Mysterious Loss of Hair - Whats going on?

[wotsthedeal]

Hello all,

I'm a 19 year old male who up until recently had a very thick head of healthy hair. About six months ago, I noticed an increase in hair fall and before long I was experiencing very rapid, diffuse loss across the scalp. If I held a few hundred hairs between my fingers and pull gently, usually anywhere between 5 to 10 or even 15 hairs would come out. Not only was the hair on my scalp falling out rapidly, but all the hair on my body was falling out at a rate that was noticeably faster than usual. It became easy for me to pluck out leg hairs, sometimes in one pull I could take out more than ten at a time. I did some research online and it seemed that the cause of this was telogen effluvium - a condition which causes hairs to prematurely move into the resting phase and fall out. Sure enough, I went to the doctor for tests and I had an iron defiency.

The hair loss has been going on for about six months now as I said, and I'm now taking multivitamins and iron suppliments to try and fix the problem - but I've been told that it can take up to a year before I'll notice my hair getting back to normal. However, in addition to the diffuse loss of hair I've noticed that some of the hairs I have pulled out seem weak and brittle, and some seem to taper off at the end. Lots of my individual hairs seem thinner than usual, and I'm worried that this bout of temporary hair loss could be masking some androgenetic hair loss. In the back of my head, the typical "bald spot" I sometimes feel like my hair is a little thin, but I have read that this spot is also the area of the thinnest hair even for those without male pattern baldness, and I don't really have a bald spot. Furthermore, I haven't noticed any sign of my hairline receding.

So I guess my question is, what could be the cause of these thin, lifeless hairs, and can a temporary hair loss set the wheels in motion for androgenetic alopecia? My parents both have full heads of hair, and one of my grandfathers (on my dad's side) is bald, otherwise I don't know of any close family members with hair loss. As of now I still have a full head of hair, but if baldness is on it's way, I'd like to stop it in it's tracks. Dermatologists have assured me that I have nothing to worry about - but I don't trust them.

This big shed of mine has made me ponder getting on treatments right now simply to prevent losing hair in the future, and I've considered Propecia because it seems to be easy to use, but after reading some of the posts on this forum I can't say that I'm too excited about the results I should expect. Does anyone here have experience with using Propecia specifically to halt hair loss before it is noticeable?

Thanks in advance for any advice, and good luck to other hair loss sufferers - the cure is out there! ;-)

Edit - another question about Propecia, or finasteride more specifically. I've read that a lot of you use different brands of finasteride to save money (Propecia's pretty pricey it seems) - where do you folks order these pills from to be sure that they are what they say they are?

 

[Deaner]

If the only underlying problem is an iron deficiency, then it's impossible for the iron deficiency to trigger something you're not genetically predisposed to. You see what I'm saying? You're either programmed at birth or you're not for male pattern baldness, and even if you go through a telogen effluvium as a result of an iron deficiency, you're not gonna trigger this condition if you weren't born with it.

The cause of the weaker or brittle hairs I'm guessing is simply a result of the same deficiency. It makes sense doesn't it? Your body's lacking a very vital nutrient, and is starting to reject all these hairs, but in the first place don't you think the development of these hairs woulda sorta died down, gotten weaker? That's kind of what lead to them falling out in the first place.

What I'm trying to say is, unless you have male pattern baldness ontop of all this, your hair will likely return to the way it was now that you're fixing the iron deficiency. You might be one of the lucky people on this board who can get it all back Best of luck to you.