HairlossTalk Support Forums

hi there,

i am a newbie and just thought i'd share my story, in the hope of maybe some advice!

i'm nearly 28 year-old male, relatively fit (though had a recent injury that had subsided my ability to play sport for a while), with a busy lifestyle (job, etc) but no major stresses in life apart from the obvious.

i have always had really thick hair - my mother's family all have thick hair and my father did til his mid-40s, and is thinning a fair bit now, which isn't surprising as he's in his late-50s.

around christmas time i noticed my crown was thinning slightly in comparison to the rest of my head. this summer (may/june) i went on holiday and when i was away i noticed this was developing. however, in the time that i have been back (6-8 weeks or so), this has developed further.

i believe i may have male pattern baldness or telogen affluvium.

the reason i feel i may have the latter is because i, as i have said, am in a very busy job and feel i meet a lot of the criteria. i suffered badly from jetlag upon the return from my holiday, and i also have not eaten well since i was away or since i have been back. as mentioned, i have been unable to do much exercise due to inury, and also recently (and stupidly) tried a crash-diet to lose some excess holiday weight. i also used to use thick gel/glue on my hair to style it, due it's thickness and 'wavy-ness', for about 2 years, which used to bring lots of hair out of my head when i put it in/washed it off. now i am trying to not use any product, as well as taking multivitamins and eating more healthily. also, when hair does come out of my head, it does seem to have a little 'bulb' on the end, which i believe is further evidence of this problem?

however, i am not sure if these circumstances are jus a feature of a devloping male pattern baldness. i went to see my doctor who was pretty unhelpful, and who reeled off some informatioon that i could have easily got off the internet. i am considering seeing a dermotologist to determine if there is any hint of telogen affluvium.

i have recently bought some revivogen shampoo, and i also bought some toppik to cover the crown of my head where the balding is starting to become apparent.

as i say, it is fairly minor at the moment, but it is hair-loss nevertheless and i want to be pro-active in dealing with it, rather than re-active when it is too late. again, i appreciate that this may be minor compared to other people's stories of hair-loss, but i would like some help.

i have read myself round and round in circles deciding what course of action i should follow. i will be honest and say i do not like the sound effects of propecia, but it seems this is the best form of hair re-growth. i have read about various vitamins, supplements, shampoo's, etc and for every good review i read there is a bad one too!

any help that anyone can offer regarding this would be amazingly appreciated - i feel i am going round in circles and know i have to do something, but am just a little bit unsure given how much information there is to take in when online.

my hair feels so so so much thinner in comparison to what it used to be. people used to comment so much on my thick hair and now i can almost feel it eroding away. i want to act quickly on the problem, but i would like some advice on what people suggest. any help really is appreciated!

i have attached a picture of my hair loss from about 8-10 weeks ago. i appreciate this is fairly minor, but it has continued since then and is now, i would suggest, twice as bad now as the photo's suggest. please excuse the bare chest!

thanks in advance!

comb-over

Sorry to say it, but the chances of it being TE are very, very small. The thinning is right in your crown and working its way down the middle. I know your dad has thick hair, but what about his brothers? You have no bald relatives?

You can try to wait it out and reduce your stress to see if anything gets better, but at some point you will have to determine whether to keep waiting or whether to jump on treatments.

Only proven treatments are propecia and minoxidil. Many also add Nizoral shampoo in. Propecia, of course, is a more serious internal drug, so make sure you do your research and become an informed user. Sounds like you have no problem doing that.

You could also just let it run its course. No harm in that.

People are too quick to jump on the "It's TE!!" bandwagon. It's just denial. I thought the same thing at first.

Get on fin, maybe you'll get reversal and you won't have to worry about it ever again.