I'm 17 and my hair has been thinning!!!

[Guest]

Hi I'm a 17yr old girl who has been experiencing hair loss for the last 16 months.
My hair loss isn't in patches it tends to fall out evenly.
It's disheartening because I used to have lovely thick hair and now it's like 1/4 of the thinkness.
I started suspecting that something was wrong when I started noticing more then average amounts of hair falling out when washing and brushing my hair. I also notice hair on my bedroom floor, which I'd never noticed before.

I've been to see my local GP and she said that my scalp was healthy.
I didn't start lossing my hair, in such abnormal amounts, until I developed mild dandruff.
I thought it was the cause, but research on the net has lead me to believe that dandruff apparently doesn't cause hair loss.

I don't take the pill, I haven't had surgery, I haven't had any eatting disorders, and I have a balanced diet so I don't understand why my hairs thinning.

Could anybody give me some advice?
What can I do to stop my hair falling out and get it to start growing thick again?

 

[elguapo]

Guest,

I'm no doctor, and I give advice tonight with permission of the moderators, as I'm not a girl.

Sounds like you did some homework, searching the internet for answers, since you ruled out a few things. My input is partly random but also from the 3 weeks STRAIGHT that I spent looking for answers to hair loss. And I'm talking didn't do a thing at work, just surfed the web...

1) Could it be genetics? Does your mother or any aunt of yours have "the same hair"?

2) Get a blood test. Particularly, a CBC test (complete blood count). The results should rule out lack of iron, thyroid problem, etc. But do some homework as to what to look for in particular.

It just sounds hormonal. But girls go through changes much earlier, right? Or do some things happen at 17 as well? Sorry, not an expert.

Good luck. Sorry I can't be of more help. It's just that I saw threads go unanswered on the women's side before. I don't get it.

 

[Margie]

I can understand your concern. My daughter is 15 and has lost quite a bit of her hair. Hers was once very thick and very long and shiny. I first noticed hers when there was a nickle size spot on the very top of her head that was slick and it looked as if it had been shaven. Ofcourse it hadn't and my daughter hadn't even noticed it until I saw it. She had been being treated for thyroid problems as a young girl and tyroid problems can indeed cause hair loss.In her case though the doctors found that since going through puberty she no longer needed her thyroid medicine and took her completely off it. Naturally, as a mom I worry a lot. I think her hair loss bothers me more than it does her. We took her to two different dermotologists. The first took a biopsy and ruled several things out. He seemed to think it might be stress related. The second doctor ruled it as Telogen Effluvium and wrote her out a prescription that has a type of steroid in it. After several weeks though we saw no change. Her thyroid specialist suggests that she may not be getting enough protein in her diet. To sum it all up....we still have no real satisfactory answer. But check into different things like maybe get a biopsy. At least rule out the possibility of thyroid trouble. It may be as simple as taking one tiny pill a day. I wish you the best. God bless.~Margie

 

[angiepooface]

Have yourself checked for anemia. You might be missing iron or not absorbing it as well as you should be. Iron deficiency can cause a great deal of hairloss, especially if you don't treat it right away. I lost over half my hair from iron deficiency, and now I need to take iron pills. I found out I was iron deficient over 7 months after I developed the deficiency, and 2 months after I started losing hair, so I was kinda late. I too was eating properly, but I was bulimic so I lost the nutrients. You may be just not aborbing iron, and not even noticing it because it's sometimes easy to miss.