Do I have Chronic Telogen Effluvium?

[Pray The Bald Away]

Hello! I know y'all probably get a lot of people who ask if they may have Telogen Effluvium because some see it as a more positive diagnosis, but hear me out. Since the Summer of 2013, when I was 14 going on 15, My hair started thinning at an insanely fast rate(for perspective, I'm now 17.5). Within months my density had probably been cut in half at least. Before the hair loss, I had dropped 105 pounds in the period of about a year and a half. Since then, I've had a ton of extremely traumatic events happen in my life so I've been under constant debilitating stress. As you'll see in the pictures, my hair hasn't really recovered. If anything, I may have lost a bit more, or at least maintained. My dermatologist diagnosed me with Chronic Telogen Effluvium but I just wanted to check with y'all because you seem to have more expertise on this, sadly. I don't think it's DUPA because the hair falling off the sides and back is barely, if ever, miniaturized. It maintains diameter and pigment from the root to the tip.

The weird thing is, my hair doesn't fall out in super huge quantities anymore. I probably only lose about 75 hairs a day. My hair just seems to be in this limbo of thinness and loss of hairs in a truncated cycle. The type of loss is perfectly described by the 3rd bullet point on this page: http://www.americanhairloss.org/types_of_hair_loss/effluviums.asp It seems to be a very rare version of Telogen Effluvium. What do y'all think?
Here is a picture of me with relatively thick hair before all of this:

Here are some pictures just after the hair started falling and I shaved my head:




I'm going to have to attach the images of the present day in a reply below. It says I can only attach 8 in a post.

 

[Pray The Bald Away]

Here's the present day pics:






It's also worth noting that I have slight recession and thinning at the temples.

 

[buckthorn]

The good news is, you still have a TON of hair. You may not even have male pattern baldness, and in that scenario you are very lucky. Telogen Effluvium is like a death sentence to those of us that have aggressive male pattern baldness. What makes your derm think it's chronic?? Does it keep reoccurring every few months with no specific trigger? It could be that all these horrible events in your life are just causing separate cases of it? In that scenario, once you get the trigger under control, it will resolve.

 

[Pray The Bald Away]

The good news is, you still have a TON of hair. You may not even have male pattern baldness, and in that scenario you are very lucky. Telogen Effluvium is like a death sentence to those of us that have aggressive male pattern baldness. What makes your derm think it's chronic?? Does it keep reoccurring every few months with no specific trigger? It could be that all these horrible events in your life are just causing separate cases of it? In that scenario, once you get the trigger under control, it will resolve.

My derm thinks the constant traumatic stress has kept the growth cycles from normalizing and completely regrowing. The reason he thinks it's chronic is becuase I've been suffering from this for going on 3 years now. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my post, I really appreciate it man.

 

[WorriedDad]

Hi, I have been researching CTE for weeks/months now. My 16 year old son has exactly the same hair problem. Started quite aggressively 12 months ago, had probably started when he was 14. The sides of his hair look almost identical to yours and he is losing it all over his head. I am trying to help him before it becomes a huge issue for him and takes over his life. I am extremely worried that when the hair loss gets really bad it will have a huge impact on his life/confidence etc.

Is there anything you can recommend that has helped?

I realise he is too young for finasteride, he is a very developed young man, 6 foot 2 already. Currently I have him on Vivascal (he thinks its a vitamin) and Vitamin D3.

I would really appreciate any advice you may have.

Thanks.

 

[Mike.maurino]

I had the same exact thing as you my hair thin out all over and it kept doing it over and over. My hair was thicken back up till I took solodyn acne medication. I orignally had Telogen Effluvium but right after this, this cause me to have cte the same as you.

One question when ur hair is wet do u see your scale all over just wondering

 

[Pray The Bald Away]

Hi, I have been researching CTE for weeks/months now. My 16 year old son has exactly the same hair problem. Started quite aggressively 12 months ago, had probably started when he was 14. The sides of his hair look almost identical to yours and he is losing it all over his head. I am trying to help him before it becomes a huge issue for him and takes over his life. I am extremely worried that when the hair loss gets really bad it will have a huge impact on his life/confidence etc.

Is there anything you can recommend that has helped?

I realise he is too young for finasteride, he is a very developed young man, 6 foot 2 already. Currently I have him on Vivascal (he thinks its a vitamin) and Vitamin D3.

I would really appreciate any advice you may have.

Thanks.

I'm sorry for the extremely late reply, but I haven't really done anything aside from getting on finasteride. The finasteride hasn't thickened up my hair at all. I now think the hair loss is due to senescent alopecia. I also believe the senescent alopecia was started by the minocycline. It's actually pretty interesting how this is playing out. My hair is starting to turn gray at 19 years old. It's also worth mentioning that my hair has stayed relatively stable at this level on thickness (or thinness, rather).

 

[bluecyclone]

I am 40 and until August 2016 I had the thickest wavy black hair one could imagine. Zero shedding and zero thinning. I had been on about two years of Solodyn (time release minocycline) I had a Telogen Effluvium that thinned my hair all over and I’ve never recovered as in an effort to grow back the hair is being destroyed by DHT. I never considered the possible impact of the antibiotics but I recommend as a young man you dig into this possibility. I think there is some real correlation. I was on the Solodyn to help with beard folliculitis which I have suffered from for 20 years. Did two rounds on accurate in my early twenties that didn’t work.

 

[Pray The Bald Away]

I am 40 and until August 2016 I had the thickest wavy black hair one could imagine. Zero shedding and zero thinning. I had been on about two years of Solodyn (time release minocycline) I had a Telogen Effluvium that thinned my hair all over and I’ve never recovered as in an effort to grow back the hair is being destroyed by DHT. I never considered the possible impact of the antibiotics but I recommend as a young man you dig into this possibility. I think there is some real correlation. I was on the Solodyn to help with beard folliculitis which I have suffered from for 20 years. Did two rounds on accurate in my early twenties that didn’t work.

I've done some researching and found that there are quite a few others like us who have experienced extreme shedding due to the use of minocycline. My current theory is that it throws of the hair matrix out of control and causes everything to act erratically. My hair fell out diffusely, shafts got thinner all over, hair started to recede, and is now turning grey. All before 20. This definitely isn't natural. I'd like to have a study done on me to analyze the effects of these tetracycline-class antibiotics on hair. I'm now almost positive this was the cause.

my hair is exactly like yours and my derm had prescribed me wth CTE as well (initially it was just Telogen Effluvium) I'm 18. Mine also started when I was around 16 and around the same time I had massive chronic fatigue. He prescribed me min to help which seems to have slowed it down now I lose about 15 a day compared to 200-300 during the sheds, I also use nizoral.You think you could upload pictures of your hair wet?

I'll post a pic when I get home. You can see straight through to the scalp when it's wet, but when it's blow dried it looks decently thick until I try styling it.

 

[Jhair123]

I’ve been dealing with this and found that maintaining a positive attitude is super important but can be so hard when dealing with hair loss. I found this video and it really helped me understand my situation and stay positive through this hard time. Maybe it can help some other people too:

 

[Retinoid]

I think sometimes the hair may just need a reset. Minoxidil is good for this, I am unsure what else would be. Maybe copper peptides or Zix (Zinc and B6) to add.