Hairloss At 21 Years Old...what To Do?

[MorningGlory]

I put together this collage to show my progression over time, with my age in each picture noted. Hopefully it will add something of value to this forum.

I had a cowlick at the front of my hair which was kind of cool when my hairline was fully healthy, but then it turned into looking ridiculous when my hairline went, until the cowlick area was fully gone.

The pics in my original post look especially bad because I had just shaved my head a few days before. That was the first time I ever fully shaved it. If I don't cut it for a while, I still have some hair on top, but very thin and weak.

Was your acne on your cheeks because your forehead looks clear in all of those pictures?

I can hardly believe how aggressive your balding was. Incredible really.

 

[nahte42]

Was your acne on your cheeks because your forehead looks clear in all of those pictures?

I can hardly believe how aggressive your balding was. Incredible really.

A little on my face, but most of it was on the back of my neck, my shoulders, back, chest, and upper arms.

 

[MorningGlory]

A little on my face, but most of it was on the back of my neck, my shoulders, back, chest, and upper arms.

You’ve had it rough man. I’m loath to give advice but I would recommend giving serious consideration to your options, and if you decide to go the meds route start soon.

All the best.

 

[nahte42]

Reread that statement ten times and tell me if you've figured out what's obviously wrong with it.

You have one hour.

You don't get to tell me how long I have to come crawling to a probe of yours. Please, just stop posting here if you have no genuine value to add. It's all good.

 

[nahte42]

You’ve had it rough man. I’m loath to give advice but I would recommend giving serious consideration to your options, and if you decide to go the meds route start soon.

All the best.

I have a December appt with a different dermatologist than the one I've gone to for my acne over the years, since I'm living at school right now. I'm not expecting much out of it...I just wanted a doctor to take a "professional" look at it since I've never had it truly examined professionally before. Also, if I can get some pics up soon of my dad who has apparently worn hairpieces over the years, I'll upload them. They truly look real...hence why I never had a clue.

 

[MorningGlory]

I have a December appt with a different dermatologist than the one I've gone to for my acne over the years, since I'm living at school right now. I'm not expecting much out of it...I just wanted a doctor to take a "professional" look at it since I've never had it truly examined professionally before. Also, if I can get some pics up soon of my dad who has apparently worn hairpieces over the years, I'll upload them. They truly look real...hence why I never had a clue.

I am definitely interested to see pictures of your father’s hair.

 

[nahte42]

RIP.

I'll go end it now...

 

[nahte42]

I am definitely interested to see pictures of your father’s hair.

First picture he was probably in his late 20s. 2nd picture = late 30s. 3rd picture = late 40s.
He told me it's an "all-conditions" glued on piece. He can swim, shower, do absolutely anything. Gets it removed and reapplied every 2 weeks, and changes up the style whenever he wants.

 

[nahte42]

Baldness is a very real problem that everyone notices instantly in the real world.

It's an external problem that is very real which then causes a cascade of internal psychological problems which are also very real.

You can be sure that your current struggles are linked to your early aggressive hair loss and that you might not have experienced them had you remained a fullhead.

Don't believe for one second the people who tell you that it's all in your head and that you could overcome it mentally with enough willpower, meditation, 'letting go' or whatever.

This is not a problem that is fought in your head but very much in the real world. You ignore it and pretend that it's not a problem at your own peril.

We've already gone over the many negative consequences that baldness can have on someone's life: love life, social life, work life, your identity, your psychological well-being, your opportunities, the way people treat you, the list is quite long.

I've never claimed that it has zero "external" effects. But you are just so full of crap playing this tone that it is guaranteed to ruin a life. Maybe you don't know any bald men? Don't have any bald relatives or friends? I don't know...maybe you just are ignorant by no fault of your own.

I know many, many bald men who live happy, successful lives. Sure, maybe it "hurt" them slightly, but at the end of the day they wouldn't even be able to notice it because they were successful people who went out, worked hard, achieved career goals, and found a loving partner. I've seen it. It ABSOLUTELY is possible to overcome it and not let it ruin you. So far the people here like you and your fuckbuddy JeanLucBB seem to be obsessed with appearance and having relations with girls...as if that's all that matters in life. How about you take a step back, come up with some big goals that you want to achieve, things you want to contribute to the world, and then go after them and not worry about how many women find you attractive? Seems like an intelligent thing to consider.

 

[nahte42]

You're new here, aren't you? I suffered from aggressive diffuse hair loss by the age of 16 and was fully bald by the age of 22.

I had a successful FUE hair transplant at the age of 24 which took me back to a thin NW2.5 and it made my life much better.

I'm going to turn 28 in a month and I'm going to have a second FUE in January. That's for the background.

I know a lot about what baldness does to an individual, first-hand, and also through observing other balding men and talking to them.

How do you know if someone is happy just by looking at them, or even if you know them well? You don't.

We've all seen bald men live decent lives, just like there are short or even deformed men whose life is not a complete mess, this is not reassuring.

What you don't know is how much effort they put in to get where they are compared to their fullhead self in an alternate universe.

Being bald means becoming a sub-version of yourself who'll more than likely have it worse in a lot of areas of his life.

We are very social and very visual animals, a lot of what's going on in our lives is determined by how we have perceived by others.

And baldness at a young age is not a good predictor of life success to say the least.

I'm not obsessed with having relations with girls, I have a steady long-term girlfriend with who I plan to build a family. And I believe that matters in life, and a lot. My slick-bald grandpa horseshoe self would probably not be in the position I'm in romantically.

As if caring about baldness and taking steps to fix it and having objectives on life were mutually exclusive: I finished university and got a master's degree, I have a stable job in a big company which I love to do, I have a stable girlfriend with who there is a viable future, I sing and I play the guitar in a band, I speak three different languages and I've traveled to a lot of different places around the world.

It's something I will never understand about a lot of people, they think: "you either don't care about baldness and become successful despite of it, or you try to fix and you'll most likely be a loser who's too superficial to know what matters in life!" Why not both for god's sake!

I'd think you'd benefit from taking this sort of approach from the beginning rather than slinging insults and attacks on "bald losers." Seriously...take my advice. You seem like a very intelligent person, but there's always room to improve and take advice from others.

I'm not criticizing your choice of how to handle your hair loss...good for you. I just think you (and others here) should be ashamed for the way you treat people who come here for respectful advice. If hair transplants were an easy, perfect option for everyone, everyone would be doing them. They're simply not...for everyone.

I found this quote of yours on another post:
"Factors that reduce creepiness: being tall, muscular, growing beard, buzzing your hair, facial symmetry, masculine face, round head shape, being tanned (yes), being old, etc.
Factors that increase creepiness: being short, pudgy or skinny, having a messy horseshoe with a combover, feminine face, irregular head shape, sporting a clean-shaved face (giant light bulb with no definition at all), being pale, being young, ears that stick out etc.
It's a case by case assessment really. It's quite stupid to lump all balding guys together."

In another post, you say that one who chooses to remain bald and opts against a transplant or fix "remains a loser."

You're just so ridiculously out of line and inconsistent on top of the pure disrespect for fellow human being that you lead with. It's sick, really...far sicker than not having hair.

Perhaps I shouldn't be telling others what to do...but you really should be presenting all the options to new users, your opinion on them, with respect and dignity, and then let them go where they want to go. Not pressure them into choosing a certain fix or calling everyone who is bald a "loser." Don't you see the obvious sickness in that?

Maybe one day I will opt for a fix. If a cure comes out you bet I'm jumping on that day one, even if I go broke the day after. But I just personally don't feel comfortable with the current options out there. Maybe that will change over time. But in the meantime, I'm gonna point out behavior that I see that is wrong, and I take no shame in doing so. I stand up to bullies and hateful people wherever I see them. That's something I think's important in life and will never back down on.

 

[nahte42]

In other news...anyone have any comments on the pics of my father's hair? Not the best pictures in the world but that's all I got right now. He used to have even longer hair in his 20s when the rock and roll style was in...it honestly shocks me to believe they had such elaborate and real-looking hair pieces back then.

I thought this glue-on piece that you can swim and shower in was a relatively new product? Apparently not?

I've never seen a picture of my dad without full hair. He's very secretive. Apparently he lost the entire top of his head in his 20s, but no pictures of this seem to exist.

Also, he seems to have much stronger hair on the sides and back of his head though. I don't. My hair has been pretty bad quality for the last handful of years. Even the sides and back...if I let it grow out a little, it feels weak and low quality...hard to describe.

Which reminds me...I also eat an absolutely terrible diet (all processed and fried foods), and some people have told me along the way that that could have an effect, but I've never seen any evidence to support that. My roommate eats the same sh*t I do and has a full head of hair, hah.

 

[nahte42]

My point is, if you have options to gain some hair back, use them!

Some hair is always better than no hair. I stand by that truth, even a few hundred hairs on top will provide a light frame that will make a guy look completely different (read better).

You don't really know how much of an impact baldness has on your life until you take steps to at least partially fix it.

My life started improving tenfold after I got some hair back, and it was only 2000 grafts on a NW5 area.

I think the main benefit is that it took the creepiness factor out of my appearance, I looked like a young kid who chose to shave his head rather than yes, a young bald loser. Not to mention that my head seemed huge when there was no coverage on my NW5.

If you think the bald you has as much value as the you with hair, you have some thinking to do as this is quite delusional.

You don't decide of your own value by the way, other people do, and if you don't know your place, other people will make sure that you do.

As I've said, ignore the consequences of being bald (especially at a young age) at your own peril. You're partially blinding yourself to the truth and it's dangerous.

I've known many young bald men who ended up committing suicide because their life was not going well at all and they just couldn't figure out why. Like you, they thought "it's not my baldness, there are successful bald men out there, I should be fine, but I'm not!"

Food for thought: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4683336/Body-man-Hawaii-volcano-apparent-fall.html

Blinding yourself to the truth leads to quite dark places.

Agree, agree. But I disagree with the bolded part. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you have the wrong worldview. I don't know.

I've never subscribed to the "I'm always a victim; my success and happiness is determined by all external factors in life and other people." I've always hated that outlook because I think it is false. It's a way for people to avoid taking responsibility for their own decisions. Not you...but lots of people in the world.

It's a false worldview. You truly can do anything you want in life, if you buckle down and do whatever it takes to get there. Value is what you as a person have to offer to the world and society. That has absolutely nothing to do with how much hair is on your head...unless you let that affect your success, which would be a decision of yours, demonstrating my point exactly.

You could make the argument Stephen Hawking would be more "ideal" if he didn't have a degenerative disease. But I highly doubt he views his life as a failure at this point, because he devoted his life to something else...something much different than what the average person devotes their life to.

I do think your value is whatever you decide it should be, and at the end of the day it only depends on how you choose to handle yourself.

If you go to apply for a really awesome job but the company decides to hire a person with hair instead, you can go home and complain that being bald makes you a loser. Or you can go get a degree in Economics, start your own business and overtake the company that passed you over. That's what being successful is.

 

[nahte42]

You can't swim and shower with a hair piece, that's just marketing nonsense.

Your father is very secretive? LOL @shookwun approved

If your father still has strong sides at his age, you do too, you only think it's thinner because you shave it. Grow it out much longer and you'll see that it's not thinning at all.

Diet and androgenetic alopecia are unrelated.

Uh my dad swims with it on...beach, pool, many times over the years...so apparently whatever he's wearing, you can...

 

[nahte42]

Of course you're wrong here, and it's not hard to figure out why.

Your success in life is always determined by other people, they evaluate you constantly and then find an adequate place for you on the dominance / competence hierarchy.

And to determine your value, anything that brings value to the world will be taken into account, that's your intelligence, your potential, your personality make-up, your skills, but most importantly your looks. It's not that hard to figure out, just look at how much value good-looking people are able to generate, how much male models get paid, how much more likely they will be cast in movies, how much people admire them, sometimes just because they look good and very few other reasons.

It's not about being a victim, it's about assessing how reality works and not being bitter and resentful about it, which is why you'd like to believe it's false. Yes, humans value looks a lot.

No you cannot do anything you want in life, that's a blatant lie. I don't see why this needs any further explanations but I guess nothing is truly obvious in life: you will never become a male model if you're average-looking, you will never succeed in the NBA if you're 5'5, you will never succeed in university if you have an IQ of 95, and you will never become a ruthless successful salesman if you're highly introverted and agreeable. Looks, height, IQ and personality are all almost entirely genetic and there's little to nothing (for height and IQ) you can do about them.

Success is not a decision, success is hard and rare and it depends on a many factors and a lot of them will not be under your control. Even the propensity to work hard (conscientiousness) is largely genetic.

Stephen Hawking is a one in a million kind of guy, brilliant and highly creative. And truly creative people are extremely rare, your average guy out there won't have the IQ, the creativity and the other attributes that contributed to his success. Not everyone can become anything he wants, this naive optimism that's quite pervasive in our culture has to stop.

By the way, about Stephen King (edit: OK I mixed up Stephen King and Stephen Hawking, this is still relevant though), did you know that he gave up on writing at a point? He threw the manuscript of Carrie into the garbage bin because of the harsh rejections he got from many publishers. It's his wife who picked it up from the garbage bin and convinced him to persevere. But "winner attitude!", yeah right, he can thank his wife.

Oh and your last paragraph, more of the same unsubstantiated nonsense, one more obvious truth: not everyone has what it takes to become an entrepreneur, much less a successful one. Entrepreneurs are highly open, creative and extroverted people and again, those traits are genetic, and let's not forget that you need a high IQ, which would also be necessary to get a degree in economics, you'd need to have an IQ of minimum 115 (that's 15% of the population by the way) and to also be highly conscientious (which narrows the sample even more).

My conclusion: you have no idea of what you're talking about here, and I suggest that you educate yourself about the realities of life because if you keep up with your mindset, life will end up devouring you alive. The level of naivety and of willful blindness that you exhibit is dangerous to say the least. I'm not trying to be mean but to help you, and I don't pretend to know everything by the way, if you have any reasonable objection to anything I've said, don't hesitate to tell me.

I have to clarify that I meant you can do anything in life that is determined by things you can control. Obviously you can't be a model if you don't have the looks...professions that are limited to a specific type of person only. Yes. We all know that.

I'm talking about achievable goals you set for yourself...where the only things standing between you and them are the decisions you make and your willingness to push on to get there. I admit I didn't lay that out the way I wanted.

For example, one of my goals in life is to study science and work on projects that help make humans a multi-planet species one day. I'd also like to teach complex science to people in simpler, understandable ways, along with the extreme importance of science in our world.

You tell me if you think I cannot do those things if i choose to remain bald. Considering I have taken a real IQ test and scored in the 98th percentile, I don't think I'm limited here.

The problem with this world is the "victim" attitude. "Nothing I do matters, I can't win, life isn't fair, I'm incapable, I can't do it, I'm too weak, other people determine my success," etc. That mindset is largely what leads to the pathetic society we live in.

 

[nahte42]

Your goal is going to be more difficult to attain as a bald men for plenty of reasons.

One, people will trust you less, think of the implications when you'll do a presentation to ask for funding for your science projects.

Two, networking, and this is a consequence of my first point, people will be less inclined to spend time with you if you're bald. Knowing a lot of (interesting and competent) people matters.

Three, having a long-term partner will be more difficult, and you'll either be alone or suffering in a semi-abusive relationship because it will be harder for your girlfriend to respect you, she'll think (and she would be right) that you don't have many if any option beside her anyway so you won't have much bargaining power in the relationship.

Four, all the above eventually takes a toll on your mental well-being, don't think for one second that those consequences of balding (at an early age) will be trivial and won't pervasively affect different areas of your life.

I think there's a lot of bullshit in that, but even if that's just a little bit true, just goes to show you how stupid and dumb our society is.

Because a man having no hair shouldn't make him less trustworthy. It has absolutely nothing to do with trust or integrity.

A man having no hair shouldn't make you want to not spend time with him. That's shallow minded and unintelligent.

It's totally understandable that genetics and nature lead us to find a full head of hair more attractive. But I can tell you that I personally, while accepting that nature, go above and beyond to make sure I never treat a person as any less because of things like hair, acne, looks, etc.

If you're an annoying, immature, hateful, or bad person in terms of character, then I'm running the hell away. That's what would make ME not want to spend time with someone.

So if people can't overlook these petty things we can't really control much, then our society is one fucked up pathetic embarrassment. Just say it.

 

[nahte42]

It's biologically rooted in up, and it's deeply rooted. Nothing we can do about it, it would be like telling someone, "don't suffer!"

We act and react like that whether we want it or not, that information is mostly processed by our unconscious mind.

Should is the keyword in your post. "It should not be like that!" Well, it is, and there isn't a bloody thing any of us can do about it.

I disagree. Keep the highly intelligent who can overlook petty "natural" tendencies in order to be better people and improve the world. And dispose of the shallow minded and dumb.

Get rid of all the stupids and evils instead of the balds and the world would be a much better place to live and humans would be far more productive and successful.

 

[JeanLucBB]

I disagree. Keep the highly intelligent who can overlook petty "natural" tendencies in order to be better people and improve the world. And dispose of the shallow minded and dumb.

Get rid of all the stupids and evils instead of the balds and the world would be a much better place to live and humans would be far more productive and successful.

Accepting that many of the psychological and social values of humanity are horrific and grossly superficial as someone like myself believes is not the end of the world as long as you work to improve the aspects of your life that are controllable.

Being a realist doesn't mean you don't have the ability to massively improve your situation. Unless you are substantially above the competition in regards to life achievements and financial standing, truly intelligent and self-respecting women will avoid you, because they will know they can do better. Most people see balding as a result of innaction on behalf of the balding person like being fat, which to some degree is true.

"Get rid of all the stupids and evils instead of the balds and the world would be a much better place to live and humans would be far more productive and successful."

A content individual will focus on themselves and what they can control, not thought policing the world around them. I think in the long run you will either go down the transplant and SMP route or the hairpiece route as clearly you are aware you have a serious problem. Your comment on spending all your money on a cure further confirms this. The fact your father couldn't bring this up earlier with his own son is one of the biggest blackpills on balding I have read on this forum, I'm sure you can see the implications of this too.

 

[northpole1]

I was trying to accept my baldness at some point,but problem is that other people keep reminding and mocking me,for that im bald.At one party 17 years old girls were laughing and make fun of my baldness,when one friend introduce me to them.Even my father sometimes tells me,how im so bald at this age btw im 26 and nw4-5.He even said that my hairloss comes from too much whey protein LOL.He is really old fashioned.Also at jobs interviews,they sometimes staring at my recesion front,and probably thinking,we will not employ this bald F*** and they dont.Now i work only in night-shift as fireman-guard,and saving every Eur,to pay for my hair transplant.I have a bit luck,that my hairloss is stable now for like 2,5 years.

 

[DoctorHouse]

I think your true value is based on a learned trait. Obviously, society will determine your "value" but you can determine your own value by comparing what you have to offer to your peers. True value will always vary based up personal values. We end up discounting people's value if they don't measure up to the value we are seeking. To sum it up, we all want the best of the best. If you don't value yourself or think you are good enough, you will settle just to cope. From what I have seen so far in my life, people tend to settle more than you should. But that is a double edge sword because you end up wasting alot of your life thinking you can always find someone better( someone of high value).

High financial status, elite genetics( looks, height, hair, etc), perfect health, intelligence, great sense of humor, creativity, exceptional personality, fame are just a few of the values that are embedded in your brain. Our embedded goal is to find a person who has as many values as we can. Some will settle on only for few of those but others will look for all of them.

 

[DoctorHouse]

You can think that you could have better options up to a point because not only is your life finite but plenty of constraints are placed upon ourselves.

It's especially true for women, they can't delay having a child indefinitely, and once they get into their 30's, keeping the "I could do better" mindset is not going to be a good idea.

My best friend is suffering from that mindset right now, he recently broke up with his girlfriend of almost 2 years because he felt he could do better, that he deserved better. Well, why not? But he seems to be forgetting that he's going to turn 29 in a week and that couples who want children need on average 3 years before they decide to have their first child, and in those 3 years, you'll have all the troubles that usually arise in any relationship, and you'll have to deal with them again, you'll need to build that relationship from the ground up all over again, and the probability it's going to succeed is very low, especially in the world we live in.

All this to say, that mindset is toxic because it presupposes that you have an infinite amount of time and that zero obstacles are going to arise in the future. Now I know why my friend is in that situation, for one he doesn't believe much in science (being a Muslim) and for him, statistics don't mean much either, and he seems to think that the relationship he had (that girl was sweet, intelligent, pretty, etc.) will be easy to develop again with a completely different person.

You can keep believing that you deserve better until you're in your late 40's and you're still single, less attractive, and well, a little suspicious. How come you've not chosen someone to share your life with? How come you're still single? Why would I trust that person if they ended up where they are now? Anyway, you need to make sacrifices in life, and one of those sacrifices is choosing someone to build a life with, because if you don't, life will decide for you, even if that means no decision at all.

And you do that knowing perfectly that yes, maybe you could have met someone "better", whatever that means for you, maybe things could have unfolded differently for you, but if you don't make that choice now, soon you'll be too old to have any option at all.

I can tell you from personal experience this is very true. You will be a bachelor or bachelorette for life with a "I can do better attitude". Why do you think people cheat. It's a way to find out if you can do better with someone else. If you can, you will trade up. If you don't you will stick to what you have. Its basically, the old Let's Make a Deal game. Keep what you have or trade it for something you think will be better. The problem is some people find out what they trade up for was no bargain.