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My story (with a bunch of pics!). Warning: long post
Hey everyone. So after years of lurking on this and similar forums, I've finally gathered the courage to share my story/thoughts.
In short, I have a near-obsession with my (perceived) thinning hair. I'm 24 now. I started noticing that my crown maybe wasn't as full as it should be around December of 2012. So I started taking pictures of it. A lot of them. I must've snapped over 1,000 in the last 4 years, and still have most of those. Around the same time I was pretty big on smoking weed every night (I do so occasionally now), so this might've had some influence on how I saw my hair. I also tend to have moderate anxiety, which has played a large factor into this (I am making progress on this though!).
Along with all this, started a habit of plucking out hairs from the center of the crown, usually when i was high. It felt strangely satisfying lol. It was only a matter of time before a bald spot appeared; at its worst there was almost a dime-sized area with no hair after a year. This really caused me to stop (I also met a girl, which probably helped me stop worrying as much), and went about 1 to 1.5 years with only the occasional hair plucked here or there. But the last couple of years I would gently (and sometimes not so gently) tug at hairs near my crown, as well as run my fingers through my hair, hoping to that none would come out, and did so repeatedly. Almost every day. And over this last summer I started plucking again. Not nearly as much as before, but after a bad night a few weeks ago where I pulled out about 8 or 10 it was enough where another visible bald spot appeared. Not as big as the last one, but close (this has caused me to more or less stop doing that crap).
All this brings me to now. After, once again, looking through old pics, I realized that maybe, just maybe, I'm not actually going to go bald. However, I (like maybe some here) go through cycles where I believe my hair loss, if any, has been greatly exaggerated, followed by thinking that I'm deceiving myself while really it is getting worse every day. Can't tell if I'm paranoid or not.
Why I'm convinced I'm thinning:
-My hair just feels thinner than before. And not just the crown, but the top of my head in recent months too. I swear I had more density there; it's only the fact that I have thick, Hispanic hair that manages to hide my scalp.
-My hair changed texture at some point, from being almost curly when long, to wavy.
-How it looks. I changed my hairstyle a bit; pulling it up so it doesn't cover my forehead. From the front I always thought it looked good; but I realized that from the side it looks like a crappy poof.
My questions are:
1. (Most important) Am I going bald/thinning? Do you see much of a difference between my hair now and 3 years ago?
2. If so, could all of these months of constant plucking and tugging/messing with my hair have been the cause of my hair loss? Or am I still genetically predisposed to losing my hair, and I just made it worse? As far as I know (from what my mom has told me), no one in our family is bald. My dad at 62 still has a head full of head, although thinning some now.
3. If I don't have MPB, is the damage that I've done to my follicles permanent? I feel like all of that tugging has weakened the roots, because some hairs come off more easily than others.
4. Could I have overestimated how thick my hair was? I think my hair is one of my more redeeming qualities, but maybe I never really had great hair (friends tell my my hair is fine though).
I'm gonna post some before and after pics, roughly 3-3.5 years apart; I tried matching them as best as I could. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of my crown from before this time period, but I figured 3 years would be a good enough to see any change.
Before (Jan 2013- May 2013):
(last one is to show my normal hairstyle then; ignore the cat lol)
Current (June 2016-now):
(last one is hairstyle now)
Thanks for reading such a long freaking post, and I appreciate all responses!
In short, I have a near-obsession with my (perceived) thinning hair. I'm 24 now. I started noticing that my crown maybe wasn't as full as it should be around December of 2012. So I started taking pictures of it. A lot of them. I must've snapped over 1,000 in the last 4 years, and still have most of those. Around the same time I was pretty big on smoking weed every night (I do so occasionally now), so this might've had some influence on how I saw my hair. I also tend to have moderate anxiety, which has played a large factor into this (I am making progress on this though!).
Along with all this, started a habit of plucking out hairs from the center of the crown, usually when i was high. It felt strangely satisfying lol. It was only a matter of time before a bald spot appeared; at its worst there was almost a dime-sized area with no hair after a year. This really caused me to stop (I also met a girl, which probably helped me stop worrying as much), and went about 1 to 1.5 years with only the occasional hair plucked here or there. But the last couple of years I would gently (and sometimes not so gently) tug at hairs near my crown, as well as run my fingers through my hair, hoping to that none would come out, and did so repeatedly. Almost every day. And over this last summer I started plucking again. Not nearly as much as before, but after a bad night a few weeks ago where I pulled out about 8 or 10 it was enough where another visible bald spot appeared. Not as big as the last one, but close (this has caused me to more or less stop doing that crap).
All this brings me to now. After, once again, looking through old pics, I realized that maybe, just maybe, I'm not actually going to go bald. However, I (like maybe some here) go through cycles where I believe my hair loss, if any, has been greatly exaggerated, followed by thinking that I'm deceiving myself while really it is getting worse every day. Can't tell if I'm paranoid or not.
Why I'm convinced I'm thinning:
-My hair just feels thinner than before. And not just the crown, but the top of my head in recent months too. I swear I had more density there; it's only the fact that I have thick, Hispanic hair that manages to hide my scalp.
-My hair changed texture at some point, from being almost curly when long, to wavy.
-How it looks. I changed my hairstyle a bit; pulling it up so it doesn't cover my forehead. From the front I always thought it looked good; but I realized that from the side it looks like a crappy poof.
My questions are:
1. (Most important) Am I going bald/thinning? Do you see much of a difference between my hair now and 3 years ago?
2. If so, could all of these months of constant plucking and tugging/messing with my hair have been the cause of my hair loss? Or am I still genetically predisposed to losing my hair, and I just made it worse? As far as I know (from what my mom has told me), no one in our family is bald. My dad at 62 still has a head full of head, although thinning some now.
3. If I don't have MPB, is the damage that I've done to my follicles permanent? I feel like all of that tugging has weakened the roots, because some hairs come off more easily than others.
4. Could I have overestimated how thick my hair was? I think my hair is one of my more redeeming qualities, but maybe I never really had great hair (friends tell my my hair is fine though).
I'm gonna post some before and after pics, roughly 3-3.5 years apart; I tried matching them as best as I could. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of my crown from before this time period, but I figured 3 years would be a good enough to see any change.
Before (Jan 2013- May 2013):
Current (June 2016-now):
Thanks for reading such a long freaking post, and I appreciate all responses!
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