Follica pictures

[goata007]

» In BTW : Here in my country there had always been numerous reports about
» bald persons that were capable of regrowing hair through wounding the scalp
» and rubbing garlic all over the wounded areas…Here is one other piece of
» information that matches the many converging indicators that do all confirm
» the reliability of the follica approach .

Where are you from? is it suppose to regrow existing hair or create new hair?

[Amilcar]

de novo hair goata, my country is Tunisia , and this is a traditional medicine , I heared about this stuff , for the 1st time, long time ago may be something like 8 years…and that is a quite known operation in our traditinal medicine …

[benji]

» » I’m pretty sure Benji said before that the dermabrasion isn’t deep
» enough
» » to affect the existing follicles…
»
» how do we know that for sure?
»
» did benji take measurements?
»
» what if the difference between destroying a follicle and not destroying a
» follicle is, like, 0.7 millimeter?
»
» i’m just kidding about that, of course… the difference is probably
» greater than that. but still, how close can we afford to cut it, when
» we’re talking about risking our precious follicles here?
»
» can we take that risk?

there would be blood everywhere if you went deep enough to disturb an anagen follicle…large difference. Youre not supposed to bleed with dermabrasion. Anagen hair follicles, if I remember correctly, are on the order of 2mm to 4mm deep (its been a long time since I read this). Dermabrasion is simply taking the epidermal layer and the stratum cornelium off the skin…much higher up.

Word of warning…I would not try the abrasion-protocol at home unless I had read that patent over and over and had at least three of the adjunctives they mention—with one definitely being a non-naturally occuring egf-inhibitor. It would be a shame to abrade your head (it will hurt, and it will hurt for a few days), withold from shampooing for a while, all for nothing.

Frankly, we dont even know if it works yet on bald scalp. Thats why I want them to test it. I do anticipate, it working in the donor area or the body. I cant imagine why it wouldn’t in those places. Even if it works like a charm, one will still probably have to use some anti-androgen (spiro, fluridil, finasteride, revivogen, etc) to keep it in all likleyhood.

[MPB]

It’s only after a bald man is butchered by a strip surgeon that he realises that there is nothing wrong with being bald.
It’s better to be naturally bald then disfigured.

That’s kind of subjective. I consider being bald a disfigurement on its own.

[goata007]

» That’s kind of subjective. I consider being bald a disfigurement on its
» own.

+1…It’s all relative my friend!

I came across a study, and basically the essence of it was that Non-balding people don’t really care/think of balding as a negative thing. On the other hand, most balding people are really affected by it, psychologically, and baldness often leads to depression.

It also made a point about how non-balding men usually don’t think of baldness as a negative thing, however, women do!

[cal]

Ask women if they care about a bald head. Most say no or it wouldn’t be a huge deal if they liked the guy.

But try asking women if they care about their man’s image/style being ruined, all his worst facial features being accentuated, and looking 10 years older than he really is.

[Mr.Fantastic]

» 10 days ago, I sanded the entire top of my scalp. I’m Norwood 7 and shave
» my head so there is no hair there to ‘inconvenience’ the procedure. For the
» first few days, I applied a mix of Lithium Orotate, caffeine and emu oil.
» I am now applying a mix of quercetin (known to inhibit tyrosin kinase),
» dmso, lithium orotate and caffeine mixed into a 60ml bottle of minoxidil.
» As I have no hair on top, any results should be obvious. I don’t own a
» digital camera but if I should get any results worth talking about, I’ll
» obtain one and post pictures.
» However, I’m getting awful side effects and may have to cut down on the
» quantity of lithium. Basically, I just broke about 6x120mg capsules into
» the minoxidil bottle, about half teaspoon of caffeine and about four
» tablets (each 100mg) of quercetin. The side effects range from very bad
» (chest pressure like a panic attack, shortness of breath) to milder effects
» such as dizziness and muscle aches and anxiety. I’ll keep you guys
» apprised IF there is anything to shout about.
»
» Oh and every couple of days, I’m using a 0.5mm dermaroller over my scalp
» before applying the topical.

Lithium with dmso as a topical. Urgh, that can be bad. Good luck and thanks for keeping informed. You’d better monitor yourself as that stuff will go far more than your derm.

[AJ1]

About 20 years ago when I was starting to lose my hair (and it was not really noticeable to anybody except me), I was having a conversation with a married female friend, who was probably in her late 20’s at the time. This girl was the nicest, most down-to-earth girl you could ever meet.

For some reason the conversation got on hair loss, and she stated it would really bother her if her husband started losing his hair. I really valued her opinion, and this really devastated me at the time. Of course I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking, “YOU would be bothered by it! What about HIM!!!”. Anyway, I know she wouldn’t have said that if she knew I was losing my hair. But it was an eye-opener to see how women really feel about hairloss.

[TAGOHL]

» this follica method will probably grow some hair, but way too thin and
» sparse to be considered anything near a real cure.

Well, Follica is going to use dermabrasion plus an EGF inhibitor. The EGF inhibitors alone can produce dense, terminal hair growth in some odd cases. Add on the dermabrasion, and I suspect you’ll get a good density of terminal hairs.

» lithium is just a chemical element, the same thing that they give to
» people with manic depression (bipolar disorder).

Lithium also activates the Wnt and beta-catenin pathways, which are important in hair follicle biology. Lithium is mentioned in Follica’s earlier patents, BTW. Wnt is the reason why people are using lithium.

» now, if a hm company like icx adopts the dermabrasion method and combines
» it with injecting dp cells, that’s something entirely different.

The latest ICX protocol does use abrasion, and it substantially improves HM results.

» combining hm + dermabrasion might be the answer we’re looking for, but
» it’ll require testing from ground zero…

HM hasn’t lived up to the promise. HM was discovered almost 25 years ago, and multiple attempts to bring it to market have not succeeded. This should tell you something. Don’t hold your breath…

[TAGOHL]

» Lithium also activates the Wnt and beta-catenin pathways, which are
» important in hair follicle biology. Lithium is mentioned in Follica’s
» earlier patents, BTW. Wnt is the reason why people are using lithium.

Here’s the study (done by Dr. Cotsarelis) that started Follica:

Wnt-dependent de novo hair follicle regeneration in adult mouse skin after wounding. Nature. 2007 May 17;447(7142):316-20.

There are many studies on lithium and Wnt. E.g.:

Activation of the Wnt signaling pathway: a molecular mechanism for lithium action. Dev Biol. 1997 May 1;185(1):82-91.

[TAGOHL]

» i don’t see anyone here addressing that question. the vast majority of
» us balding guys still have substantial hair on our heads.
»
» how will follica address this question/issue?

This was a big question I had from the start.

The anwser is, they likely won’t wound severely enough to harm existing follicles.

In fact, Follica may go a step further and depilate your existing follicles, which greatly increases the number of new hair follicles created via their procedure. So, you might get the treated area buzzed, depilated (which doesn’t destroy follicles, so no need to worry), and then the procedure is applied. I’m just speculating about the depilation - I don’t know if it will be part of their final protocol or not, but the patent does mention it as a possibility.

[debris]

lithium wont grow him any useful coverage. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

IF it was so simple follica would not need 3 years for IND.

Anyway we will see. I appretiate Baccy is trying that.

[Baccy]

ICX let me down. Basically they were that short on trialists they were forced to put an ad in a local Manchester newspaper. After all this, they did not even call me (or Baldie42 for that matter) in for screening. I telephoned them at least twice reiterating my desire to be a trialist and they insisted I would be contacted. I’m an ideal trialist. If they can put hair on MY head then they can regrow hair on every bald bastard under God’s sun. And I would have stuck with it. Anybody on this board would have stuck with it because we have more than a passing interest in our rapidly disappearing hair.
Instead, they chose some guys that were probably indifferent to their hairloss. Result…they walked out when the process hit the first bump in the road. Well that’s MY take on it anyway.

All the chemicals I’m using in my experiment have a reason for their inclusion. However, I DO believe that the long-winded patent from Follica is deliberately including chemicals that are not needed. Maybe to blow smoke up our collective arses. Maybe just to make it seem more complicated than it is.
One good thing is that the lithium appears to have almost entirely de-oiled my scalp which was quite shiny before due to excessive sebum secretion. I can basically see the indentations where all my follicles SHOULD be but there are no black dots in there. On another forum, a guy started growing new hair 3 weeks after wounding. He was using a lithium based mix.
Today is DAY 11 post wounding.

[Baccy]

I do actually have some Follipro copper peptides that I tried before this experiment. It may help in conjunction with the wounding. By the way, the scalp was sore for about two days then started peeling and some slight scabbing near the front. For a few days now, it looks superficially healed as if it had never been wounded.

[Baccy]

I’m decreasing quantities as I had an accumulative reaction to the lithium.
As for the DMSO, I’ve dealt with that stuff before and know that even a small amount can make you stink to high heaven (but you don’t notice yourself).
I think the key with all the ingredients I’ve mentioned is small quantities.
The caffeine will inhibit DHT basically giving my cells a Han Solo-like ‘Yahoo! You’re all clear kid! Now let’s grow these bastard follicles and go home!’
Sorry about the nerd-like analogy.

[Baccy]

If the wounding with quercetin and lithium doesn’t work, Acell is what I’ll try next. I’m the perfect lab rat. Totally bald.

[Baccy]

Well said Goata. We’ve all waited long enough. If we can expediate the proven science and end our suffering, we should.

[cal]

Baccy -

I’m glad you’re trying this and grateful that you’re gonna keep us posted.

But I really think you should have waited to get one of the EGF-R inhibition drugs involved. It seems like you’re going to end up having done everything right except for omitting the main ingredient. (And in terms of risk, just the WNT-signalling of the Lithium seems to be provoking more serious concerns than the EGF-R inhibition itself. Established science has passed G&F through the FDA trials a long time ago.)

I’m not sure about what the kinease inhibtion angle will bring to the table. Maybe it’ll replace the Gentifib/Leflunomide, I’m not informed enough to know.

[debris]

I agree that following the protocol rigorously including the EGF inhibition would raise the chances significantly. That is from next to nothing, to slight or slim.

[MPB]

» One good thing is that the lithium appears to have almost entirely
» de-oiled my scalp which was quite shiny before due to excessive sebum
» secretion. I can basically see the indentations where all my follicles
» SHOULD be but there are no black dots in there.

Baccy- where do you get your lithium and how often and in what dosage are you taking? Is this oral or topical? Thanx.