I first noticed my impending hair loss around 6 years ago at age 22 when I had just joined the Navy and left the Midwest for the first time to live on the west coast and start life anew, and one of the first things that happened was that someone commented on a little tiny bald spot at my vertex and my obviously-receded hairline that I had somehow been blind to. I was like, "Oh hell no! This is not how my new life begins." I've been researching ways to fix it ever since.

I've been on Propecia on and off for several years; it has helped stave off the thinning in the frontal scalp area that started in late 2008. Used Dutasteride briefly, but read about some side-effects, and decided to just stick with good ol' Finasteride.

Won't try Rogaine, since I get the distinctive impression that it is notorious for making your hair fall out first, and then (only sometimes) making some hair grow back, and that hair is thin and wispy, and dependent on your continued use of Rogaine. I don't want to risk that; Rogaine is the nearly two-decade-old hair loss treatment of generations past. I'll stick with Propecia and good hair transplants.

I'm convinced that you get what you pay for, and that homeopathic remedies, most pills, and stupid goop/foam that you put on your head aren't going to fix anything. So I saved up some cash and got a moderate (1,775 grafts, came to about $7,300) hair transplant with Dr. Steven Gabel (December 30, 2010), complete with frontal hairline restoration (via FUT), and thickening-up of the thinned areas, namely the 2-inch-diameter circle of super-thinness at my vertex and the inch-wide stripe of thinning hair right down the center of my scalp.

I was happy with a moderately-sized procedure at the time, since it alleviated my immediate emerency by rebuilding my hairline and restoring uniform thickness, which is awesome; no more obvious, scraggly baldness. It also let me get my feet wet and test the waters to see if the fabled Hair Transplant  technology pioneered by the scandal-ridden Bosley roughly a decade ago had truly matured enough to hold its own... And now that I see how amazingly well this procedure works, I plan to head back for a slightly lower hairline and thicker vertex region. Some guys go in for mega-sessions of three to four thousand grafts at a time; I think I will go more gradually and stick with a few more transplants of 1,200 to 2,000 grafts at a time as I need them over the years, saving my donor regions for times of need (at least until they finally finish developing follicle-cloning, hopefully in the next decade - here's hoping :)

Made me an insecure, angry hermit.

Finasteride.

Absolutely.

Finasteride and a good HT. Possibly Dutasteride if it works for you.

I look in the mirror and feel like I'm seeing an image of myself again, instead of a sad-looking, prematurely old guy. I can style my hair and head into a club or bar and not feel like the creepy old guy, and people respond to me better in general, partly because of higher confidence, and partly because I just look younger and better.

Finasteride and Dr. Gabel. And also, once you start Fin, do NOT stop! You'll lose hair like twice as fast.