Shed from where, exactly?

[mattj]

I am finding all this talk of shedding to be terrifying. I'm seriously considering not starting finasteride. One thing that isn't clear, though, is what hair exactly is being shed. If the finasteride re-starts the growth cycle, then why doesn't your whole head shed, as each follicle has a cycle of it's own?

Are the sheds completely random and coming from anywhere on your head, or is it an acceleration of balding in the pattern your balding was following?

 

[Freestyle]

You have every right to fear a shed -- they suck and last weeks (or maybe months) and make your head look like sh*t.

But they are also temporary. For your patience, you are rewarded with the same hair the was shed, plus potentially hundreds of new ones.

So you can go on Propecia and maybe aget a bad shed, with some hair regrown afterwrads.

Or you can not take Propecia, and go bald slowly anyway.

 

[mattj]

You say that they are temporary, but do you account for the poll in this forum that 57% of rsponders claimed no regrowth of shed hair?

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/discussions ... viewresult

Where can I find more in-depth info about the sheds, what hairs are shed, etc?

 

[jeffsss]

You say that they are temporary, but do you account for the poll in this forum that 57% of rsponders claimed no regrowth of shed hair?

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/discussions ... viewresult

Where can I find more in-depth info about the sheds, what hairs are shed, etc?

well people are going to tell you that hairs lost come back. I personally dont think they do.. but i'm not a doctor

also, take into consideration this:

people who arnt responding to treatments will spend more time on the forum.

do you think if propecia has been working for you, you'd be on this forum 12 months from now to take that survey? dont think so.

so here's my advise... do research. ask as many people as possible about hair loss.. go to dermatologist, go to general doctors, go to a hair specialist, search the web...

propecia is supposidly a great drug.. good luck man.

 

[Freestyle]

I would hazard a guess that mostly terminal complainers participated in that poll. Or trolls with multiple accounts here.

Propecia does not kill your hair!

A shed is just the forcing of hairs that were reaching the end of their cycles to fall out a little earlier.

If these healthy, pigmented hairs are shed, they will grow back! Propecia is not killing the hair and making it fall out forever. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

When you 'lose' hair, it's not just dropping out, never to return. It slowly (or quickly) thins, gets shorter, loses pigment and finally falls out, never to return. And this doesn't happen in one hair cycle -- it takes a few hair cycles for a hair to go from healthy to completely dead. We're talking literally years.

That's why some people who have big bald spots are amazed when they start growing hair there on treatments. They may not have seen any hairs there for a few years, but the follice isn't dead yet and can still slowly come back on treatments.

If you shed a large amount of noticeable, healthy hair, it will return on the next cycle. That may take 1-2 months, but it will come back. The treatment hasn't fried your follicles -- they're still there under the surface, getting ready to push a new hair through.

Now, maybe that new hair is shorter, weaker and less pigmented than the old one. Maybe you're still yet to respond fully to the Propecia (takes 12-24 months for the full effects), or maybe you're just one of the unlucky ones that doesn't respond to Propecia at all (very slim chance).

And even in that case of you not responding to Propecia, it certainly isn't accelerating your hair loss. Your hair will fall out at the same rate it was going to anyway.

When you 'shed' healthy hairs, they return. Full stop. Unless there's some medical condition you have, but that's unlikely.

If the shed hairs come back smaller, weaker and less pigmented, then that sucks. but it was going to happen anyway. And those hairs will still take a year or so to die off anyway.

So don't listen to these assholes who are trying to warn you off whatever treatments, just because they failed to give the treatments their due course and want to incite fear-mongering.

You're either gonna keep your hair on Propecia, or it's going to fall out the same way it was destined to.

But you won't know until you try it.

 

[mattj]

Thanks, that makes me feel much better.

A couple of things:

A shed is just the forcing of hairs that were reaching the end of their cycles to fall out a little earlier.

Does that mean that the shedded hair can come from anywhere on your head, even the back and sides? If the shed is dispersed like that (and considering that I still have most of my hair) it doesn't sound like it'll be too bad... It sounds like those people who really have a bad time with sheds probably have very thin hair already.

Can you give me some kind of percentage for the hairs that will be shed by having their cycle reset?

I don't seem to have any of these de-pigmented, miniaturized hairs. I don't lose many per day. I wouldn't say I lose more than the average for a normal person, and they are all regular, full-sized, healthy-looking hairs.

It does sound although I have nothing to lose by starting finasteride.
thanks.

 

[Freestyle]

Hey, you may not even shed at all. You never know.

And it's not usually as bad as people make out -- it's just amplified by the sensitivity you already have about your hair loss.

It's not like your hair becomes a patchy mess like Frankenstein's monster...it just looks noticably thinner.

If you're suffering hair loss, you definitely have a lot of these small, colorless hairs. They're just not very easy to see without magnification.