hi there... long story....
i noticed my hair thinning at around age 20... having just turned 20 actually.
never thought it'd be a problem as my dad has only mild recession at 50 y.o. (pretty much the same from his mid 30s)... his side of family has 7 brothers all with even less hairloss than that and a 86! y.o. father with a norwood 2 (if that).
mother's side, her dad started receding a bit in his 50s very slowly until perhaps a norwood 3 with a small bald spot. this was over 25 years until he died... her brother now at 55 has the same 2/3 recession since late 40s very much in the same way ie. very slow (except no bald spot). no cousins (10 male) have had any sign of hairloss yet.
now my hair was a very nice shiny straight blonde until 13/14 when it started to darken like most blondes do. that sort of sandy brown that blondes in the sun. then suddenly at 16 my hair and my skin went really downhill. i'd never had a pimple until 16 (and i was a pretty early
developer in all the other ways) but i got it quite moderately bad pretty fast. my hair at the same time started getting really weird at the front... it was really dry and kinked almost compared to the rest of my hair. i got seborrheic dermatitis
around then (though i didn't know it) and i often got comments that the part on my head was red - which i assumed was sunburn. i thought i just had dandruff or something.
since 16/17 though my hair just went downhill from being kind of greasy all the time (even though i washed it every other day) to being even more unmanagable... and always at front mainly. the hair at the front (where i'm losing it now) was completely different to the rest. if i got a hair cut that hair would just got crazy for a few weeks - really coarse, dry and frizzy... whereas everywhere else was just fine... really gave me grief at the time and i can remember once at 18 sort of joking to myself that i was going to go bald becuse the rough coarse hair was all on the top and front in the norwood pattern... little did i know.
when i noticed the sort of thinning temples it was late 2005... i kind of dismissed it because it just looked like the sort of thinner hair you see on women with long hair... just finer hair. i took some photos around then (which i've since deleted, damn) those showed just kind of frizzy thinner hair around the temples going maybe a centimetre in... not much at all. i had no abnormal amount of shedding or anything
then in about february this year it started getting bad really fast and my seb. dermatitis started getting really bad. not only was my scalp all waxy and red, but i was getting PAIN. some itchiness, but mainly like a burning and throbbing sort of pain. hair started shedding now and by the time april same around i couldn't part my hair in the middle - it has gotten too thin. the hair that's affected (the whole front of my head) was gotten really shitty in texture by now... like ridiculously dry and kinked looking.
i went to a doctor in april and after a little bit of look he said it SEEMED like i might have male pattern baldness. i'd really been hitting the ketoconazole shampoo before then because i didn't really want him to see my horrible scalp, so he didn't really see the problem in that. he did say it seemed weird that i was getting actual pain on my scalp though. there's a burning on the scalp itself but also a deep sort of throbbing pain like a headache, but only in the places thinning.
from say june this year my hair's gone really downhill... everytime i comb my hair in the shower i'm getting about 20 hairs each time the hair which is shedding looks like it's dying or something. from what i've gathered here, miniaturization occurs and the hair slowly turns into a fair vellus hair until coming out completely. the hairs that i am losing are gradually becoming smaller but they are WAY darker than my normal hair and often very strangely kinked. they're shorter too and often the worse the kinking is, the bigger the white bulb on the end.
my hairline pretty much hasn't receded at all. it could be a norwood 2 i'd say if you count the thin parts, but it hasn't actually GONE BACK any. the whole front of my head is starting to thin out - this is also the only place where i get the sebb. dermatitis (or whatever it is) and the aching scalp. and the thing is, this is the EXACT SAME section of hair that has
gradually gotten worse texture-wise since the age of 16. there was no thinning until i was 20, but it's been a downward spiral and it feels like this is the culmination of it in a way.
the fact that it's happening very fast (until about april it wasn't noticable to anyone but me and i could even part my hair down the middle without it seeming too thin) is a little scary to me. i've got a sad sort of comb-over right now and the front is like rough kinked dolls hair or something... getting up in the morning the whole front is just broken ball of frizz and the rest is shiny and nice.
my sebb. dermatitis has really flared up: scalp is always red, if i scratch at my scalp flakes of skin and a sort of waxy build-up come off even though you can't really see it there before hand. my scalp/hair also really STINKS and if i use a hairbrush i get a white waxy build up all through it very fast. you can see how red my scalp is in these pictures (even more so in hi-rez) even though they're taken in a nice bright light which makes the rest of my skin look quite white and smooth (which it isn't!). i'm getting headaches from the throbbing pain in my scalp and it it's just ridiculously annoying. if i pull at the hair which is thinning it actually really hurts my scalp. i've still got teenage pimples and blackheads and generally gross looking skin even though i'm 21. since 20 i've actually developed acne on my back and chest as well which i've never HAD before... i'm too young for male pattern baldness and too old for acne
have a look at my pictures on that hairlosshelp.com website and let me know if anything seems fishy here. my hair has quickly goteen worse in the 2 months since those photos,and i'll upload some more later (having trouble with it right now).
http://www.hairlosshelp.com/websites/inkt/
i've lurked here long enough to know that big 3 combo and i'm currently just waiting on a dermatologist's appointment before i start on that. at least with this recent HM news it seems more like a 'holding on for 10 years' game than having no hope at all. let's hope!
i noticed my hair thinning at around age 20... having just turned 20 actually.
never thought it'd be a problem as my dad has only mild recession at 50 y.o. (pretty much the same from his mid 30s)... his side of family has 7 brothers all with even less hairloss than that and a 86! y.o. father with a norwood 2 (if that).
mother's side, her dad started receding a bit in his 50s very slowly until perhaps a norwood 3 with a small bald spot. this was over 25 years until he died... her brother now at 55 has the same 2/3 recession since late 40s very much in the same way ie. very slow (except no bald spot). no cousins (10 male) have had any sign of hairloss yet.
now my hair was a very nice shiny straight blonde until 13/14 when it started to darken like most blondes do. that sort of sandy brown that blondes in the sun. then suddenly at 16 my hair and my skin went really downhill. i'd never had a pimple until 16 (and i was a pretty early
developer in all the other ways) but i got it quite moderately bad pretty fast. my hair at the same time started getting really weird at the front... it was really dry and kinked almost compared to the rest of my hair. i got seborrheic dermatitis
around then (though i didn't know it) and i often got comments that the part on my head was red - which i assumed was sunburn. i thought i just had dandruff or something.
since 16/17 though my hair just went downhill from being kind of greasy all the time (even though i washed it every other day) to being even more unmanagable... and always at front mainly. the hair at the front (where i'm losing it now) was completely different to the rest. if i got a hair cut that hair would just got crazy for a few weeks - really coarse, dry and frizzy... whereas everywhere else was just fine... really gave me grief at the time and i can remember once at 18 sort of joking to myself that i was going to go bald becuse the rough coarse hair was all on the top and front in the norwood pattern... little did i know.
when i noticed the sort of thinning temples it was late 2005... i kind of dismissed it because it just looked like the sort of thinner hair you see on women with long hair... just finer hair. i took some photos around then (which i've since deleted, damn) those showed just kind of frizzy thinner hair around the temples going maybe a centimetre in... not much at all. i had no abnormal amount of shedding or anything
then in about february this year it started getting bad really fast and my seb. dermatitis started getting really bad. not only was my scalp all waxy and red, but i was getting PAIN. some itchiness, but mainly like a burning and throbbing sort of pain. hair started shedding now and by the time april same around i couldn't part my hair in the middle - it has gotten too thin. the hair that's affected (the whole front of my head) was gotten really shitty in texture by now... like ridiculously dry and kinked looking.
i went to a doctor in april and after a little bit of look he said it SEEMED like i might have male pattern baldness. i'd really been hitting the ketoconazole shampoo before then because i didn't really want him to see my horrible scalp, so he didn't really see the problem in that. he did say it seemed weird that i was getting actual pain on my scalp though. there's a burning on the scalp itself but also a deep sort of throbbing pain like a headache, but only in the places thinning.
from say june this year my hair's gone really downhill... everytime i comb my hair in the shower i'm getting about 20 hairs each time the hair which is shedding looks like it's dying or something. from what i've gathered here, miniaturization occurs and the hair slowly turns into a fair vellus hair until coming out completely. the hairs that i am losing are gradually becoming smaller but they are WAY darker than my normal hair and often very strangely kinked. they're shorter too and often the worse the kinking is, the bigger the white bulb on the end.
my hairline pretty much hasn't receded at all. it could be a norwood 2 i'd say if you count the thin parts, but it hasn't actually GONE BACK any. the whole front of my head is starting to thin out - this is also the only place where i get the sebb. dermatitis (or whatever it is) and the aching scalp. and the thing is, this is the EXACT SAME section of hair that has
gradually gotten worse texture-wise since the age of 16. there was no thinning until i was 20, but it's been a downward spiral and it feels like this is the culmination of it in a way.
the fact that it's happening very fast (until about april it wasn't noticable to anyone but me and i could even part my hair down the middle without it seeming too thin) is a little scary to me. i've got a sad sort of comb-over right now and the front is like rough kinked dolls hair or something... getting up in the morning the whole front is just broken ball of frizz and the rest is shiny and nice.
my sebb. dermatitis has really flared up: scalp is always red, if i scratch at my scalp flakes of skin and a sort of waxy build-up come off even though you can't really see it there before hand. my scalp/hair also really STINKS and if i use a hairbrush i get a white waxy build up all through it very fast. you can see how red my scalp is in these pictures (even more so in hi-rez) even though they're taken in a nice bright light which makes the rest of my skin look quite white and smooth (which it isn't!). i'm getting headaches from the throbbing pain in my scalp and it it's just ridiculously annoying. if i pull at the hair which is thinning it actually really hurts my scalp. i've still got teenage pimples and blackheads and generally gross looking skin even though i'm 21. since 20 i've actually developed acne on my back and chest as well which i've never HAD before... i'm too young for male pattern baldness and too old for acne
have a look at my pictures on that hairlosshelp.com website and let me know if anything seems fishy here. my hair has quickly goteen worse in the 2 months since those photos,and i'll upload some more later (having trouble with it right now).
http://www.hairlosshelp.com/websites/inkt/
i've lurked here long enough to know that big 3 combo and i'm currently just waiting on a dermatologist's appointment before i start on that. at least with this recent HM news it seems more like a 'holding on for 10 years' game than having no hope at all. let's hope!
