Do you speak to anyone about hairloss?

[DepressedByHairLoss]

This is really a good topic for discussion here. It is very hard to open up about hair loss. And it is increasingly hard to open up to some one who has never experienced hair loss. People who haven't experienced hair loss for themselves simply cannot understand the magnitude of depression that a person suffering from hair loss feels on a daily basis. They simply just fail to realize how vitally important a full head of hair is. In my case, I was forced to tell some of my friends what was causing my depression. As I became more withdrawn and stopped returning phone calls, my friends started to become worried about me and came by my place to see if I was OK. For the most part, my friends were very understanding and helped me out. Interestingly enough, 4 of my friends that I told about it were experiencing varying degrees of hair loss themselves. One of them started losing his hair right around high school and just shaved his head. He's really not bothered by it at all, despite hearing comments about hair loss. I could never put up with that. If anyone commented on my hair loss, I would want to break their f'n jaw. My other friend wears a hat wherever he goes; I'd never seen him without it until he took his hat off for me a few months ago to show the extent of his hair loss in an attempt to ease my worries about hair loss. My other friend pays a ton of money every month for a very expensive hair system; I don't think he could ever live with viewable hair loss. My last friend really doesn't have extensive hair loss, just two receding hairlines. But he simply doesn't give a shit (or pretends not to). Maybe that's cus he's got a wife and kids and doesn't need to go out looking to impress women with a full head of hair. So I guess I've told many more people about my hair loss worries than many people on here have.
What really pisses me off about hair loss is that it ruins a lot of your hopes and dreams. I've always been into rock n roll and recently learned to play the guitar. I dreamed of having a full head of long hair and playing in a rock band. My friend even plays in a Kiss cover band and hints about me joining the band. Except how can I play any of the Kiss members if I am suffering from hair loss? I guess that's what pisses me off more than anything else: looking at all of my rock n roll heroes with these full heads of long hair and then looking at myself with hair loss. It just absolutely breaks my heart.
Some one on here also said about how they wanted to be a body builder all their life but now they have no desire to work out anymore. I've been lifting weights my entire life and I always loved being a big, muscular guy. Ever since I noticed hair loss, I haven't worked out much at all anymore. I just started getting back into it about 2 months ago. The problem that I have is that I think Propecia is messing with my workouts and muscle building. I muscles used to always feel very hard and defined after a workout and now they feel all flabby and soft. I've never experienced this before so I really believe that it is an effect of the Propecia. I believe that this stands to reason since Propecia works to knock out the production of a male hormone that leads to muscular development in the first place. So that's my dilemna: do I keep taking Propecia and watch my workouts and muscular development suffer, or do I stop Propecia and regain my hard muscles and risk losing my hair. Right now, I'm taking Propecia 3 times a week, hopefully enough to stop losing hair but not enough to affect my workouts. Why can't they develop a product or treatment that eliminates the production of DHT in the scalp and not wiping out its production in your entire body?
It just really pisses me off because I know so many people who take such bad care of their bodies yet still have a full head of hair. They never exercise, they eat like shit, they do ridiculous amounts of drugs, yet they still keep their hair.
I guess that's why I'm always complaining that there are not nearly enough options to treat hair loss. Hair loss is so unbearable to live with for so many people, and in this day and age, we should have way more options available to us to combat hair loss.

[VictimOfDHT]

depressedbyhairloss, I'm not sure if Fin affects muscles or not but in my case it didn't. I'm not a muscular guy or anything but I didn't notice any difference in my biceps after so many years on Fin. I don't work out any more like I said because I feel like shit -thanks to the massive shed I had a few months ago- but I know that when I work out for a month or so my biceps feel hard and when I quit they become softer. So, in my case I know Fin isn't affecting my muscles.

[kanyon]

If there is any positive out of my story it's that I was meant to be bald at 21 but with rogaine I was able to get my youth back to the age of 28. Unless fin works amazingly for me, I'll be bald at 29-30. So I did get some amazing years in between there.

One thing thats hard to deal with is that none of my friends are thinning whatsoever. Only 3 people my age that I even know of are thinning but I'm not close to them at all. So it's hard being the weird balding guy in my group.