Ithappens story - (with pics Accutane Hair Loss)

[ithappens]

I've been losing my hair after a round of accutane since feburary of this year. the loss has been massive and i would say that as of now i've lost 50% of my original hair. Towards the end of the course a mass and i mean mass shed ensued where i was losing upwards of 150-200 hairs per day, it has slowed down in the past couple months but i just attribute it to the fact that i have less hair to lose now. The whole structure of my hair changed from thick full and straight to thin weak curly and wirery my hair is pretty much unmanagable now. most of the loss seems to have occured in a diffuse pattern throughout my whole head although it is worse on top of the scalp. i also have the typical bitemporal loss which is a characteristic of Telogen Effluvium. when i went to see my derm he did a hair pull test and said that i did test positive for Telogen Effluvium and that the only thing i could do is wait it out and hope the hair loss stops and the hair comes back. While male pattern baldness is supposed to be gradual i know that my situation isnt just clear cut male pattern baldness because it usually occurs at a much slower rate and no one in my family has a history of hair loss at such an early age. however, it has been 4 and a half months since i stopped the stuff and my hair continues to fall out so I dunno anymore. My parents deny my hair loss and say that it's in my head and it will come back etc etc and refuse to take me to a specialist. here are the pics of my situation.

Here are two pics of my hair before any hair loss the one on the right was taken when i was 18 while the one on the left was taken last july when i was 20 only a month before my accutane course. notice the thick healthy straight hair. I was 20 years old before my hair loss from accutane and wasn't losing any hair or headed towards male pattern baldness anytime soon if i ever was to ebgin with. RIP hair

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... tled33.jpg

here are the pictures of my hair after accutane. i lsot hair throughout my course but the mass loss that has ensued and the change in texture has mostly occured over the past few months or so. pretty scary stuff

here is the top part of my head
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1185.jpg

here is my bang area which has been completely destroyed although i still somewhat have the front hair line there.
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1189.jpg

more diffuse devastation
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1192.jpg

temporal and front hair line area
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1191.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1190.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1198.jpg

Diffuse loss at the side and actual back of my hair
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1200.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1202.jpg

Diffuse loss on the back crown of my head
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1197.jpg

how im wearing my hair now and the unhealthy state of it. things keep up like they are in the next couple weeks or so im hitting the buzzer cause i look like a chemo patient combined with a hobo.
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1203.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i267/ ... G_1199.jpg

 

[ithappens]

anyone have any idea whats going on with my hair or have a similar experience? Telogen Effluvium male pattern baldness I have no clue

 

[ithappens]

i heard of people with accutane hair loss recovering their hair by getting on propecia granted i tried it for three weeks and while it did seem to somewhat be helping i got horrible sides from it. my doctor told me that i just would have to wait it out and see if the hair comes back. should i try propecia with some sort of anti-estrogen drug?

 

[BadHairDay]

Hey there I know it sucks to post and not have any reply so here goes:

If you indeed have Telogen Effluvium then your dermatologist is correct: the only thing you can do is wait it out. Using Propecia for Telogen Effluvium will not do a thing as it is not DHT that is causing your hair to fall out. I believe you said you have waited four or four and a half months, correct? If this is true then you have to realize it takes AT LEAST 3 months before you start to even see results. I have heard it could take up to a year before you really notice having nearly all your hair back. However, I must caution you, in the event that you were prone to male pattern baldness, the reality is you may not get all of it back, or even any of it back depending on its aggressiveness. The fact that you were diagnosed with Telogen Effluvium does not exactly mean you do not have male pattern baldness; you could very well be suffering from both at the same time (whereas Telogen Effluvium would just be temporary). I know this sounds rather pessimistic or cautionary, but 20 is not that farfetched for people to start losing their hair. So just because you had a full head of hair last year does not mean you were meant to keep it for the next few. I would get a second opinion to double check to be completely honest.

In the event that it is Telogen Effluvium some things you might want to try are MSM and/or copper peptides as they seem to speed the growth cycles of hair.

If it's male pattern baldness then it would be: propecia, rogaine, nizoral
However, in your case you'd probably be okay with just propecia

 

[chain]

"My parents deny my hair loss and say that it's in my head..."

Your parents are correct.

 

[ithappens]

listen i'm not saying that my hair loss is as bad as most guys on here but trust me it is very diffuse and thin. just because my hair line isnt receeding away doesn't mean im not losing hair

 

[Guest]

I was on accutane for 1 year and the drug is a miracle but unfortunately I got off from it because it gave a lot of muscle ache. It's scientifically proven that accutane gives you hair loss, I talk to three different dermotalogist and informed me it gives you hair loss on a long term use but will come back when you stop taking accutane. The irony thing about is my dermatologist never told me about the hair loss as one of the side effects but most doctors are probably not informative because they make a percentage for writing prescriptions. You should try minoxidil or rogaine first because you take propecia because your hair loss is not that bad. You can do both if you can financially afford it. As a acne suffer before I rather have hair loss than to have a lot of acne.

 

[retropunk]

If you test positive for Telogen Effluvium, you'll have to wait. Hair doesn't grow inches over night.

If you're impatient, the only thing I would suggest would be MSM and Ester-C. There's a link somewhere in the Vitamin forum stating how much you should take for your body weight. Be forwarned: the MSM can grown hair faster all over body. I'm not sure if it grows hair thicker, but some say it does.

Hair shedding can continue up to 8m after stopping the medication. Hair also takes up to 3months to enter the anagen stage and grows 0.5 in/month. You'll need to be patient if you believe it's Telogen Effluvium. You can probably definitely tell it's Telogen Effluvium by looking at your fingernails. You should see a Beau's Line, which is basically a line across your nail. Fingernails take 5m to grow from bottom to tip, so you should still see it.

 

[ithappens]

yea i actually think my mom takes that extster c and i have some of it in the house so i'll start taking it daily. the thing is i dont know what to think anymore cause my hair is still shedding and it's been 6 months since it all started. and i do have that line on a couple of my finger nails i think, but not all of them. i had a positive hair pull test when i was at the derm in april so i dunno i just hope it stops soon.

 

[rhombus]

i have similar hair loss, and similar hair texture , however my temples are a little more fucked, i think...
I have been using propecia since november, and i think im maintaining.

 

[liquidfirex]

I experienced essentially the same thing as you, but with large doses of vitamin b5. And nothing helped, I waited a year and said f*** it. Now i'm on propecia and my hair stopped shedding and is growing back slowly.

 

[ithappens]

yea i mean my derm even said that propecia has been known to help people recover hair loss from Telogen Effluvium and chronic Telogen Effluvium. doctors have no clue as to why but it does work sometimes. the thing is i tried taking propecia back in like march when it first started happening cause it was such massive loss and i didnt know what the hell it was the thing is be it from recently finishing accutane less than 2 months before hand or the propecia itself or a combo of both propecia gave me some horrible sides and i am still suffering from them. my whole sleep was disturbed and i get fatigue during the day. my best friends dad is the head surgeon out at U of A and knows a lot about medicine and said he thinks the propecia gave me adrenal fatigue syndrome and i should get blood tests etc which i am currently doing. the propecia seemed to helping the shed at 1mg but my god the sides were unbearable mainly the fact that i literally couldnt hit deep sleep it was like i was half asleep in bed. but i really hate drugs the accutane the propecia etc at this point and really dont want to take them so i am holding out and hoping it stops eventually and grows back. however with the amount i lost and the amount that still is falling out i doubt that will happen anytime if at all so i may try propecia sometime in the future while using arimidex. the thing im worried about is that while these things can be a solution in the short term which im fine with, in the long run they can mess up your natural hormone production. so at this point im just really upset about all of this. i took one pill to get rid of one problem and now have about three others. i wish i could go back in time.

 

[buzzmenot]

your pre-accutane hair looks thinned out..
at 18 your temples looked thinning out, at 20 its nearly gone, check out the dent in the hair fluff... frontal 1/3 is hit bad. comb forward hairstyle just helps the denial part until it hits you in the face the day it doesnt work as good.

stay on propecia, initial shed can be 1-1.5 months long.

 

[RaginDemon]

yea i mean my derm even said that propecia has been known to help people recover hair loss from Telogen Effluvium and chronic Telogen Effluvium.

I never heard about that. finasteride is a DHT blocker yet most of the Telogen Effluvium are NOT caused by excess DHT.

I don't see how it can be related. The only way to cure Telogen Effluvium (if that is the case) is to do nothing and wait.

 

[ithappens]

your pre-accutane hair looks thinned out..
at 18 your temples looked thinning out, at 20 its nearly gone, check out the dent in the hair fluff... frontal 1/3 is hit bad. comb forward hairstyle just helps the denial part until it hits you in the face the day it doesnt work as good.

stay on propecia, initial shed can be 1-1.5 months long.

haha trust me my hair was fine pre accutane and to judge and say i was thinning by two pics that i had is ridiculous. i had a very thick set of hair and and there wasn't ever an issue of a "comb forward hairstyle or denial" if my hair in the first two pics was considered bad and thinning then 90% of males on earth should be on propecia.

 

[ithappens]

from what i understand the type of hair loss that accutane has can be considered a Telogen Effluvium but for some reason propecia has been known to help som suffering from retinoid induced hair loss. i dunno if it's because for a certain period of time the hair is more sensitive to DHT and or something else but (and i'll have to find them again) have read studies of propecia helping some retinoid induced hair loss. why and how i dunno, i think DHT may play a part in it but there's a lot of other stuff going on obviously. but yea i am going to wait. and i'm sorry to come off as an a**h** on the last post because i want help and advice from everyone, but what the guy said to me just seemed idiotic especially with people on here telling me even now how my loss doesn't seem that bad. my temples before i've always had a slight widow's peak like my dad does etc and he has a full thick and i mean thick set of hair, more than most 18 year olds and he's pushing 50.

yea i mean my derm even said that propecia has been known to help people recover hair loss from Telogen Effluvium and chronic Telogen Effluvium.

I never heard about that. finasteride is a DHT blocker yet most of the Telogen Effluvium are NOT caused by excess DHT.

I don't see how it can be related. The only way to cure Telogen Effluvium (if that is the case) is to do nothing and wait.

 

[RaginDemon]

i dunno if it's because for a certain period of time the hair is more sensitive to DHT and or something else but (and i'll have to find them again) have read studies of propecia helping some retinoid induced hair loss. why and how i dunno, i think DHT may play a part in it but there's a lot of other stuff going on obviously. but yea i am going to wait. and i'm sorry to come off as an @55**e on the last post because i want help and advice from everyone, but what the guy said to me just seemed idiotic especially with people on here telling me even now how my loss doesn't seem that bad. my temples before i've always had a slight widow's peak like my dad does etc and he has a full thick and i mean thick set of hair, more than most 18 year olds and he's pushing 50.

yea i mean my derm even said that propecia has been known to help people recover hair loss from Telogen Effluvium and chronic Telogen Effluvium.

I never heard about that. finasteride is a DHT blocker yet most of the Telogen Effluvium are NOT caused by excess DHT.

I don't see how it can be related. The only way to cure Telogen Effluvium (if that is the case) is to do nothing and wait.

Your hair loss is still at the initial stage, I think proven treatments can most likely get it back to a decent shape. I also recommand a shorter haircut. It will make your hair look a lot thicker. I cut my hair short and I like it a lot.

GL on your treatment bro