losing hair/growing a beard/increased body hair

[guitar66]

That seems to be the general trend correct? You hair starts to recede, you thin out up top- but the whole time you see at least some increse in facial and body hair.

Well, I'm 24. I have the facial hair of a 12 year old. I still get carded for cigarettes. I grow a small section of spotty chin hair, and a tiny bit of mustache hair. Sideburns go down to the bottom of my ears, and then basically stop. No hair on my chin/jawline. Zero hair under my chin (neck area). Zero chest hair. my arms are almost hairless, and my legs are not hairy at all.

Just out of curiosity, what have other people on here witnessed in regards to this trend. Anyone have a similar experience? Or is it generally accepted that thinning hair is usually accompanied by increased facial and body hair?

I'll add that I'm diffuse thinning up top, hardly any temple reccesion, and I've had the same body/facial hair for the past 5-8 years.

 

[cuebald]

It's all about DHT allegedly - higher DHT levels mean more body hair and less scalp hair.
What differs is your follicles sensitivity to DHT. Chances are that your hair follicles are very sensitive to DHT, but you don't have that much DHT in your system - hence the diffusing.
Could also be that you have higher DHT levels in your system but your body hair isn't very sensitive to its presence.

FWIW I'm not really that hairy either. I'm the least hairy apart from 1 of my mates. Most of them raise NW1's to match my NW4.
I've a little hair on my legs, arms, and neck but that is it.
Got a mate who had a full beard, rug-chest and a hairy back at 16 (when I met him). Now at 24 he's still got the same NW1 he had then.

 

[jonsie150]

i've seen this happen to my body. or at least i think so.

my hairloss seemed to accelerate within the last two years, and within that period i've noticed that the hairs on my arms and chest were becoming more abundant. i dont know what it is, but i think my body kicked in an extra dosage of DHT. this is making me consider jumping on dutasteride

 

[follicle84]

That seems to be the general trend correct? You hair starts to recede, you thin out up top- but the whole time you see at least some increse in facial and body hair.

From my experience this is true with body hair however not so true with facial hair. You see I think facial hair doesnt require as much dht to appear as say chest hair and is largelly genetic if aint growing into a beard. After all finestride doesnt even change facial hair despite blocking 80% of dht (you would think you would lose facial hair). However body hair is sometimes effected by it meaning the less dht you have the less hairer you will be and vice versa.

It's all about DHT allegedly - higher DHT levels mean more body hair and less scalp hair.
What differs is your follicles sensitivity to DHT. Chances are that your hair follicles are very sensitive to DHT, but you don't have that much DHT in your system - hence the diffusing.
Could also be that you have higher DHT levels in your system but your body hair isn't very sensitive to its presence.

FWIW I'm not really that hairy either. I'm the least hairy apart from 1 of my mates. Most of them raise NW1's to match my NW4.
I've a little hair on my legs, arms, and neck but that is it.
Got a mate who had a full beard, rug-chest and a hairy back at 16 (when I met him). Now at 24 he's still got the same NW1 he had then.

You know what else, i think very hairy guys are less likelly to have side effects from finasteride too as they probably have an over abundance of dht rather than sensitive hair follicles.

 

[abcdefg]

Same thing with me pretty much. I think if your hair is at all susceptible to androgens then over the years your hair gets affected more and more by the androgens that you do have and baldness just accelerates over the course of your life unless you try some treatment.

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

CONGRATULATIONS! There's a chance you may not have traditional androgenic alopecia after all. There are many different causes for losing ones hair and most often times it simply goes: Are you a man? Ok, then it's male pattern baldness. While everyone has different masses of body hair, your severe lack of it does raise quite an eyebrow to a different underlying cause for your hair loss.

I am slowly coming out of the same boat you are in right now. A short time ago I found out what was really going wrong in my body and now that I've removed the offending compound from my diet my body hair is actually starting to right itself and on my formerly receding temples I am noticing new hairs each day.

While I have always had somewhat light forearm hair and somewhat stringy leg hair I've only ever had a total of 5 chest hairs and 1 back hair so far and this wasn't changing at all even at me turning 28. I have never been able to grow out a beard because there were simply just parts of my beard that didn't grow, or didn't grow thickly. I am now at 2.5 weeks after I found out that I had a severe gluten intolerance and all those patchy areas on my beard are starting to grow in new hairs. Additionally I'm getting less ingrown hairs (thicker hairs) and on my chest all those little colorless hairs are starting to take on color (I have dark brown hair). At this rate it's looking like I'll be able to grow a full beard before the end of 2010 and I might end up with a helllll of a lot of chest hair.

All of this from even less than 3 weeks after removing one compound from my diet. I'm not saying that you necessarily have the same trigger as I do, however your severe lack of body/facial hair is definitely something to worry about and could very well likely be caused by a much bigger problem then simply hair loss.

Talk to an endocrinologist for certain, but if he just stops at simply a thyroid problem, drop the doctor and go talk to one who will refer you to a gastroenterologist as thyroid problems are often caused by other internal issues that don't get tested for.

 

[guitar66]

thanks for the info. how do they test for gluten intolerance?

I've gone to a thyroid doctor (one that I felt was very good), and he determined i had hashimotos. he didn't suggest treatments however, since he felt as though my values were in range. he wants to do blood tests from time to time to see if there are any changes and then go from there.

I know we've touched on this in a few other threads, but I'm definatly interested in going gluten free anyway. In your honest opinion, do you find it difficult? It seems virtually impossible, seeing as how gluten is hidden in so many things. what about eating at resturaunts etc..

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

thanks for the info. how do they test for gluten intolerance?

I've gone to a thyroid doctor (one that I felt was very good), and he determined i had hashimotos. he didn't suggest treatments however, since he felt as though my values were in range. he wants to do blood tests from time to time to see if there are any changes and then go from there.

I know we've touched on this in a few other threads, but I'm definatly interested in going gluten free anyway. In your honest opinion, do you find it difficult? It seems virtually impossible, seeing as how gluten is hidden in so many things. what about eating at resturaunts etc..

Hashimoto's and no referral to an endoscopy or testing for antibodies? Make him order celiac specific blood tests now: http://www.celiac.com/articles/1135...Disease-and-Hashimotos-Thyroiditis/Page1.html

I am a chef/food scientist by vocation so while changing my diet has been somewhat difficult emotionally (especially dropping beer completely), I know that it's been loads easier for me than for my sister who has almost no ability to prepare her own meals. It is hidden in a lot of different processed foods as grains and wheat in particular are an excellent way to make give body to an item while keeping costs at a bare minimum. If you know a basic set of preparations in the kitchen then it's not hard to be gluten free at home. Really the only major changes you have to make are to throw away your flour, buy some gluten-free soy sauce (as all regular soy sauce uses barley) and eat more meat/vegetables.

Eating out is a complete pain in the ***. Forget the local hole in the walls that served up some great authentic meals at a decent price, almost all of them are not equipped to handle your needs. For any mid-high scale restaurant however, if they're worth going to at all for anyone, then they should be able to make special concessions for you if you call ahead to alert them about your special needs. A lot of fast-casual and casual dining chains are getting good about this too and will use freshly cleaned utensils and gloves to prepare your meal item as well as provide you with an online menu of their specific gluten-free items. When in doubt, always call ahead.

It is definitely restrictive enough to where I would not recommend it to someone who safely passes the gluten-free diet test without having a reaction to reintroduced gluten.

 

[Hoppi]

I side with Brains Expel Hair, it doesn't sound that much like male pattern hair loss, of course depending on the degree of hairline recession (if any).

Keep examining the cause further and looking at solutions, and while doing so try to eat a good, light diet and remain healthy Keep a close eye on it.

Giving up gluten is probably only useful if you have an allergy (of any severity) and possibly if it is male pattern baldness, but hey it can't HURT to give it up anyway, so yeah, whatever you wanna do really

 

[mpbsux20]

I am 20 and I can grow a full,coarse beard in a couple of weeks.My beard looks pretty full by the 1 week mark.I also have pretty heavy body hair in every part they are know to grow i.e. chest,arms,legs,upper arms and of course you know where.Anyway what I am implying is that,had I developed androgenic hair at a little slower rate then male pattern baldness would not have been an issue till mid or late twenties.

I think they are both related like this

Hairy indviduals with male pattern baldness-scalp less sensitive,somewhat sensitive and really sensitive to DHT

Those without adequate body hair having male pattern baldness-often have follicles on thier scalp that are really sensitive to DHT.

I also believe that hairy individuals tend to have more DHT in their system and probably thats why many of them can overcome or tolerate the side effects of finasteride sooner than those without it.

 

[abcdefg]

Well in the last 2 years my facial hair is growing a lot faster and is thicker then before. I also am getting back hair and have a very small amount of chest hair now where about 2 or 3 years ago I had none and coincidence or not I had almost no hairloss. In my opinion and in my case It seems like more facial hair, and body hair has very slowly coincided with the very slow hair loss on my head. Whether I want to do something or not yet I am not sure I will probably wait and see some more. Very little family history of male pattern baldness and with how slow its going I dont know its worth the risk yet of using propecia.