Ok, I’m young. I’m also going bald, slowly, but surely. I have contemplated using Rogaine or that new “herbal” suppliment that supposedly causes your hair to grow back, but I am uncertain of the benifits.
So does Rogaine, or any of the other “alternative” herbal suppliments work?
If so, are there any nasty side effects?
Most popular hair tonic in china is a brand called 101. It’s got all the herbs and spices and whatnot that you could possibly want. However, I can only star in their Before and Before advertisements.
well, sorta bad news -but I think in all cases you should double check with a doctor and get his/her opinion first! Hair loss can be a symptom of other things, depending on how you’re losing it.
Rogiane - can’t give you much information on how it works or what it does, but from what I understand it only slows down/stops male pattern baldness… and if you stop taking it, the hair you would have lost in the first place will fall out, so once you start, I think you’re stuck.
There are people that swear by the cayenne pepper/vodka remedy and all types of other herbal things… I can’t speak for the chinese one mentioned, but most of these remedies work by irritating the scalp. The idea is that some hair loss occurs by build up of dead skin cells next to the scalp and clogs the hair shaft causing hair to stop growing there…therefore it will only work on areas where you wouldn’t have naturally lost hair in the first place… however, this strikes me as decently bogus… if build up of dead skin cells legitimately caused hair loss in men that could be fixed, the same problem would be observed in women as well (while many women do experiance thinning and hair loss, it’s usually due to hormones/age, just the same as guys…well, except that guys don’t go through menopause and pregnancy…er…at any rate…). There’s no statisical evidence that I know of that shows that men don’t wash their hair as much as women and therefore one has a cleaner scalp than the other… And also, what about dandruff shampoo, which works by medicating a dry scalp and exfoliating dead skin cells? … you’d think that would do the job without sticking cayenne pepper on you head.
That said, my grandfather did try it (the cayenne pepper/vodka thing) and my mother swears up and down that he grew back quite a bit of hair. I haven’t done a picture comparision, but at one point he had shingles (the virus that causes chicken pox) on his scalp that might have caused some hairloss by scabbing and mild scarring…not necessarily your every day “dead skin build up.”
You could definitely try rogaine - again, I’d speak to a doctor first and get their opinion on why you might be losing your hair. If it’s hereditary, I think this is the target Rogaine aims for… if it’s not, there might be another way to go.
Or, you could shave your head/cut it short and go for the sexy bald guy look. 1 million marines can’t be wrong. 
Meg
If you insist on pursuing cures for baldness, accept now that you will be held to ransom by every quack and profiteer in existence, sorry, but it needs to be said
gets my vote, every time
And definitely, definitely don’t go for the comb-over - it convinces nobody but the wearer.
Rogaine works… at least for some people. Ask your doctor for a free sample (or ask the company that makes it). My mom uses it because she began to loose her hair (you think it’s bad for a guy to go bald!) and it definitely grew hair. But it’s effects are transient… as soon as you stop using it the hair will once again begin to fall out. It’s never ending battle.
Unless you want to spend the rest of your life by pouring expensive treatments on your head I would suggest you learn to live with whatever hair you have. My brother lost his hair in his twenties (before Rogaine) and wore a toupee for a while… it looked rediculus and he eventually gave up hiding his baldness and started to embrace it. He’s never been happier.
See also Propecia.
Propecia worked for me. I had to take it for a couple months before I noticed anything, but at $40 bucks plus a month, I couldn’t afford it, and I lost it all in a few months. It works on the top of the head, whereas Rogaine works only on the crown. However, Propecia restored hair to the front on me to an extent.
Now I use Shen-Min and Saw Palmetto. You can get it at health food stores. My brother used it and it restored his hair almost completely in just a few months. I have used it a month, and have noticed a difference.
As with any of these, you have to keep taking it, or else it will all fall out.
They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t cure male pattern baldness completely. It sucks.
From what I understand, no proven or unproven product can regrow hair in the receding/front hairline area (which tends to be the most important area to men).
Propecia and Rogaine (both trademarks), regrow the crown hair when they are successful. They also prevent hair loss in the crown area…when succesful.
If you want a permanent solution you need to talk with a hair replacement doctor right away and the two of you can develop a plan to give you the hair you want without anyone knowing that you had anything done.
Rogaine works for some people but not forever. You are gambling that it will and by the time you find out that it doesn’t work for you, you are bald and anything you have done after this will surely be noticable.
As for the herbal treatments, I seriously doubt they will work and once again, by the time you find this out it is too late.
A good surgeon can do a procedure now and you will never have to worry with your hair again.
As for me, I just keep it short and tell everyone that I just like a wide part.
BTW- I once went to the barbershop and said “I need a haircut”, the barber, without missing a beat, asked me “which one?”. 
If balding and weight loss remedies worked there would be no bald or fat people. Remedies mostly play with the wishful thinking of the victims.
Sailor <-- Legally bald since 1996
Check out my post, which provides the best info on SDMB that I’ve seen. I doubt you can access through the link below, so search under “Going Bald.”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57301