Is Minoxidil doing me more harm than good? (Photo)

Thank you for your question. You submitted a single photo, and are concerned about minoxidil doing you more harm than good. You have been using it for about a week, and you developed some bumps comparable to chicken pox, so you want to know if it is better to use the foam.
I can share with you how I guide my patients with the use of minoxidil. A little background: I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years. I am also the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers, a system we developed to help people with male and female pattern hair loss with a non-surgical procedure using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Acellular matrix. TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration is relevant because we are often seeing patients who used many things to treat their hair loss, including minoxidil.
Minoxidil was originally a drug for hypertension, and hair growth was a very fortuitous side-effect, which ultimately resulted in topical minoxidil to help hair growth. Interestingly, no one fully understands the physiology or the effect of what minoxidil does, but it appears to prolong the growth cycle of thinning hairs. The reality of hair loss is there is no cure, but there is management.
In pharmaceuticals, minoxidil and finasteride for men are the two drugs commonly prescribed. Minoxidil is over-the-counter, but finasteride is by prescription. Finasteride is a DHT (dihydrotestosterone) blocker that reduces the effect of DHT on DHT-sensitive hair follicles.
With minoxidil, the challenge is it is recommended in the bottle for you to apply this solution to your scalp twice a day. The minoxidil solution typically contains propylene glycol, a chemical to break down the skin barrier for the active ingredient minoxidil to get absorbed in the skin. This is a common issue, so when patients ask me about this, I generally tell them that it’s better for them to use the foam. The foam is propylene glycol free. It is generally well understood that the actual half life of the drug is about 22 hours, so I recommend to my patients to use the foam only at night.
With hair loss management, if I may share a perspective about what I see in your photo, is your hair loss is relatively advanced, so there is going to be a limited value of using minoxidil alone. You may want to consult with a doctor and consider if you want to prolong the lifespan of the hairs, and maybe thicken your hair, where there are options available.
When patients come to me who have used minoxidil for a long time, certainly I can see some benefit, but the benefit is limited when compared to a drug like finasteride. Thinking about whether you want to consider taking a medication, people are often not excited about taking medications, but I try to put that into perspective in managing their hair loss.
Hair Regeneration is an injection, and an option for many patients to help with prolonging the growth cycle, thickening thinning hair, and reactivating hair that is not currently growing because of the reduced length of the active growth phase of the hair growth cycle, and a prolonged resting phase. There is probably some some overlap, although different pathways most likely from the pharmaceutical effects, PRP, Hair Regeneration, and Acellular matrix effects.
If you just want to try minoxidil for now, I would say the foam makes the most sense. I think it’s also important to be informed of the limited number of options for managing hair loss before you consider undergoing hair transplant. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for your question.This personalized video answer to your question is posted on RealSelf and on YouTube. To provide you with a personal and expert response, we use the image(s) you submitted on RealSelf in the video, but with respect to your privacy, we only show the body feature in question so you are not personally identifiable. If you prefer not to have your video question visible on YouTube, please contact us.

You'll want to show this to your physician to confirm it's related to the minoxidil and not some other condition. It's reasonable to switch to the foam. Other options such as adding an antidandruff shampoo and shampooing daily for the next week or so can also be discussed with your physician.  

While minoxidil works for some, the problem with the medicine is that it does not stop hair loss, and the DHT will continue is binding to the hair shaft which will eventually overtake any additional growth caused by the Minoxidil and die, perhaps just slightly later than it would have without the medicine.
Also, the alcohol base required to support the active ingredients also cause irritation of the scalp and sever reactions for many people.
The best thing to do would be to see a doctor who specializes in hair regrowth and the rebalancing of body biochemistry, and to look into a personalized medicine. Any pills that actually can make changes inside your body, are required under the FDA to be available by prescription only. This therefore means that it is not possible for anything that does not require a prescription to cure or prevent hair loss or regrow thinning hair.