Hi, I am a 19 year old male with longish (mid back) thick (it's still kinda thick?) dark brown hair.
About a month ago I found a old bottle of mint scented shampoo in my bathroom and I decided to use it.(I later found out was 5+ years old @_@) I rubbed it in my hair and let it sit a few minutes, after 3-4 minutes I started to feel a burning sensation all over my scalp and the smell started getting strong that my eyes started watering, so I quickly washed it out. I can't remember if I noticed it that day or the next but I lost about 1/4th of my hair!
I started freaking out but never thought that it was the shampoo, I started some new medication the day before (adderall) and I was convinced that my new medication was the cause of it. I stopped taking my medication for 2-3 days and I didn't notice much hair loss so I started taking it again to try and make sure that it was the medication and that I just wasn't starting to go bald.
Since I started the medication again I haven't noticed as much hair loss as I did the 2nd day I started the meds, or much hair loss at all for that matter (I've just been really paranoid about it).
I got in my shower a few days later and noticed the bottle of shampoo and that's when I finally started thinking, maybe that shampoo is the culprit. To test this out I rubbed some shampoo on my right armpit and on the right side of my pubes and waited, their was very little burning sensation if any, and I washed it off thinking "Crap....It's the medication, or I'm going bald!!!".
I got out of the shower, dried off then looked in the mirror. My right arm pit lost an enormous amount of hair, I would say about half of it is now gone. My pubes looked the same but when I felt them the right side felt quite a lot thinner then the left side. (Sorry I'm not trying to be inappropriate)
I still check my scalp several times a day to see if I can notice any hair loss and I think it hasn't thinned out much more but I worry about it a lot.
But today I was combing my hair for the first time in maybe a month or so and 62 hairs came out. (I counted lol) which got me thinking/panicking about hair loss again. I was wondering how many hairs should you loose when you comb your hair? I've been told an average person looses 75-150 hairs per day (during winter) and so many when their sleeping. I checked my pillow every morning after the shampoo incident but I never found a single hair on my pillow so I was wondering, does anyone think that the reason I lost so many hairs combing was because when I sleep instead of my hair falling out onto my pillow their just getting tangled in the rest of my hair and I just yanked them all out at once?
I would really appreciate some feed back, I have been kind of stressing over this for a while now.
I wrote this a week or two ago and decided to post it now, I am having trouble telling if I am loosing hair or not, I think my hair line may be receding but I'm not 100% sure, I can post pics of my hair line 1ce I get my camera working.
EDIT I've notice that my scalp is several shades whiter where my hairline seems to be thinning.