Kind of embarrassing. Seems I care more about my appearance than I thought I did.
I searched on the Internet but it seems a lot of sites copy and paste information from each other, and I couldn't find much reliable and detailed information.
I'm 21. While going down the elevator every day, I notice that there's a seam on the back/top of my scalp and upon further inspection, my hair is thinning there. My hairline is also affected, but only slightly.
As you can imagine, this made me go "ohshi-." The reason I'm posting here is that I've always been told that baldness was determined by the mother's side of the family, and my grandfather on her side had a full head of hair, so I wouldn't have to worry about this. But here I am. My dad is bald and I may end up being so too. Is this normal?
What I wanted to ask was: is there any way to predict if this is just partial thinning or if it will go all the way? Also, my beard pretty much sucks and is still not fully developed; is it possible for me to start balding while this is the case?
One thing I read was that the same hormone responsible for body hair development was the one that caused baldness on the scalp. So, how can this be reconciled with my underdeveloped facial hair?
Also of note: I'm told I've had a 'seam' there my whole life, though it was smaller.
Oh and, I really would not like to have to shave it all. People compliment me on my hair a lot. Any experience with treatments?
Posts
I tried Propecia and hated it. I tried Rogaine, and it didn't really work (it *might* have slowed it down a little bit, but I doubt it). I ended up shaving my head. I miss my hair sometimes, but I vastly prefer no hair over thinning hair, especially since when I had it, I dyed it bright colours, and guys with thinning dyed hair look really sad to me.
http://www.thelostworlds.net/
Step two: Clip or shave off your hair.
Step three: Realize that bald, muscular guys pick up loads of ass, because Bruce Willis and shit.
Testosterone, which causes body hair, also causes hair loss. So alot of very hairy guys lose their head hair. Ouch.
In my family's case, our maternal grandpa was also like 80% bald in his early 20s. My father has a fuller head of hair than my brother. That's not always the case, though.
My advice, though....if you start going totally bald (there's really no way to tell how much this "thinning" will progress), SHAVE YOUR HEAD. I know you said you didn't want to, but at least a shaved head looks deliberate, not "hay guise look Im goin bald."
but yeah. alot of guys lose their hair early. don't sweat it too much.
FOR FUCKS SAKE NEVER DO A COMB OVER!
Seriously though, The entire top of my head is bald, and the sides are really fluffy and stand out. (Think mad scientist, but with blond hair.) Even though this sounds horrable, I can style it. When I dress up I actually *sculpt* my hair on the sides to look fat bird wings. (Something like this but a little fatter. The tips flare out in the back. It looks pretty cool.)
Depending, I'll also shave, I was blessed with a head that looks good bald.
This is interesting, because hair never comes out in my hands when I shampoo. I just have a seam on the back of my scalp that appears much larger than I remember it being. I hope I'm just insane and that this is all in my head, no pun intended.
For reference, this is what I looked like 6 months ago straight out of the shower (crappy webcam with vampiric color quality):
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/6163/tempshot0136re2.jpg
1. I do not look good bald and really do not want to shave my head. Is it a good idea to just wear a hat if I end up bald?
2. I did not notice the seam when that pic was taken, though my hair was longer. Could this mean that the "seam" is stress-related, or short term? I'm under a lot of stress right now.
3. Does the fact that there's no hair in my hands after shampooing also suggest that I am not actually going bald?
4. I'm still wondering about that beard thing. My beard is totally underdeveloped and I think I have a few years to go before it develops fully. Is it possible for me to begin balding while this is the case, knowing that the hormone that gives you facial hair is also what makes you go bald.
Oh and I'm sorry for the stupid questions, but I can't really go to a doctor for this, considering I've already been laughed out several clinics for what actually turned out to be a serious disease (I hate doctors). It would not go well if I just went there and pointed at the back of my head.
I've got a hairline that goes through a period where it recedes about half a centimeter every 2-3 years, and has been doing this since I was about 17. It really sucks.
Rogaine works, but only in something like 30% of cases. The stats are on the box. Propecia works much better, but it also has the potential for nastier side-effects. And yes, they're both stupidly expensive.
http://www.thelostworlds.net/
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
Until you start seeing your hair thin out, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If it happens it happens, and there really isn't much you can do to stop it, so you might as well worry about other things you actually have some control over.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
As funny as it is to talk about "waking up missing all of your hair," that is very close to what happened to me. I'm assuming we have the same alopecia, does it not fall out rather rapidly for you? (By rapidly, I have lost up to a quarter of my hair in about 2 months before.My grandfather evidently had alopecia areata universalis and woke up one morning pretty much missing all of his hair. I guess I can only hope that doesn't happen to me.
So, I started shaving it down to the skin about a year and a half ago. I like it. Some people really like it.
I think you're sexy. :winky:
My suggestion is to never attempt a comb over. Also, after you get out of the shower/batch, combo your hair straight back and let it dry out. Hairspray is not an option.
We should party sometime.
Not like that, but it'd be fun.
- Adam Savage, 'Mythbusters'
While cutting it short looks *better*, it's still not a great idea. It will hide the thinning for a little while, but I would say it doesn't buy more than a year or so. All of the guys I've seen use this method did so as a more or less permanent thing, and they weren't fooling anyone.
http://www.thelostworlds.net/
Combovers never looked good. Ever. Shaving can.
Never said they did. But I see a lot of 30something baldies and my first thought is that I'm pretty sure they didn't shave a full head of hair...
Then again maybe it's that I look crap bald and am thinning out pretty good up there, which limits my options pretty severely.
- Adam Savage, 'Mythbusters'
I do get hair jelousy however. I see someone with a good head of hair or wacky hairstyle and think "man I wish I had hair like that".
It is a hair part, but I don't part my hair that way. It's always been there, but now it's just much bigger than it used to be, which means my hair is thinning there. It's no longer a small spot, it has a line thing going on.
So, yea, crapshoot indeed. I realize nobody can answer my questions, so now I'm wondering whether to suck it up and go to a dermatologist at the expense of being laughed at (I've encountered quite a few arrogant doctors in my time going to hospitals/clinics) or just wait it out and see how things go.
I think my hormones are just messed up. My facial hair is just patchy and obviously still has a few years to go before it's fully developed, and I look much younger than my age. I also have quite a few bone structure problems. Should I just go to a GP and lump all of those problems up as 1 thing?
Naa, go for the bird wing look!
My point was that cutting it short is a viable alternative to shaving it completely, which really isn't a good option for some people. It still won't look great, no, but nothing really looks all that great when you're going bald.
At least, unless you have a perfectly shaped skull like Doc. Then shaving it works pretty well.
Oculus: TheBigDookie | XBL: Dook | NNID: BigDookie
It is normal when your hair gets longer to notice more and more hair in your hands when you are washing. The normal human head loses somewhere between 75-150 hairs a day. When your hair is short it falls out and drifts away cleanly from your head so you don't really notice it. When you have longer hair it usually gets pinned down and stuck. That is why you usually have a few hairs here and there that are sticking out farther than the rest of your hair and when you go to pull them out they just slide out like nothing. They get stuck. It is no big deal. If you start noticing huge clumps falling out you may have trouble. Otherwise everything is normal.
Yeah, but you've got to look your best. I look a LOT different with no hair than I did with a full head of it, and I think it's an improvement. But I guess there's some bias in that.
Went to a dermatologist, and it turns out my hair loss was caused by Vitamin A overdose. He said that I shouldn't be going bald now.
A warning: if you take multivitamins every day, check the back of the bottle. Most of the OTC ones aren't FDA approved and contain harmful amounts of certain things, so you could be ODing without knowing it.
The ones I was taking contain too much Vitamin A (10,000 IU) and Wikipedia says that's the maximum tolerable level before it becomes toxic.
At the moment I don't know if it's permanent or not; the doctor said I should wait a while and see if it'll regrow in that spot.
Thought this might he helpful.