Is this balding, or health related? (accelerated thinning over 3 months)

[theEvergreen]

Hey guys. I'm posting here to reach out. I honestly think I'm balding and no one, family, dermatologist, friends, etc. believe me whatsoever. I'm a 29 year old male who has been lead to believe his hair was his only real positive defining feature. This has caused me a high level of anxiety.

I've always been a bit paranoid, as my grandfather on my mother's side went bald, and it caused me to think about it constantly, even though that rumor is false.

My uncle on the same side has begun balding as well. Both of their patterns, however were/are along the Norwood scale that you see so very often. Mine, however is a bit more depressing. See, I've always had this sort of...I dunno, dot thing, where normally a widow's peak would be. It never bothered me that much, as it wasn't that big at all. Last year it sort of expanded and I blamed it on the way I styled my hair. No big deal, I thought. I just can't really part it in the middle because it will look pretty thin. That's where I started thinking, hey I'm going bald. I mention it casually to everyone and they basically scoff at me. Sadly I have no pictures at all, but the ones I can recall on my Facebook are nowhere near as thin as I thought I was. This was around 26 or 27 years of age.

Anyways, come about 2 or 3 years later, here I am. I sometimes like to mess around with my hair and stuff. About a year ago I was parting it in the middle and noticed the hair at the part line in the front was very thin and fine. Still long, but thin and fine. Even more so than years ago. I kinda chalked it up to paranoia again, but decided to go to the doctors to get checked for Thyroid and Iron deficiency. I have never seen an abnormal hairfall, by the way. Just a really itchy scalp sometimes.

The tests come back fine. I'm still in a pickle and still itching so I go to the dermatologist. He prescribes me some stuff and the itching goes away for a few months and about 3 months the itching comes back something fierce. I still have some of the Keto shampoo he gave me so I'm using that as much as possible. I'd had a few weddings coming up so I went to get my hair cut. The chick cutting my hair drops a line "Are you cutting your own hair?" I didn't know what she was talking about. Apparently on the left side of my frontal hairline the hairs were all exactly 1.5 inches long and they really did look like I had cut them myself. I ignored it and thought maybe when I was resting my sunglasses or playing with my hair I accidentally broke them (it happens). Next haircut, she doesn't say anything, but I know they're still like that. Now I'm starting to get nervous. This wedding season has already been stressful.

Whenever I got back from the one where I had to travel alone for a week, I walked to the mirror in the back of my office and noticed I could see to the scalp under fluorescent light in my office. Full on panic mode has set in. Since the itching was back, I decided to make another appointment with the Dermatologist. Appointment comes up, prescribes me my anti-itch stuff because he says my scalp is inflamed. Asks me if I had anything else I wanted to talk about. I told him about the balding fears and that I really think my hair is thinning and no one believes me. He takes a quick look and says "well, you have a ton of hair, a lot more than me, I don't think you're balding. Take some supplements and hopefully that combined with the lack of itching will help." That was about 2 weeks ago. I know I'm not supposed to see improvements immediately, but I really can't sit on this and lose my hair. I just can't. I'm an awkward terrible baby-face big crooked nose mix and I just can't take another hit from the ugly stick (bald people aren't ugly, but I have buzzed my head before and know I will look gross bald).

My parents think I'm going psycho, my friends are sick of hearing my fears (especially the balding ones), and my dermatologist sort of scoffed at me and basically said "WELL YA GOT MORE THAN ME!" I just don't know what to do anymore. It's seriously eating away at me and I don't know what to do anymore. I'm not getting the bald spot on the crown or anything either. I'd honestly rather that and receding temples and a hairline rather than go bald in the worst spot on my scalp possible.

These pics I have attached here are to show like the progression of a year and a half, a year, and then the ones just of my hairline are like only a few days ago. I'm kind of at a loss here and these pics really don't do the thinness justice because I just looked in the mirror and it looks terrible. The most concerning part is that the majority of it happened in the past few months. I can post older pics too if that helps. I don't know if I have a date on them though.

[35YrsAfter]

Hey guys. I'm posting here to reach out. I honestly think I'm balding and no one, family, dermatologist, friends, etc. believe me whatsoever. I'm a 29 year old male who has been lead to believe his hair was his only real positive defining feature. This has caused me a high level of anxiety.

I've always been a bit paranoid, as my grandfather on my mother's side went bald, and it caused me to think about it constantly, even though that rumor is false.

My uncle on the same side has begun balding as well. Both of their patterns, however were/are along the Norwood scale that you see so very often. Mine, however is a bit more depressing. See, I've always had this sort of...I dunno, dot thing, where normally a widow's peak would be. It never bothered me that much, as it wasn't that big at all. Last year it sort of expanded and I blamed it on the way I styled my hair. No big deal, I thought. I just can't really part it in the middle because it will look pretty thin. That's where I started thinking, hey I'm going bald. I mention it casually to everyone and they basically scoff at me. Sadly I have no pictures at all, but the ones I can recall on my Facebook are nowhere near as thin as I thought I was. This was around 26 or 27 years of age.

Since having hair is a huge priority for you, do everything that promotes the best hair possible and consider Propecia and/or Avodart. At least use Rogaine foam. Your hair looks fine IMO and it's normal for men to lose some of their pre-teen hair over time even when they won't eventually end up very bald.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office - forhair.com - Cole Hair Transplant, 1045 Powers Place, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 - Phone 678-566-1011 - email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[theEvergreen]

Since having hair is a huge priority for you, do everything that promotes the best hair possible and consider Propecia and/or Avodart. At least use Rogaine foam. Your hair looks fine IMO and it's normal for men to lose some of their pre-teen hair over time even when they won't eventually end up very bald.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office - forhair.com - Cole Hair Transplant, 1045 Powers Place, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 - Phone 678-566-1011 - email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

Thanks for your reply. So in your personal opinion, you think that my slight diffuse thinning over the years and sudden noticing of it might be due to that of aging possibly? It's very hard to notice unless directly under light. My hair still very much has volume and such. I'm almost willing to chalk it up to the intense itching and neglect of re-upping my prescription accompanied by extreme stress that added a little. Most of the thinning looks as to be breakage. I've started taking Biotin, so maybe that will promote better hair growth.

I thought about the Rogaine foam, but I heard keeping up with that is expensive and also can cause shedding, which I don't even have right now. My hairfall has never changed over the years.

[meddiffuse]

Thanks for your reply. So in your personal opinion, you think that my slight diffuse thinning over the years and sudden noticing of it might be due to that of aging possibly? It's very hard to notice unless directly under light. My hair still very much has volume and such. I'm almost willing to chalk it up to the intense itching and neglect of re-upping my prescription accompanied by extreme stress that added a little. Most of the thinning looks as to be breakage. I've started taking Biotin, so maybe that will promote better hair growth.

I thought about the Rogaine foam, but I heard keeping up with that is expensive and also can cause shedding, which I don't even have right now. My hairfall has never changed over the years.

This is just my opinion and not an expert, just a hair loss sufferer, but I think you are in the very beginning stages of male pattern baldness. I look back at 35mm pics of me taken about a year or two before I noticed I was balding and it looked similar to yours (although a little bit further along). My hair has never been as thick as yours looks, my hair was very fine even as a 10 year old. I see other threads on forums sometimes of people thinking they are balding when dermatologists have denied it, and I usually agree with the opinion of the dermatologist, but in this case I do not. I think that often balding/bald guys are more likely to spot balding than a dermatologist. Dermatologists are no doubt brilliant doctors in arguably the most competitive specialty in medicine, but most of them devote a miniscule percentage of their practice to hair loss. Cosmetics, acne, dermopathology, etc comprise a much larger percentage of their practice, and so your average dermatologist might have only had a few or no diffuse balders as patients. It is always easier to spot the standard balding pattern where the hairline just recedes and around norwood 4-5 the crown starts to thin out as well, because it much more common than diffuse thinning.

Again, not an expert, but if I were you I would get to a doctor with one of those hair densitometer gadgets (sorry I forgot the name) and have him compare the density of your hair on the front and top of your head to the hairs on the sides and back. If there is a noticeable density difference in the hairs starting more than a half an inch behind where your hairline begins compared to the hairs on the sides and back of your head, I think it is safe to say that you are balding, because a juvenile hairline would not recede more than that from what I understand.

I don't remember the name of the exact gadget utilized but a few doctors have it. Chuck who already responded to your post works for Dr. Cole and I believe although I am not sure that Dr. Cole's office has one of these gadgets. If you could find your way to Atlanta and they do have it, they could probably get a better idea of what's going on, if anything. Or maybe a local doctor near you has one.

Your hairline does appear a bit high to me but it could just be a maturing hairline, so what I would do is get some density measurements.

I'm sorry if I'm worrying you for nothing but something you noted in your second post made me think: "very hard to notice unless directly under light." With your hair at the current length, you should not see any scalp even under bright light. I don't actually see any scalp visible in your pictures, so maybe you could take some more pictures to show us exactly where you think the loss is occurring. Is it in the hairline itself or right behind it, and/or on top of your head? That comment of yours made me think because my hair loss is only really visible when wet or under bright light, and my hair loss is more advanced than yours if you have any.

Feel free to check out my hair transplant thread:

https://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showth...r-Cole-5-15-14

I posted an update in it yesterday but you can see my preop pics where the diffuse thinning is clearly visible, especially when the hair is wet. More advanced than yours obviously, but you can get an idea of where you are headed if you are in fact balding and it is left untreated. I find it hard to believe that your hair loss, if you do have it, is due to stress. People often think that their hair loss is due to stress or nutrition and while that can maybe affect it a little bit, from what I've seen and read, it just isn't very likely. And the fact that you mentioned that your maternal grandfather was bald makes it even less so. By the way, the maternal grandfather bald linkage thing is not a myth. While it is not true that your future hair depends entirely on the hair of your maternal grandfather, a study I read seemed to indicate that it tilts roughly 60-40 in favor of the mother's genes in terms of importance. When you consider that your uncle on that same side is also bald/balding, then he quite possibly inherited that gene/gene combination from your grandfather. The general rule is that the fewer male ancestors that you have who suffer/suffered from male pattern baldness, the less likely you are to inherit the genes that will make your hairs susceptible to the dihydrotestosterone. If you told me that neither your father nor your two grandfathers nor any uncles were bald, then I would probably tell you to forget about the hair density test and take a more wait and see approach. With a grandfather and an uncle on the same side both bald/balding, however, well... do you like roulette? Red or black? I think in this case an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you are in fact balding and you can nip it in the bud right now, you will save yourself a ton of money. If you look at my thread you will see that I got a hair transplant despite not having severe hair loss and I still required 2500 grafts to fully fill in the balding areas. Every male has a limited supply of donor hair available for transplants and it is much cheaper to get on a medication as Chuck mentioned such as Propecia or Avodart, under the supervision of a doctor, and spend $300 a year on pills to maintain your hair. Like I said, I had to shell out a bunch of money for a transplant, but if I hadn't gotten on meds 8 years ago, considering my family history of baldness, I would probably have progressed so far that either a transplant would not do anything at all for me, or I'd have to spend 50 thousand on transplants to try to chase the losses. Nothing wrong with spending 50,000 on hair transplants but I bet that every guy who has done that wishes that either a) the meds had been available for them when their balding started or b) if the meds were available, that they had decided to try the medications instead of forgoing them. My dad's hair loss doesn't bother him and he probably wouldn't have tried meds even were they available in the late 70s early 80s, but a lot of guys his age would have.

[theEvergreen]

Thanks for your reply. Well now I'm kind of bumming out. What kind of doctor should I go to since my dermatologist won't take me seriously? How can I get prescribed the proper prevention drugs if my doctors think I'm nuts? I live in Northeast Pennsylvania and when I search for the nearest trichologist, there's a fair amount of travel. If this is going to be a hassle I honestly think I might take the shaved head approach and just go the direct route before anything has a chance to present itself.

[theEvergreen]

Also, I don't know if I mentioned it in my original post, but the scalp problem I have is sebborhea. This just sucks. I can't stomach (already had pretty bad stomach problems) food right now thinking about this and I can't motivate myself to do anything but mope.

[blondetooth]

Is this guy thinning actually? You look like an attractive male, maybe with a maturing hairline. Do you take any pills or medicine?
Low/ micro dose of finesteride is highly reccomended asap if you want to conserve your awesome hair until your an old grandpa.

[35YrsAfter]

If you were I, I would get a prescription for Hydrocortisone or Cordran SP and use it once per week. I believe a corticosteroid could calm the itching. Many topical steroids have a listed side of excessive hair growth and it's believed that the immune system plays a role in MPB. I would consider PRP and buy some "Hair Skin and Nails" by Buried Treasure. I would massage my scalp and do scalp exercises. Finasteride and Dutasteride isn't something I would take full on, but they are fairly effective treatments. If I were younger, I might consider taking small doses.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office - forhair.com - Cole Hair Transplant, 1045 Powers Place, Alpharetta, Georgia 30009 - Phone 678-566-1011 - email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[theEvergreen]

Is this guy thinning actually? You look like an attractive male, maybe with a maturing hairline. Do you take any pills or medicine?
Low/ micro dose of finesteride is highly reccomended asap if you want to conserve your awesome hair until your an old grandpa.

I've made an appointment for my doctor next month (he's a busy dude). I will bring these concerns up to him. Only under light can you really see the scalp, unfortunately. It's hard to get a decent picture showcasing what I see in the mirror. It definitely looks vastly different from 3 months ago. I know stress is a myth or whatever, but I was under some extreme pressure about 5-6 months ago and I know I have depression, regardless of hair loss or not. I have a lot of anxiety about a lot of things. This could be as you say, just my hairline maturing, but I always want to play it safe.

[theEvergreen]

If you were I, I would get a prescription for Hydrocortisone or Cordran SP and use it once per week. I believe a corticosteroid could calm the itching. Many topical steroids have a listed side of excessive hair growth and it's believed that the immune system plays a role in MPB. I would consider PRP and buy some "Hair Skin and Nails" by Buried Treasure. I would massage my scalp and do scalp exercises. Finasteride and Dutasteride isn't something I would take full on, but they are fairly effective treatments. If I were younger, I might consider taking small doses.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll bring it up to my doctor when I see him next month. I truly believe the thinning and itching are linked in some ways. I don't notice any real hairfall since the itching stopped, and the hairfall that actually happened was not from the root. Most of the "shortened" hairs that I spoke of are still of the same thickness as they always were.

I've just started taking 5000mcg Biotin for hair/skin/nails. I can definitely see the skin part, as I'm oily most of the day, rather than dry. My scalp is starting to look healthier. The thinness is still there, but only enough for me to take note of.

I'll talk to my doctor about low doses of fin if he indeed does think I am headed towards MPB.

I sort of had a mental breakdown last night but am coming to terms that if it ends up MPB, I will just adapt like I'm supposed to.

Thanks again.