Far Too Young's Story

[Far Too Young]

So I figure it's about time I fired up my own little child in the Tell Your Story forum.

I purchased my first batch of Dr. Reddy's from Evopharmacy this evening. It's feels good to have finally gotten the ball rolling. Hopefully I will receive it within a couple of weeks. Does anyone else have experience with pharmaceutical orders from them in terms of time?

I've been on Rogaine for a Month and some change. Twice daily applications. The first month was using the solution. It irritated my scalp so I've switched to the foam.

It's been about three our four weeks on the Nizoral non-perscription 1%. Inflamation has diminished a little. Every other day application with my daily morning showers.

I had a hairdresser mention to me that my crown was thinning out about a year, but chalked it up to my hair that has always been rather thin. Well, after the four month intense shed that manifest itself in September (right before my 18th birthday), I've decided to go ahead and try taking care of this problem. The male pattern baldness initiated with what was undeniably a telogen effluvium. There were points at which a simple hair pull from my mid scalp would yield 6-7 hairs (from a scalp with low density to begin with, mind you. Since then I've witnessed a good number of intermediate hairs growing in and no cessation of shedding. Thus I've decided to do something about it.

I plan on taking some pictures with this handy little christmas gift when I start my finasteride intake. That should be in a couple of weeks.

Sucks this would happen so early, but what can you do? Well, I've found out what and I guess I will. So a jolly hohoho and Merry Christmas. It's certainly been a long December.

(Edit January 4, 2007)

I popped my first propecia this evening. Baseline photos have been taken. Rogaine was begun on about November 20, and though there is some darkened intermediate growth upon the temples, any overwhelming growth is indescernible. Hopefully the DHT mitigation and effective rogaine window will help out. Will give monthly updates.

 

[psucks]

that doesnt suck, i've been loosing my hair since i was 12 or 13 years old.
now that really sucks.

 

[Far Too Young]

Wow. That sort of puts things in perspective. It seems that everyone who starts losing hair at a young age (myself included) thinks they're the first ones in the world to have ever done so.

 

[sphlanx2006]

Yes that is true. Happened to me two, until i met a nw7 guy who was 2 years younger than me. He was 17! Strange thing, he didnt give a sh*t about hair loss. People are different i guess.

 

[astral week]

far too young, what caused your telogen effluvium?

 

[Far Too Young]

I went through a really bad stomach bout in early august. Couldn't eat anything for a week, high fever, passed absolutely everything that went into my body within two hours. Basically a complete systemic arrest. About three or four weeks later the hair started coming out. It wasn't handfulls, but it was just hairs falling all over the place. Constant shedding. And the rate at which I lost density was just far more dramatic than I've EVER seen tell of with the normal progression of male pattern baldness. The timing was all right for a Telogen Effluvium.

That said, it could have just been a particularly nasty onset of male pattern baldness. The shedding has slowed somewhat. Not a ton, but somewhat. And even the sides of my head are rather thin. I think that if the sides don't come back at all then there's no way (if I can't prevent the progression of hairloss) that a hair transplant would ever be an option for me. That's how profound it was.

M father's a Norwood 6 at 43. He never treated it or anything. But needless to say, my genetic prospects aren't great. I have a far lighter body hair pattern than him (He's simian, I'm just average), and my scalp hair pattern is far different than his. He didn't start thinning till about 23. He was the sort of guy who had a full, hairy chestmat at 18. It seems that our hair characteristics are very different.

But the fact is, I see quite a few miniaturized hairs and have even shed some hairs that appear to be short cycling. I'm pretty strongly convinced that the T.E. kickstarted the process. Hopefully my tolerance isn't that low and finasteride will help out.

 

[Far Too Young]

Update:

The dermatologist wanted to run some bloodtests as she supsected a telogen effluvium or systemic disruption was causing the loss. The thyroids and whatnot are apparently functioning well, etc.. The only thing that was alarming is a positive ANA test (Anti Nucleic Acid). This is an indicator of an autoimmune disorder, most commonly lupus (though the disease is eight times more common in women than men). So the odds of that are fairly low. Can anyone on here offer any speculation or expertise as to whether or not this is a factor in male pattern baldness. I have a feeling it may be exacerbating the problem.

 

[astral week]

did you lose density in the back and sides? and have you had any improvement since then?
I've had a chronic telogen effluvium due to stress and eating very very little for like a year, and i've lost at least 50% of all my hair, including the back and sides. from what i've read, i should regain most of this even though it probably initiated male pattern baldness. Any luck with you?

 

[Far Too Young]

Now, I think if you read the majority of my posts, you'll find that I'm a pretty rational guy. No down-in-the-dumps bemoaning my horrible problem. Just an objective understanding of my genetic deficiency and an attempt to remedy it.

That said, I'm a week into Propecia (yes, just one week), and a month and a half into Rogaine (First month solution, last two weeks foam), and about a month into 5-6 Nizoral shampoos/week.

I've been shedding intensely for 5 months straight now. Went from no thinning whatsoever to a Norwood 1.5-2 Hairline with noticeable thinning on the crown.

My shedding has, over the last couple of days, diminished significantly. I'm not kidding. I have ways of observing it, etc., and after five months it has just stopped. I can't attribute it to the Propecia - it's just too early. It's probably just the end of the Rogaine shed, but I can't help but think that Propecia kicking in didn't help things along. Also, a week into Propecia, I can tell that my scalp inflammation has diminished significantly, too.

Whether I will regrow is yet to be seen. But if I could just maintain this for a few years I would be plenty happy. Once signs of regrowth are shown, I will post pictures. I took pictures about a week ago of my scalp at what I believe was the worst point.

This is nowhere near a success story. The cessation of shedding is what it is. Not necessarily an improvement. Only time will tell.

 

[Far Too Young]

The shedding has resumed. Not as intense as before, but hell, I don't have nearly as much to shed. And it seems that all the sheds are of thin, short cycling hairs. This may have been my last couple of months with a decent shock. The rogaine shed should have ended some time ago.

Two months into rogaine and things are starting to look really bad. I mean depressingly bad. As in I still have decent coverage but it seems like every single hair on my head is intermediate. The terminals stick up above my intermediate, limp carpet like towers in the desert. The thinning is diffuse enough that I get visible scalp anywhere on the head if my hair is not spread out well (i.e. just right). All since August. At 18, this is such a nightmare. I even have a little bit of a combover going. It's just the result of thickening shampoo and combing after my rogaine application so that it passes for more of a combed look. Before the past couple of months, I couldn't have told you the last time I had brushed the hair. Now it's come to this.

f*** me sideways.

I guess I'll just go rub a little more of this worthless foam into my scalp.