My Story Of Telogen Effluvium And Male Pattern Baldness

Dihyte · Mar 22, 2018

Here is my story. Back in 2017 I weighed about 175 pounds. Then at the end of September 2017 I decided to do something about it. So I started a crash diet. On a lot of days, I only ate once. Sometimes I wouldn't even eat at all for a whole day. As a result, by November 2017 I went from 175 lbs to 142 lbs . then I started noticing that my hair was falling out a lot. I didn't think much of it at the time because I thought it was normal hair fall. Then I noticed that my hair line was receding. I now could see the scalp on my right temple.

I freaked out a bit so I started counting the number of hairs i was losing. It turned out that I was losing more than 200 hairs each day. I panicked so I bought saw palmetto and a mild shampoo.

But it didn't help with my hair loss so I did some research on crash diet and it turned out that crash diet can cause telogen effluvium. That's what I thought I had, telogen effluvium. It says that telogen effluvium would resolve itself in time after a crash diet ends. So I waited another month hoping my telogen effluvium would end soon.. I kept losing more and more hair each day and it was scaring the heck out of me.

Then I read that telogen effluvium could also accelerate male pattern baldness. So I decided to see a dermatologist about my hair. The doctor said that I did have telogen effluvium, but he also said that I had male pattern baldness too. So I tried applying minoxidil on my right temple. After a month of minoxidil , I thought that I wasn't doing enough because my hair was still falling out. So I decided to go on finasteride. At first I bought generic finasteride online, called finpecia. I was taking it for about 20 days but I didn't feel any difference. I was still losing a lot of hair each day . So I thought that the generic finasteride that I bought was fake so I decided to buy the real deal which was Propecia from a local pharmacy. It is now day 20 of Propecia. I still don't feel any difference but at least I know that what I'm taking is legitimate.

Attached are the pictures before treatment. I know that a lot of people who start a thread would eventually stop responding to the thread they started once their problem is solved but I promise that I would keep updating this thread until updates are no longer needed. You can also contact me via email at danial_01@hotmail.com in case i do wander off. Lol.

You can see that the hairline on my right temple (where the fingers are) is higher than the hairline on the left.

You can see the area where the hair is thinning.

This is the picture of the area at 1x magnification level.

Thesr are the pictures of the thinning area at 2x magnification level.

Dihyte · Aug 12, 2018

Hello everyone.

As promised (though I almost went back on the promise), I'm here to give you an update on my hair treatment. I started going on Kirkland minoxidil on Jan 25, 2018, and went on Propecia finasteride on Feb 16, 2018. It's several months later, and here's the progress.

I think that I have noticed that my hair fall has decreased, though this might not be true and it's all in my head. I don't lose more than 200 hairs each day anymore. I do notice more hair (tiny tiny hair) growing below the thinning area that I mentioned before, but the actual thinning area doesn't seem to be better. It may be that I'm still in my Telogen Effluvium period, I'm not so sure.

In terms of side effects, I haven't had ANY noticeable side effects. Everything has been the same as it was before I started my regimen. So, if you do experience side effects, it's probably because you had set in your mind that you would get side effects before starting on minoxidil or finasteride. So, a little bit of psychological effect there.

Overall, I am NOT satisfied with these two products because they did not improve the thinning area, but I do know that they DO work since there's new hair growing BELOW the thinning area (in other words, the FOREHEAD).