So I've been experiencing some pretty severe hair loss for the last couple of months and I don't know what to think of it.
Some background:
Male pattern baldness goes in partially in my family, but none has started losing any hair before reaching well past their 30s. I'm 22. Up until the beginning of May this year I didn't experience any problems at all. No hair was on my pillow when I woke up in the morning and my shower drain had regular amounts. Then almost overnight at the beginning of May I waking up to pillows covered in hair and had to empty the shower drain almost every day. My floor started being covered in strands of hair.
At first I thought it might be Telogen effluvium, as I had been extremely stressed out at the beginning of the year due to school and private stuff. My sister had earlier experienced heavy loss of hair due to stress, so I thought it wasn't implausible that I would be prone to it as well.
However, mid-June I started seeing visible thinning on the sides, just typical to early male pattern baldness. This had me alarmed, and I contacted a doctor. Early July I visited the doctor who took a look and said that "he didn't think" it was male pattern baldness (not very convincing). He tested my blood but didn't find anything abnormal. Just to be safe he prescribed Propecia 1 mg.
Just before I started taking Propecia I also started getting a burning sensation in my scalp, especially in the areas where I experienced hairloss. It would tingle, irritate and burn almost all day. I'm also shedding a lot of small, small flakes of dandruff and my scalp feels really dry. It's not red or inflamed however (I'm using a really sensitive shampoo about once a week at the moment).
After treating with an oil mixture the burning sensation lessened a bit, but just a day or so later it came back. Eventually, in early September, I shaved my hair down to just 1 cm, which eased the burning a lot but not completely. During the 3 months I've been taking Propecia, the hair loss hasn't decreased at all. Rather it's been steadily increasing to the point that I'm losing easily 500 strands a day. Is 3 months too short of a time for the shedding to slow down?
I've booked an appointment to a real dermatologist next week but I don't really know what to expect. Is it male pattern baldness, is it telogen effluvium or is it something completely different? I've been losing hair steadily for 5 months now and Propecia doesn't seem to do sh*t. Meanwhile my scalp keeps itching which is driving me crazy
Some background:
Male pattern baldness goes in partially in my family, but none has started losing any hair before reaching well past their 30s. I'm 22. Up until the beginning of May this year I didn't experience any problems at all. No hair was on my pillow when I woke up in the morning and my shower drain had regular amounts. Then almost overnight at the beginning of May I waking up to pillows covered in hair and had to empty the shower drain almost every day. My floor started being covered in strands of hair.
At first I thought it might be Telogen effluvium, as I had been extremely stressed out at the beginning of the year due to school and private stuff. My sister had earlier experienced heavy loss of hair due to stress, so I thought it wasn't implausible that I would be prone to it as well.
However, mid-June I started seeing visible thinning on the sides, just typical to early male pattern baldness. This had me alarmed, and I contacted a doctor. Early July I visited the doctor who took a look and said that "he didn't think" it was male pattern baldness (not very convincing). He tested my blood but didn't find anything abnormal. Just to be safe he prescribed Propecia 1 mg.
Just before I started taking Propecia I also started getting a burning sensation in my scalp, especially in the areas where I experienced hairloss. It would tingle, irritate and burn almost all day. I'm also shedding a lot of small, small flakes of dandruff and my scalp feels really dry. It's not red or inflamed however (I'm using a really sensitive shampoo about once a week at the moment).
After treating with an oil mixture the burning sensation lessened a bit, but just a day or so later it came back. Eventually, in early September, I shaved my hair down to just 1 cm, which eased the burning a lot but not completely. During the 3 months I've been taking Propecia, the hair loss hasn't decreased at all. Rather it's been steadily increasing to the point that I'm losing easily 500 strands a day. Is 3 months too short of a time for the shedding to slow down?
I've booked an appointment to a real dermatologist next week but I don't really know what to expect. Is it male pattern baldness, is it telogen effluvium or is it something completely different? I've been losing hair steadily for 5 months now and Propecia doesn't seem to do sh*t. Meanwhile my scalp keeps itching which is driving me crazy