mutiple follicular units

[jumpedthegun]

I am trying to better understand my hairloss in order better fight it.

Although my hair seems to be diffusely thinning, my individual hair strands seem, for the most part, thick and healthy. I thought "how could my hair strands still be thick, while my overall hair looks thinner. If the individual hairs aren't thinning, is it possible that my thick hairs are falling out never to grow back?"

This weekend, while cuddling with my girl, I couldn't resist the temptation to inspect her hair, unbeknowest to her of course. I noticed that the concentration of her hair follicles looked similar to mine, but her hair was overall thicker. Then it hit me, multiple follicular units. She had way more. Sometimes up to four hairs in one follicle. Then I looked at mine, and that's when my theory hit me.

If DHT shrinks the follicle, then maybe the first sign of male pattern baldness is that the follicle downshifts from 3 hairs to 2 hairs and then to 1 hair (before any individual hairs shrink in size). THen, as the follicle continues to shrink, the final stage is for that one hair to start shrinking over several cycles ntil the follicle can no longer support it and you end up with no hair in that follicle.

So, in essence, that would explain why some people experience sudden thinning. Namely, in one cycle a multiple follicular unit goes from 3 hairs to 2 hairs--the hair just falls out and doesn't grow back. If that happens all across your head, you could lose a lot of ground fast without the slow process of the hair cycling back smaller every time.

any thoughts? this could be completely off.

 

[Johnny24601]

re:

Making conclusions based on a hidden inspection of your girls hair is well kind of dumb. Women's hair is similar to men's in many ways but there are differences in density and you will notice a woman's hairline is naturally higher then a man's. Both men and women have hair follicles with two even three hairs in them but by far the common hair follicle has one hair growing from it (from what I can conclude based on research). male pattern baldness shrinks the hair follicles until the point where they die and no longer produce anything. The hair shaft gets thinner, eventually loses its color and then eventually dies off with the follicle. The follicle is destroyed because receptors in the body recognizes the DHT within the follicale as a foreign material and moves in to attack thus destroying the follicle.
This website and the internet has copious amount of data on this subject and it is my personal opinion that the solution lies in science and research. Of course male pattern baldness is far less important then many other scientific persuits. finasteride and minoxidil are the only FDA approved treatements but home rememdies and other snake oil products have been available for years.

 

[jumpedthegun]

it's wasn't a perfect science, but i wouldn't say the comparison is dumb. the only difference between mens' and womens' hair is that womens' is not bombarded by the effects of dht. i think it's safe to say that her hair is probably not far from what my hair was like pre-male pattern baldness, and it provided me with a good baseline observation as to how my hair may have been affected by dht.

 

[Johnny24601]

re:

I was joking, but I guess a joke has to be funny to actually be considered a joke, I apologize. It remains that your hair is thinner because androgens have attacked a follicle that contains DHT. This action has shrunken the hair, destroyed some follicles and left some hair colorloess.
Good luck with your research. When I first accepted my hairloss I researched the topic for days and knowledge is power. All I can say to help your journey is that you must stay grounded. There will be ups and downs and the reality is that all male pattern baldness treatments pose risks and there is a entire range of possible outcomes. Have comfort that you are taking steps to try to save what you can and good luck.

 

[incubusor]

If a diffuse thinner recognizes early on that his scalp is more visible - its due to the fact that some hairs have died off already (creating small gaps) or because of the overall miniaturization of hairs on top of the scalp (providing less coverage as a whole)?