Matt's Story

[mattg817]

I am a 20 year old college student with seborrheic dermatitis of the scalp and have used a tar shampoo for the past 2 years. The tar shampoo was great for flaking and itching, but when I looked at my scalp it had red splotches in a lot of places.

Recently I started noticing hair shedding and my hair becoming thinner all over my head, mainly in the red spots. I discontinued use of the tar shampoo and am now alternating a zinc shampoo with a piroctone olamine one. The redness seems to have calmed down, and I'm losing less hair, but my hair is still thin. I am trying to figure out if I am experiencing the beginning of male pattern baldness or if my hair loss was caused by the tar shampoo or seb derm. It's all so confusing. No one in my family is bald. Has anyone experienced something similar, and what did you do that worked?

 

[Dan_NW2]

No Symptoms from TAR Shampoo

Back in my late twenties to early thirties I used a tar shampoo due to a similar situation. At that time I kept my head shaved dutasteride to the condition and found that using the tar shampoo along with letting cool air hit my scalp seemed to alleviate the itchiness. So after about 5 years of using a tar shampoo, T - Plus is what I think I used, I showed no signs of shedding or thinness. That problem is gone, now that I am 41 however, I am seeing some thinness in my temples and vertex area but am still thick on top where I can cover my temples. I was told that it is common for even full haired non balding men to be a little thin in the vertex area as its commonly reffered to as a swirl, or whirl or even a cowlick. If thats the case, thats a big f*****g cow that got ahold me my head. ALso I beleive we all shed somethin like 20-50 hairs a day. I wouldnt worry about it. I think the kind of sheddig you should worry about is the clump kind where you get handfulls of hair when you showere or run your fingers through.