Saw A Derm, Please I Need Your Opinion (cte)

Aleksa97

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Hey all.

So, today I booked an appointment with my local doctor. It is called Hair 101 and is specialised for hair and hair problems. So I went today, just to seek a professional advice. She egzamined my hair with that microscope where you can see your hair 50x larger. So I went there, did not wash my hair for like 3 days. She stated that my scalp is very oily and that I have oily flakes of dandruff. ( not sebhorreic one. ). I had like little balls (clumps) of oil that literally blocked some of my follicules. Anyways, she asked me questions about my hair and I said that I had hairloss for like 2-2.5 years. I am 19 now. She then moved to inspect the back of my head (donor area) and the sides where my ears are. Then she said something like, hmm you have thinning here aswell. After further inspection she said that I have
Chronic Telogen Effluvium.

And asked me If anyone in my family has issues with thiroyid. I told her no, and that I had iron defficiency like 2 years ago where under normal exam I found out that I had my iron levels bellow minimum. I had a diet with a lot of iron foods, but to be honest did not check after to see if my results were better. She said maybe my male pattern baldness started with my CTE. After that she tried to sell me some snake oils that cost like 150e which I rejected. Since no one in my family has hairloss I am not sure If I have male pattern baldness or this Telogen thing. My queston is what am I supposed to do? She said to me to check some thyroid hormones and Iron aswell, which I will do this week. But in general, can somone give me any advice about CTE. Is it a good thing that I have that or not? Is there any way to prevent it?
You can see pics of my hair on my profile.

Please respond, I really seek for information.

Thanks,
A.

 

cyrusthegreat@hotmail.com

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Having a diagnosis for CTE is like a non answer, imo.

If you do have CTE, then you need to work with a doctor to try to find the source. Typically, doctors will check the obvious blood iron, ferritin, and thyroid. If all those are near normal, then further investigation can be quite difficult. Some people can experience CTE due to any number of internal maladies and deficiencies. Sometimes if that reason is found and addressed, then the hair may regrow.

If your doctor is sure you have CTE and can't find any internal reasons for it, then a scalp biopsy might be the next step.

So you see, telling you it's CTE and not doing any of the extra effort is BS.
 

Suswang

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I think you definitely need to have your blood tested for as many things as you can (thyroid, iron, hormones, vitamin D, etc) to see what the issue is, given you are so young. To be honest, though, if this doctor used trichoscopy, which it sounds like they did, then they must know a good amount about the subject matter. Did your parents or grandparents suffer from hairloss?
 
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