New and just overall freaked out

[Guest]

I must admit that I just stumbled on this site tonight, as I was looking in the mirror and feeling especially self-conscious about my hair. Please don't flame me, as I'm a depressed newbie here, honestly looking for some advice or encouragement.

I have read some things - the whole research part on this site, the rogaine site, even visited a dermatologist and brought it up (I was there for my melasma and slipped the hair loss issue in while talking to her - she told me there wasn't much to do and that I could try Rogaine if I wanted.)

I feel like my situation is just not right. I'm only 28 years old and NO ONE, female OR male in my family has ANY kind of hair loss - NONE! My situation is general thinning just behind my hair line, in the center, while the rest of my hair is quite full. I've always had lots of hair, and my career does to some extent depend on my looks. (I'm an opera singer, and am frequentlly in front of hundreds of people having to look wonderful and glamorous - or in an audition situation, having to look as good as I sound. I've thought about hair transplantation, but am afraid of the cost. Maybe I should just find another dermatologist and have some tests done. I've been on birth control (ortho-tricyclen) for seven years, but the loss hadn't been truly and really noticable (at least in my opinion) until last fall, around November; and I remember reading that sometimes they give ortho-tricyclen as a way to make your hair grow?

Now I have to be so careful how I style my hair, so I can fake it and make it look like it's not as bad as it is. But I don't know how long I can go on doing this. I feel trapped. Help!

 

[ksuess85]

Hi,
I am new to this as well so I can definatley relate to what you are going through. I am not an opera singer (which is very cool by the way) but I am in college so my social life and overall happiness, lets be honest here, depends on my hair to some extent. But I've done a lot of research (did I mention I'm scared?) and there is a lot more that you can do than rogaine. Also, I am also taking ortho tricyclin, and what I can gather the deal is with brithcontrol pills is that they are helpful in growing hair if you suffer from androgenic alopecia brought on around menopause (because then your hormone levels change...so it's sorta a hormone therapy thing), but they can trigger hair loss when you start them or go off them. I actually need to figure out whether orthi trycyclin is an androgen low pill because those are the best kinds to be on as far as hairloss premenopause is concerned. I just read the book "The truth about women's hair loss" by Spencer Kobren and it helped me a lot. There is definatley more that you can do than just rogaine. Good luck!