You are probably one of countless men who has hoped they would preserve a full, lovely head of hair until the day you died. But one day you started to become aware that things were changing on top and your once lovely mane was making its slow exit down the drain. So, what the heck is male pattern baldness anyway? Why do I have it and not my younger brother? How do I get my full head of hair back or at least save what I got? These and other questions will be discussed in this article.

First of all, when it comes to male pattern baldness, you are positively not alone. Every guy, to some degree or another, is going to encounter some hair loss by the time they reach their mid-60's. Sorry guys, but that is just the way it is. For those of us who have had generations of bald-headed wonders in their family tree, you can probably guess what the future holds for you. Particularly if you see it on your mother's side of the family. So genetic predisposition is a huge factor in male pattern baldness.

The hormonal culprit is testosterone. When you are young, you have a ton of testosterone cursing through your system and this hormone can have an effect on your hair follicles. Without having to have a degree in body chemistry, it in essence goes something like this: when testosterone meets up with an enzyme referred to as 5-alpha reductase it changes into dihydrotestosterone, which fortunately has been reduced and labeled in much easier terminology as DHT. It is the DHT that gets into the hair follicles and slows hair growth down or stops it all together. So with no new hair or very little new hair coming in, through time you start seeing more and more of your scalp and less and less of your hair.

Many men just learn to put up with the inevitable and begin learning to like and even celebrate their baldness. But there are some men who actually do wish for a full head of hair and would like to do something about it. So what are your choices?

Although they may be marketed under various names, the two main medications for male pattern baldness are finasteride and minoxidil. How do they work? Well, finasteride gets in there and stops your testosterone from changing into DHT, thus giving your hair follicles the freedom to keep producing hair. You will be taking it in tablet form and it has a pretty decent success rate: approximately 66% of men either eliminating hair loss or in a number of cases even reversing it. Like all medications, there are a few drawbacks to finasteride. One is that it requires a heck of a long time for it to work. You won't observe much of anything for at least 4 months and to see any reversal of hair loss you may be looking at up to 2 years or more. Secondly, you have to to keep taking it for as long as you want to keep your hair. If you stop, your hair will start receding again. Lastly, if gets awfully expensive. Especially if you are going to use it for the long haul.

Minoxidil is a little bit different in how it works. First of all it is a solution that you rub on your head. What's interesting about this treatment is that nobody can adequately describe exactly why or how it works and there is also some strong disagreement on its efficacy. A number of studies specify that maybe 50% of users end up showing a halt to hair loss, with a pretty small percentage (15%) of men noticing any reversal of hair loss. As with finasteride, minoxidil takes a long time to work and you have to use it all the time. It's not low-cost either, so keep your billfold handy.

If you don't use these two treatment methods, what can you do? Well, here are your options: embrace your balditity, go with a hair piece, or begin looking into expensive, surgical hair restoration treatments. Obviously, you know what the most cost effective solution is, but if you can't live with that, I would advise you start with the finasteride or minoxidil and see what takes place. If your rich, then you might want to shell out the money and go with the hair replacement options.