How to tell if it is telogen effluvium or balding?

marvintherobot · Nov 29, 2008

Hi. My name is Evan, i'm 25. I have fairly recently started losing a lot of hair. I've always noticed some hairloss, but i don't think it was abnormal until recently. Sometimes 10-20 strands will come out at a time. Most of them have the bulb sort of thing at the end, which I think indicates Telogen Effluvium, but I am a bit unsure of it all. My diet isn't that great, and i've been really stressed, which adds to the Telogen Effluvium symptoms, but is there any way to tell if it is Telogen Effluvium or something permanent? If it is balding then I would want to start some kind of treatment. Can you tell by what the fallen out hairs are like? Thanks a lot, any advice or help you have would be really really nice right now.

marvintherobot · Nov 30, 2008

if i added any clarifications would that be helpful for a response? or is this just a dumb question?

Cassin · Nov 30, 2008

way too hard to tell over the internet...you probably need to see a doctor.

worthlessstrands · Nov 30, 2008

yup, I would say make an appointment with a decent dermatologist. In the two months that you'd have to wait for that appointment, try to reduce stress, fix your diet, take a daily multi-vitamin, get good sleep and see what happens. In most cases Telogen Effluvium would fix itself 3 months after correcting the cause(s).

Make sure you see a derm though. Don't just write it off. I assumed my hair loss was Telogen Effluvium at first and lost quite of bit of ground that I probably won't be able to make up.