Hair loss and Anxiety.

[ManghisKhan]

Hello, I am a young man (23) who has experienced diffuse thinning over the past few years. Over the past few years I also had severe untreated panic disorder. My hair was falling out easily and couldnt run my hand through my head without hair coming out but within a week or two of getting put on my anxiety medication and getting therapy, my hair loss has almost completely stopped, aside from a few random strands that are normal. Is it possible that this is TE induced by stress and not MPB? No significant history of mpb in my family. Only one uncle has thin hair on my mothers side but my mother has a huge family, something like 9 brothers and sisters. My hair line is completely intact too.

Panic disorder triggers the fight or flight response and causes a surge of adrenaline and cortisol. The medication I am on keeps the part of the brain that causes this in check and I maintain a healthy level of of adrenaline and cortisol. Excess cortisol has been linked to hair loss right? Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you for your time!

[Davey Jones]

If you were just thinning and you don't have a receded hairline, it's possible. TE thins all over. How do the sides and back of your head, regions unaffected by MPB, look? If they thinned along with your top and you don't have a receded hairline, you may be one lucky son of a bitch with just TE.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

Speaking of hair loss and anxiety, the anxiety that I feel due to hair loss is very profound. Every day I feel constant anger and depression due the fact that I do not look the way that I want to look and there is relatively nothing I can do about it.

[ManghisKhan]

Originally Posted by Davey Jones

If you were just thinning and you don't have a receded hairline, it's possible. TE thins all over. How do the sides and back of your head, regions unaffected by MPB, look? If they thinned along with your top and you don't have a receded hairline, you may be one lucky son of a bitch with just TE.

Its thinned out all over. No horseshoe or "unevenness". I dont look like anything on the norwood scale. I keep it buzzed currently. My hair used to be very weak. My doctor did a pull test and several came out easily and I recently did several, more firm pull tests and I managed to get a strand of hair out, which seems normal. TE takes like 8 or so months to see a difference but I am hopeful after all this research.

[ManghisKhan]

Originally Posted by DepressedByHairLoss

Speaking of hair loss and anxiety, the anxiety that I feel due to hair loss is very profound. Every day I feel constant anger and depression due the fact that I do not look the way that I want to look and there is relatively nothing I can do about it.

Have you considered therapy? Im serious too. Even though I went into therapy for something completely different, it helped alot and improved my quality of life tremendously.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I've tried talking to psychologists, except it hasn't been much help. Whenever I think about accepting hair loss, focusing on other things like my physique (I'm a big guy, weight-lifter), I keep coming back to the same thing: that a life with a full head of hair would be infinitely more happy and fulfilling for than with hair loss. No amount of therapy can keep me from coming back to that same feeling that I just mentioned. It just amazes me how devastating hair loss is for so many people yet what small and ineffective options we have to fight it.