The Food and Drug Administration considers hair loss a disease, 
  which gives it the authority to police hair-growing drugs. “Could being 
  short also constitute a disease?” I asked an FDA official.  Long pause.
  “It all depends,” he said.  By the feds’ standards, I’m one sick pup. 

  If baldness is really a disease, it’s one that afflicts about 35 million 
  American men — a number big enough to justify a blowout annual 
  telethon, complete with clowns and magicians.  About half of all 
  American men are losing their hair. 

  By now you’ve heard of most of the treatments for hair loss — minoxidil, 
  Propecia, the mysterious Hair Club for Men — and perhaps you’ve even 
  tried one. But we bet that most of you are still wavering between accepting 
  the fate of your pate and trying to save your mane.  You’re probably also 
  wondering:  Even if baldness treatments work, are they worth the price and 
  effort? 

  Five editors (including me) became hair-challenged guinea pigs, testing the 
  most popular nonsurgical treatments available.  We sprayed our heads with 
  Rogaine Extra Strength, swallowed the prescription drug Propecia and 
  glued on $1,500 toupees. One editor even shaved his full head of hair 
  to see how it would change his life.   We convinced him that this was 
  necessary for the story, but really we did it out of envy. 

  Find out what happened to me and some of the other editors, and decide 
  for yourself what to do about your own head of diminishing hair.

  Dermatologists say the best chance of regrowing hair comes from 
  combining Rogaine treatment with Propecia— the drug finasteride, 
  which Merck originally developed a decade ago to shrink enlarged 
  prostates.  Lucky me.  My hair is vanishing faster than free ATMs.

  To get a prescription for Propecia, I had to visit my doctor. I had written 
  about the drug before, so I knew it could regrow hair in about two-thirds 
  of takers and was relatively safe. A tiny percentage of men in the studies 
  experienced erection problems, but at the six-month point, I wasn’t one 
  of them.  I paid $50 for 30 pills.  Done. 

  The Rogaine posed more challenges.  “What the hell is in your hair?”
  curious co-workers asked, their faces horrified. The oily propylene glycol 
  in Rogaine caused dandruff flakes the size of Wheaties. At a bar on 
  St. Patrick’s Day, I felt wind hit my scalp.  I turned.  A tall, beautiful, 
  brown-haired woman waved her hand above my head.  “Something’s 
  in your hair,”  she said.  ”Thought I could blow it off.”

  Rogaine had given me a problem more humiliating than baldness. 
  I considered dumping the stuff but found a coal-tar shampoo that got 
  rid of the dandruff. Now I felt like I was taking three drugs for my hair. 

  I’m looking at my before-and-after pictures. I have no more hair 
  than I did months ago.  But I don’t think I’ve lost anymore, either. 
  A scalp stalemate.

  Do I keep at it?  I hated dropping $80 each month for these drugs. 
  That’s almost $10,000 per decade.  Keeping a few wisps will eventually 
  cost me a summer home.  (OK, a small, seedy summer home.)
 

 Hair Club For Men     Transplants       Propecia          ... Rogaine           ...... 2 Percent                         (Extra Strength Minoxidil) ........$2,400...........$8,000.........$600............$360............$120 
........(total)

Approximate cost over 30 years

---

...$72,000...........$5,000.....$18,000........$10,800..........$4,500
......................................(touch-ups)

Potential investment earnings @ 10 % over 30 years

---

$430,974........$226,842...$107,744.........$64,646........$26,956 .................

  The funny thing is, I bitch about the dough, but I gladly spend $700 
  a year at Burger King, and $175 at Starbucks, and $2,500 at the local 
  bar drinking overpriced draft.  But $1,000 for hair drugs hurts because 
  there’s no end to it. 

  One day I might marry the burger flipper, use my coffee maker and 
  buy the bar, and those expenses will end.  But if I don’t pony up 
  for the hair drugs forever, I’ll go bald. 

  It’s a neat form of ransom, don’t you think?

  And it works.  The ransom, that is.  Because I’m still taking the drugs, 
  and the companies are still taking my money. Quiet surrender is for later.

  Ron Geraci wasn’t the only Men’s Health editor recruited to try out hair loss 
  remedies.  Here's what happened to three of the others: 

  Peter Moore, age 42, who ranked 3 out of  7 on the Norwood baldness scale, 
  used spray-on Rogaine Extra Strength.  “After two months,” he says, “I was the 
  Rogaine poster boy.”  Ultimately, however, he decided to stop using the drug 
  because he didn't want it to become a lifelong habit. 

  A 6 on the Norwood scale, 42-year-old Lou Schuler was fitted for a $1,500 
  “hair system” by Natu’Ral Hair Techniques salon in New York.  After trying it 
  out on family and co-workers for six days, Schuler dropped the new locks:
  “I was tired of not feeling like myself.  I’ve never liked being bald…but the 
  hair system represented something I’m not.  I’m not a guy with great hair.”

  Ted Spiker, age 30 and possessed of a full head of hair, actually shaved his head 
  just to see how it would feel to be bald.  First, he took out the center section. 
  “I felt about as virile as a Daisy air freshener,” he says.  Then he went all the way, 
  shaving his entire head.  After that, on a visit to a bar, he reports, “three women 
  chatted me up and one even caressed my dome.  That convinced me that if hair 
  loss ever becomes a reality, I’ll just shave it clean.”