Hormone levels, other symptoms?

[Westerner]

Hello,

Last weeks I've noticed quite heavy hair loss. I am 23 and never noticed hair loss before (my father has approximately Norwood 4 now at age 50, maternal grandfather still has all his hair at 85).

Right now the hair loss is not really visible, but it looks like it really kicked in hard. When I was wash my hair I really have a handful of hair and when I work above a notebook at the end of the day there are quite some hairs as well, so I think the rate is quite fast. Also I note uncountable miniaturized hairs at my hairline.

Last 8 moths I noticed a sharp increase in my body weight, I went from 81 kg to 87. This seems to be pure muscle mass since my body fat didn't increase, in fact I think it decreased. Of course I was quite happy with this since I look definitely more athletic now, but I am curious if it can have the same reason as my hair loss (hormone/testosterone levels going up).

I have basically two questions:
- Do you think I need treatment? (Anyone who sees my hair would declare me crazy, but I'm really scared of the rate at which I lose it. So actually the question is which is better to base the decision on.)
- In general: Is there any correlation known to you between male pattern baldness and other physical symptoms, like the muscle mass increase?

Thanks in advance,

Rick

PS: I don't take any hormones or whatsoever.

 

[ladysmanfelpz]

Yep it sounds like a spike in T for some odd reason. I wouldn't get on finasteride just yet. Go talk to an endocrinologist. I would go with a low dose of spironolactone or other anti androgen and then a prostate supplement like Saw palmetto (a mix that includes stinging nettle and pygeum bark is preferred) to slightly lower DHT and I think you will be fine. You will keep the muscle mass and affects of T but limit it to slow your loss. If you don't start something now you will be hurting in 2 months.

 

[Westerner]

Yep it sounds like a spike in T for some odd reason. I wouldn't get on finasteride just yet. Go talk to an endocrinologist. I would go with a low dose of spironolactone or other anti androgen and then a prostate supplement like Saw palmetto (a mix that includes stinging nettle and pygeum bark is preferred) to slightly lower DHT and I think you will be fine. You will keep the muscle mass and affects of T but limit it to slow your loss. If you don't start something now you will be hurting in 2 months.

Thanks for your reply. I decided not to think about it anymore before seeing my doctor, which I did today.
He indeed noticed hair loss, especially at the temples and frontal region. He didn't want to check my hormone levels, since regular doctors only extinguish fires where they pop up (so the isolated hair loss problem). I got a prescription now for finasteride, but I am very reluctant to really use it. I feel very healthy and don't like the idea to influence my hormone system systematically (it would be different if a test revealed I am really high in DHT). I know that this really limits my options to prevent my hair loss, but if it is the ultimate consequence then I think I can be okay with it.

I do however still have some hopes. First one is that my supposed hormone spike is temporary and my hair loss will come to a standstill. The others are basically all you mentioned. I have a few questions about them:
- The spironolactone is a topical/local inhibitor of DHT right? So it limits the influence region to the head skin?
- Saw Palmetto sounds better to me than finasteride, because I know it works the same way as finasteride but to a lesser extent. I have seen the response curve of finasteride and it basically indicates it simply removes 70% of DHT, regardless the dose. Do you know how Saw Palmetto behaves? How much it blocks and if I can influence this with the dose?

And I have two more questions:
What do you guys actually mean by thinning/diffuse thinning? Does that mean that the hairs are less densely spaced or that the actual thickness went down?
I noticed the region of less thickness (the whole upper side) is way larger than the region of miniaturisation and sparse hairs (the frontal and temple region). Is this diffuse thinning?

Actually I am more concerned with the decrease in thicknes and density than the bald temples and recession, because it's really difficult to style my hair with those sparsely spaced and thin hairs. Gravity pulls down everything, meaning I can only keep it short.

Sorry for all the questions, I hope somebody wants to answer them. I promise in return I will report about my results when I'm on a treatment.

Rick