One year and half my hair later.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

VictimOfDHT, you're totally right bro. I totally agree with what you say with regards to depression related to hair loss. You can get looked at with all the sympathy in the world if you suffer from depression, yet if you tell some one that your depression is being caused by hair loss, people will say stupid s**t like "hair doesn't make the man", "these were the cards you've been dealt in life", or "accept and adapt to it". Hell, my friend is the one that told me that "hair doesn't make the man" and he wears a friggin wig for f**k's sake!! So much for practicing what you preach!! I remember when I told certain people that I was depressed (I didn't tell them it was because of hair loss) and a couple of them said to me: "why, did you break up with your girlfriend or something"? I mean, certain people actually think that breaking up with your girlfriend would be more of a reason to be depressed than hair loss!! Are you kidding me?? I've had girlfriends break up with me plenty of times and hair loss hurt me a million times more than a girlfriend breaking up with me. As a matter of fact, I've had girls that I cared about break up with me several times. I felt bad for maybe a couple of days but then I just didn't give a s**t. After all, you can get a new girlfriend anytime but you can't get back your old hair (at least not with today's methods).

Unfortunately, you're right about there being a double standard when it comes to men's hair loss vs. women's hair loss. I've seen articles and television news stories written about women's hair loss and they are written with such compassion and empathy. Yet when it comes to men's hair loss, the articles or new stories have to be comedy pieces with baldness jokes. I actually was watching Fox News when George Cotsarelis made the news with one of his hair loss discoveries. (Man, I really wish there were more people like him attempting to cure hair loss). Anyway, Fox News intro'ed this story with that dumpy lump of s**t from Seinfeld having his wig ripped off of his head. I immediately turned the channel, feeling totally disgusted. Hair loss is a "terrible epidemic of Biblical proportions", not some source of comedic fodder for some cutesy little tele-journalists.

I'll tell you VictimOfDHT, my dream is for a bald scientist to be fed up with his baldness, work hard in the lab to create a cure (or at least an effective treatment) for baldness, and then market this treatment/cure. And this treatment would be autologous, so that it would have to go through the rigorous and excessive FDA requirements and it would not be ridiculously expensive. And if this treatment/cure was somehow deemed unsafe by FDA in order to hinder its release, then this scientist could then just market it overseas. I know that guys like you and me would fly to friggin Antarctica if it meant that we could regrow our beloved hair. I really believe that if a concerted effort was made amongst the majority of the hair loss doctors and scientists (and not just 4 companies in the world!) to cure hair loss, then I believe that it wouldn't be excessively hard to do.

I really feel for you that you suffer from BDD. I thankfully do not. I tell people all the time that all I want is my hair back, nothing else. I have permanent stretch marks from years and years of power-lifting, but I never complain about those. I've got a long nose and I was noticeably overweight for a significant portion of time in my life, yet I never complained about that. Yet when hair loss hit me up, it was like a bullet from hell. And I always tell people: all I want is my hair back, that's it. I don't ask for anything else. I really don't think this is too much to ask for.

Moderators: please excuse some of the foul language that I posted; I did my best to try to censor myself. I just really had a terrible day today (largely due to hair loss) and I really needed to vent. Thanks!

[VictimOfDHT]

Thanks, depressedbyhairloss. I believe most of what people say -or do- is copied from what they hear or see others around them say or do even though they might not realize it. That's why I believe most people aren't any better than parrots. Your friend is obviously only parroting -MINDLESSLY- words (hair doesn't make the man....) he always hears around him without even giving it a second thought. If he stopped and thought for a second about what he said he'd either throw that wig in the trash or he'd never say stupid stuff like "hair doesn't make the man" ever again. Also, like I said, people are also programmed -socially- to respond automatically to certain situations with no thought involved. It's usually the guy with the full head of hair who preaches to hair loss sufferers about how to just accept their baldness and embrace it. Just like the rich guy always preaches to the poor man on how unimportant money is or how he (the poor man) should be content with the crumbs that his measly minimum wage income can provide. Very few things piss me off like when people think they're consoling us with their stupid meaningless BS and nonsense especially that I know most of them would NOT practice what they preach if they were in the same situation.

Yeah, I have to agree that breaking up with a gf is nothing compared to losing hair. Gfs come and go and you will ALWAYS get over it sooner or later no matter how depressed and sad you are but the same can not be said about the sadness and depression that come with losing one's hair. It's just one horrible feeling that just keeps renewing day in day out and in fact it increases with time as you see the dramatic (negative) change in your appearance. Like I mentioned before, I've had a shi-tty childhood and life and still do now and I've gone through a lot of hardships but yeah, the trauma that hair loss has caused me (now I have nerve damage that makes me limp sometimes) absolutely had the worst impact on me especially that hair loss keeps holding me back from moving forward and trying to work on improving my situation. It's a nightmare that never ends.

If I were a rich man, I'd build my own hair loss research facility and hire some good researchers and even work on this myself. I have no doubt the solution to this curse isn't as complicated as we might think. It's sickening that the fate of millions and millions of balding men who are suffering silently and whose lives are being destroyed by this hair loss curse, is in the hands of a handful of researchers who are taking their sweet time finding a cure.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I agree with that last paragraph, VictimOfDHT. I really don't think it would be as hard as people make it seem to find a solution for hair loss. We've talked about the problem before. That most of these scientists are just relegated to testing potential hair regrowth chemicals on mice and not doing a damn thing to benefit humans. In one of my earlier posts, I think I made a whole laundry list of chemicals that have been proven to regrow hair in mice but have never been tested on humans. I remember I spoke of scientists who spent nearly a quarter of a century fiddling around with mice, but not doing a damn thing to try to cure hair loss in humans.

The only problem I think we have is that there are not nearly enough people researching or even working towards a cure for hair loss. If we had as many scientists working to find a cure for hair loss as we have doctors performing hair transplants (something like 1500 doctors in North America), then I believe we would be close to a cure already. But instead we're being sold total b.s. like head tattooing. Head tattooing??!! Are these people insane??!! (Maybe it could be of use to conceal a scar, but to tattoo bald areas of a scalp is completely insane and it floors me that reputable doctors are even offering it.)

[DepressedByHairLoss]

Also, stem cells from other parts of the body are currently being used to repair tendons, joints, and even muscle. I really wish that similar stem cell procedures would be tried to regrow hair. I know that companies like Replicel and Aderans are doing this, but the aforementioned studies that I mentioned to repair tendons, joints, and muscle are autologous and thereby do not need FDA approval.

[itssomuchfun]

Same thing happened to me. Turned 31, hair started falling out slowly, then quickly. 1 1/2 years later and I'm very thin on top and thin on the sides, receding badly, and have small bald spot on the crown. MPB hits us all at different speeds.