things. It can be inflammation (bad) or probably also if it's more like a tingling then that seems to mean increased blood flow and possible success. An unpleasant itching sensation is probably bad though. I get that a lot coupled with dandruff >.<


But yeah erm, glad this is helping, and I look forward to where it goes next

Is there a video for skull expansion exercizes?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=ms-android-htc&gl=gb&source=android-browser-type&sky=mrdr&sa=X&ei=RjdnT5KkHurO0QX3vbm-CA&ved=0CB0QvwUoAQ&q=ginkgo+biloba+blood+flow&spell=1&biw=533&bih=260

Has anyone tried extremely cold shower/baths. I know that Tim Ferris and many others promote this method for fat loss, however, I tried an ice cold bath one time. It was torture for ten minutes, but it definitely increased blood flow to the extremities. I wonder if using a cold shower could increase blood flow to the scalp...

anthonyspencer54 wrote:Has anyone tried extremely cold shower/baths. I know that Tim Ferris and many others promote this method for fat loss, however, I tried an ice cold bath one time. It was torture for ten minutes, but it definitely increased blood flow to the extremities. I wonder if using a cold shower could increase blood flow to the scalp...

Markus Rothkranz spoke of this! The idea of going from hot water to cold to hot to cold, to get more blood and lymph flowing to the extremities and promote detox and blood flow. Should work. Sounds a bit extreme/unpleasant though!!

http://www.nativeremedies.com/ailment/normal-blood-circulation.html

I can highly imagine thinning the blood is going to be a positive step...

I'm looking further in to this, but after a few minutes of reserch on thinning the blood I found:

* Foods that are rich in salicylates is beneficial to blood thinning
* Eat foods low in vitamin K but high in vitamin E
* Vitamin K works in blood clotting and thickening of the blood

So... why doesn't a strong pro-circulation topical work? I hear very little talk about cayenne oil or anything like that. I mean, does anyone remember those stories about a woman getting regrowth using onion? Could that be because of it's effects on topical circulation?

If one were to simply put diluted chili oil on their scalp from the eyebrows upwards for argument's sake, why would this be less effective than a massage?

It's very interesting that vitamin E thins the blood given peoples success with Toco-8 etc

It's also very interesting that alcohol is noted to thin the blood given the "why do tramps have hair?" theories.

Again, very interesting - http://www.ctds.info/natthinners.html

Very interesting topic.

Does someone know if aerobic exercie like running is good for improving bloodflow/oxygenation ? I think it is but it seems most people ony rely on topicals, I don't remember people talking a lot about physical exercices.

Guys, I do quite a few things to loosen my scalp and increase the blood flow.

Most things have already been discussed such as Tom Haggerty's exercises and scalp massages.

But there's one thing I've been doing for a few weeks that's giving me crazy tingly feelings in my scalp. I don't know if it's doing anything - too early to tell. But I will share what I'm doing, and perhaps someone else could try it and see what they think. I do it twice a day (morning and evening).

After doing this, I can feel the blood flow (at least I think it's blood flow) rush through my forehead and scalp. I believe it's a form of temporary vasodilation, but that's just my assumption. Whether it's beneficial or detrimental or a waste of time, time will tell.


A. Lie down on a couch, bed or even the floor.

B. Put the tips of your left hand fingers on the edge of the galea on the left side of the scalp towards the front. Your pinky should be on the upper left of your forehead and the other fingers should be on the edge of the galea. When I do this the tip of my index finger is about halfway up (inbetween the forhead and the crown on the left), with my pinky near the forehead (upper left). This should give you an idea of the finger spacing.

C. Do the same with the right hand fingertips as you did with the left, except they'll be on the right side of your head.

D. The thumbs are anchored on the side of your head. The thumbs don't play an important role.

E. With your finger tips on opposing sides of the galea, push the left hand finger tips towards the right hand finger tips. Do the same with the right hand finger tips, push them towards the left hand. Make sure you do it with quite a bit of pressure.

F. Hold them in this position for 3-5 minutes. Set a timer beforehand or listen to a song or two to get an idea of time. This was hard for me to do for a few weeks, but it's since got easier. Don't know if my fingers are now stronger or my scalp is looser or both.

G. After the time has expired. Release and then you should get a feeling of blood rush to your head which will stay for a few minutes.


I used to do this exercise standing up and felt some blood flow going to my scalp, but it wasn't until I tried it while I was laying in bed one night that I got much better results with it. I have since tried it a few times standing up, laying down, and inverting myself. I get the best results laying down.

I'd be curious to see what you guys think of it. Add it to your repertoire if you like it. Regardless of how it's received I'm going to do it for at least 6 months to see what happens.

Also, I'm keeping an eye on this guys experiments: http://www.hairsite.com/hair-loss/forum_entry-id-98223.html

Check it out, very interesting.

hellwig wrote:Again, very interesting - http://www.ctds.info/natthinners.html

Handy link, hellwig. IIRC, jdp and others have pointed out that electron rich foods and earthing and pulsed EMF also thin blood, and clumped structures in blood are freed up this way.

Something worth trying out NeonMonk, nice work. There was a few good posts a while back by a poster you might find interesting. Check out his three latest posts.

https://immortalhair.forumotion.com/spa/karankawa

I do feel these methods definitely have merit. Also, it seems important to get one's endocrine system in good order.

9rugrats5, thank you! Those posts that you linked me are very informative and have given me some things to think about

You are very welcome, NeonMonk, and thank you, too. Do check out the cupping massage also mentioned there.

9rugrats5 wrote:

hellwig wrote:Again, very interesting - http://www.ctds.info/natthinners.html

Handy link, hellwig. IIRC, jdp and others have pointed out that electron rich foods and earthing and pulsed EMF also thin blood, and clumped structures in blood are freed up this way.

I found a video that goes for about 20 minutes that in many ways supports what is written on that website regarding natural blood thinners.

I would recommended that everyone interested in this topic of blood flow, capillaries, vasodilation, angiogenesis, etc... take a look at this video.

I found the video very inspiring and it has recommended things to eat which can feed the body, empowering it to restore normal angiogensis. The argument in the video being that excessive angiogenesis leads to cancers, blindness and other detrimental diseases. On the flip side, not enough angiogenesis leads to things like hair loss, erectile dysfunction, strokes and more.

The video focuses on cancer, but I think it's still very beneficial to what we're discussing here.

The video is called "Can we eat to starve cancer?" and it's presented by William Li. You can watch it here: http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html

I took a tocotrienol supplement for 7 months and noticed no benefits to my hair

Was it toco-8?