site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2814 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for March 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm losing my hair. Given my family history I've expected it, but it's still had a larger effect on my confidence than I thought it would. What are my options? It's hard to know how much to trust all of the supposed treatments.

I would start with just finasteride, the sooner the better. It prevents the conversion of testosterone to DHT in your blood. The hairs on your head miniturize and eventually die in response to high levels of DHT. Once the follicles are too far gone, you can't bring them back. There are potential side effects, but they are almost always reversible if you stop taking it.

The reason to avoid other treatments like Minoxidil at first is to see if the finasteride is working. You may not need anything else if you respond well enough. On the other hand, if your hair continues to get worse on just finasteride it might take stronger anti-DHT medication such as dutasteride.

People who only use Minoxidil usually see a temporary improvement in hair thickness, but because it doesn't address the root cause of thinning they keep losing hair. Think of it as a multiplier for the number of living follicles left on your head.

Edit: Getting finasteride is very easy these days through online pharmacies, although you can probably get it cheaper if you go to an actual doctor. But you might have bad luck getting a doctor to prescribe it. Many don't think baldness is a serious problem so they think any chance of side effects is a reason to not prescribe.

People who only use Minoxidil usually see a temporary improvement in hair thickness, but because it doesn't address the root cause of thinning they keep losing hair. Think of it as a multiplier for the number of living follicles left on your head.

I've been taking it daily for three years now, and I haven't noticed a slowdown (on the bright side, I didn't experience any side effects). I'll look into dutasteride, thanks.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats