Strange Hair Loss In Eyebrows - Sebum Plugs In Follicles

[LadyDay]

Hello everyone,

I'm a relatively healthy 27 year old woman. Blood work results came back completely normal. Over the past couple of months I've noticed the hair on my eyebrows get a lot more sparse, especially towards the inner parts closest to my nose. When the hairs fall out, they usually have like, white pus attached to them. Some of the pores have sebum plugs in them. It seems like the pores are all clogged and the hairs keep dying/suffocating. My eyebrows are all bumpy and itchy but there's not really any redness or much visible irritation.

Anyone know what this may be? I did just have an IUD removed about three weeks ago because it was causing me to have cystic acne on my jawline and I was suspecting it was making my hair loss worse (I had some mild symptoms before I got the IUD). I feel like it might be some kind of yeast infection of the follicles or something. There is some new growth but it's very slow and the hairs are falling out faster than they're growing back. I have a dermatologist appointment next month but that seems very far away!

Please let me know if you have any experience with any of this. Thanks!

 

[jml]

Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

I pretty much match your symptoms 100%, but I'm male. I've been dealing with this for 6 months. My dermatologist said it 'might' be seb derm, as I suspected since I researched a ton before seeing him. Yet I don't really have the typical seb derm symptoms and I read that it doesn't really cause hair loss.

Anyway, I used ketoconazole twice daily for two months all over my face with special attention to the brows. The hair loss slowed considerably. Before, I'd been losing easily 10-20 hairs a day, that I could visibly see. Rubbing my finger through my brow could easily shed 5-10 more. Now I'd say it's down to like 2-3 a day.

Still I feel like this is not normal for me. I never used to find stray eyebrow hairs on my face or on my finger when I rubbed them. Now I do.

I hope it goes away completely in time but for now the ketaconazole appears to have helped.

The itching has almost completely subsided as well. The hairs are growing back.

Like you, when they fall out there's a plug stuck to the end of them. Often the hair will just be sitting there or it will kind of 'wilt' in the follicle and hang down.

I had some pretty bad dandruff and itchiness in the brows as well. I was having a similar symptoms inside my nose, too. Nose hairs were falling out and inside my nose was super itchy. I used the ketoconazole cream inside my nostrils even though it's off label, it seemed to work.

This all either began or worsened tremendously after I used a zinc pyrithione soap (noble formula brand) on my face. Within 2 weeks of using the soap my skin started to become extremely flakey and itchy, and I noticed the eyebrow hairs stared falling out like crazy in a diffuse pattern.

My theory is I had this skin issue very lightly, and the soap destroyed my acid mantle, allowing the condition to go nuts, seb derm or whatever it is. Previously I only ever used water and moisturizer on my face for over 10 years, never soap.

What a nightmare! At least I have this newfound knowledge of the skin seeing all the research I've had to do because doctors are often NOT helpful.

Even in this instance, the dermatologist was implying that my eyebrow loss was normal. I think I know what's normal for my own body, doctor, thank you!