Is Alopecia Better Than Pattern Baldness ?
- Thread starter KyleTroy
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Yeah, sometimes I wish that I had just lost all of my hair overnight with Alopecia Totalis rather than be stuck with a stupid receding hairline and horseshoe. Sometimes I just want the battle to be over and wear a wig rather than fighting and having to take drugs and rub greasy rogaine on my head two times every freaking day just to hold onto a little bum fluff on top of my head. But then I come to my senses and start being glad for whatever hair I still have again.
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I think male pattern baldness and Alopecia are both just as bad but in different ways.
In my case (alopecia universalis) losing my eyebrows, eyelashes and beard in addition to my head hair changed my appearance completely and for the absolute worse (I think I dropped a solid 3-4 points down the looks scale at least). I basically look like a cancer patient and that puts many people off wanting to interact with me.
However on the occasions where I do interact with people, I believe I do receive more sympathy than what someone with male pattern baldness would receive.
Personally, I have had alopecia universalis for almost a decade now and still haven't come anywhere close to accepting it. What is particularly frustrating is that this disease is extremely unpredictable and the only treatments on the horizon that have a chance of working may have some very nasty side-effects as they tamper with your immune system.
Essentially alopecia is a nightmare regardless of what type people have.
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alopecia is a condition so technically people would stray from mocking that. male pattern baldness is a condition as well but people love to throw jabs at it. Personally for the sake of mental health and just being able to move on Id take alopecia. Also no body hair, thats nice. Nothing sucks more than balding yet having lots of body hair.... yay me
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It's better if baldness never existed in this world
EvilLocks
Senior Member
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It depends.
Areata? Universalis? Totalis? Recovery or no recovery?
Yeah, I would much have an episode of alopecia and recover from it then go on living my life, than be doomed to a lifetime of suffering with rapidly progressing androgenic alopecia.
I would not want to go down the Universalis or Totalis road though, so I'd pick pattern baldness over that. Unless there was a total and permanent recovery, of course.
Areata? Universalis? Totalis? Recovery or no recovery?
Yeah, I would much have an episode of alopecia and recover from it then go on living my life, than be doomed to a lifetime of suffering with rapidly progressing androgenic alopecia.
I would not want to go down the Universalis or Totalis road though, so I'd pick pattern baldness over that. Unless there was a total and permanent recovery, of course.
Neither is desirable. However, I can imagine that due to the short-term nature of alopecia (the process of your hair being wiped out) and how apparent it is, it differs to the much more drawn out process of male pattern baldness. I don't have alopecia — well, actually I do: androgenic alopecia. Although this is just the technical term for male pattern baldness.
The alopecia that most people refer to is the one where the person has literally nothing on their bonce. It must be horrible, but you will get a lot more sympathy than someone who is going through male pattern baldness. Probably because it is so extreme — it's when you're in between two stages which is the problem.
Hope is lost when you've got nothing left, so the benefit of being a complete baldie is you can forget about finasteride, minoxidil, laser combs, microneedling etc. You are forced to either (pretend to) accept your situation or get a decent wig.
Many of us with male pattern baldness have suffered for years, if not decades. Most of the people who worry most about hair loss are typically in their late teens and early 20s, when they have most of their hair — but not all. It's the early stage of male pattern baldness that seems to be the worst. In my experience it's because you don't have a clue how quickly it's progressing, so you obsessively check yourself in the mirror everyday, microanalysing yourself for even a minuscule of more hair loss. Typically, because your hairline has only receded a little, you grow out the temples a bit more to try to give the illusion of a straight hairline. That works for a certain amount of time.
As you get a little bit older and you've figured out the speed of your hair loss, you adapt to it a little better — particularly when you aren't losing it quite as quickly as you initially thought. Hardly a consolation though.
However, you know things are going to continue to get worse, so you start buying finasteride and minoxidil with the realisation that you're probably going to be on these drugs for life, or for however long you're bothered by hair loss.
If you are born with alopecia, it's something you adapt to quicker because you don't know any different — at least on a personal level. People who acquire alopecia and male pattern baldness sufferers do know different because they knew what it was like to have hair.
The alopecia that most people refer to is the one where the person has literally nothing on their bonce. It must be horrible, but you will get a lot more sympathy than someone who is going through male pattern baldness. Probably because it is so extreme — it's when you're in between two stages which is the problem.
Hope is lost when you've got nothing left, so the benefit of being a complete baldie is you can forget about finasteride, minoxidil, laser combs, microneedling etc. You are forced to either (pretend to) accept your situation or get a decent wig.
Many of us with male pattern baldness have suffered for years, if not decades. Most of the people who worry most about hair loss are typically in their late teens and early 20s, when they have most of their hair — but not all. It's the early stage of male pattern baldness that seems to be the worst. In my experience it's because you don't have a clue how quickly it's progressing, so you obsessively check yourself in the mirror everyday, microanalysing yourself for even a minuscule of more hair loss. Typically, because your hairline has only receded a little, you grow out the temples a bit more to try to give the illusion of a straight hairline. That works for a certain amount of time.
As you get a little bit older and you've figured out the speed of your hair loss, you adapt to it a little better — particularly when you aren't losing it quite as quickly as you initially thought. Hardly a consolation though.
However, you know things are going to continue to get worse, so you start buying finasteride and minoxidil with the realisation that you're probably going to be on these drugs for life, or for however long you're bothered by hair loss.
If you are born with alopecia, it's something you adapt to quicker because you don't know any different — at least on a personal level. People who acquire alopecia and male pattern baldness sufferers do know different because they knew what it was like to have hair.