Is inflammation always present/obvious?

[hardcastle]

I've seen a fair number of posts about scalp inflammation not only on these boards but also on the web. What's not clear to me is (1) whether inflammation is always a side effect of male pattern baldness, and (2) whether inflammation, if it's there, is always obvious. Is it possible to have male pattern baldness-caused inflammation without a red itchy scalp?

I'd appreciate any help on this. I asked my derm about it, and he didn't know a thing. Honestly, I think I knew more about hair loss than he did. The whole experience pissed me off, since he was impatient and unhelpful, but that's another post for another day.

 

[northeastguy]

my derm dissapointed me too. My appointments sucked. I can tell I have inflammation and I don't have a red scalp, it just burns some, feels tight and itches a good bit.

 

[asm]

I think it's the matter of certain case.

For example, in stuffy subway my scalp itches very little - I think it's normal like when you sweat you are trying scratch your body at some places

If it's itching every second, that can be seborrhea, which sometimes accompanies male pattern baldness. But sometimes hairloss can be due to seborrhea (it is called seborrheic alopecia) and once you deal with it you probably won't lose a hair further.

 

[pleasegodno]

it may also be psychogenic. when i'm not thinking about it, i don't really experience any itching or burning.

 

[dead]

I've seen a fair number of posts about scalp inflammation not only on these boards but also on the web. What's not clear to me is (1) whether inflammation is always a side effect of male pattern baldness, and (2) whether inflammation, if it's there, is always obvious. Is it possible to have male pattern baldness-caused inflammation without a red itchy scalp?

Inflammation can happen just about anywhere in the body.

Scalp inflammation (the visable itchy sort) is thought to play less of a role in male pattern baldness than inflammation of the follicle (the invisible unnoticed sort).

Inflammation may be a causal part of male pattern baldness and not a 'side effect' (sic)

 

[iamnaked]

Inflammation can happen just about anywhere in the body.

Scalp inflammation (the visable itchy sort) is thought to play less of a role in male pattern baldness than inflammation of the follicle (the invisible unnoticed sort).

Inflammation may be a causal part of male pattern baldness and not a 'side effect' (sic)

I'm not liking the sound of that. Is there any way of telling whether your follicles are inflamed short of seeing a dermatologist/trichologist then? Either way, would you recommend some copper peptide sh*t just to be safe?

 

[hardcastle]

Is it possible to have male pattern baldness-caused inflammation without a red itchy scalp?

Scalp inflammation (the visable itchy sort) is thought to play less of a role in male pattern baldness than inflammation of the follicle (the invisible unnoticed sort).

That's why I asked. I had heard that inflammation of the follicle was quite common, and unnoticed. When I asked my derm about this, he told me that if I didn't feel anything, it wasn't happening. My impression of his hair loss expertise didn't give me any reason to believe this.

How would I be able to determine if my follicles are inflamed, and what would I do about this? A couple people mentioned anti-inflammatory treatments: http://hairlosstalk.com/discussions/vie ... hp?t=16585

Any thoughts?

 

[global]

If you've got male pattern baldness then you know you've some inflammation as it's known that male pattern baldness is a part of male pattern baldness even if we dont know if its a cause or an effect.

In any case you should have some kind of anti inflammatory as part of your regime e.g tricomin, folligen etc.