What do you make of this situation???

[UCALex]

Hello Everyone, I am pretty confused and also pretty frustrated so I though maybe I could describe my sitation to you and maybe you might be able to help.

 

Bassically, I have been experiencing hair loss for about a around 1-1/2 to 2 years now. (I am currently 20) It is as far as I can tell a pretty even loss all over the over the scalp. Meaning even on the back of my neck or sides of my scalp I can gently pinch on the hair and recover about 3 or more hairs. It is a little more evident near the top of my head because my hair is pretty long so it usually falls to the side.

 

I have little evidence of baldness in my family on my Mom's side my grandpa has good full head of hair for being 80 years old. My dad's hair has thinned but is again decent for being 65 as well as suffering from a variety of illnesess including cancer and multiple sclerosis. His hair really didn't thin until much later in his life anyways. I am not sure about his dad.

 

I literally feel like my hair is shedding sometimes it is extremely annoying. Some more information about me which might be relevant. Since age about 17 I have been eating an extremely high protein diet. About a year ago when the hair loss really started to accelerate I would eat about four eggs and half a can of beans for breakfast, and then meat for my next four meals of the day. I tried to balance this with vegatbles but I am positive I was eating way to much protein. In addition Since 16 or 17 I have been taking a variety of soy and whey based protein supplements. This was all done in addition to working out about 3-4 days a week. In addition to this I was extremely active playing hockey, surfing and running almost every day.

 

Despite all this I gained a lot more 'fat' then muscle, although I wasn't fat by any means. I stopped using the supplements spring of 08 and stopped the high protein diet beginning of summer 08. My hairloss did not really decrease.

 

I have also had two extremely difficult and very stressful relationships in this time.

 

I went to my general practitioner to address this hairloss issue. She at first thought it might be because of mercury poisoning from eating Tuna fish. I took a couple of tests and all levels of vitamins and minerals in my blood came in pretty normal.

 

However, I had very low testosterone. I believe it was at about 250 when the normal range for males my age was between 350-1000. This surprised me because I thought for having such a high protein diet and working out regularly my testosterone would be higher than normal. She sent me to an endocrinologist and had me start propecia. (I was on propecia for 2 months with 0 results and stopped at the request of the endocrinologist) Well after a couple more tests my testosterone was raised to the lower end of the 'normal range' but I had elevated prolactin levels which also normalized after time and some more tests.

 

I am really at a loss for what to do. Do you think anything I described(diet, testosterone, stress) could be related to my hair loss? Thanks!

[Chuckisduck]

you probably heard that DHT (main cause of Male Pattern Baldness) is made from free floating testosterone by the enzyme alpha-2-reductase.

 

Propecia removes about 70% of DHT by blocking one of the two ways that alpha-2-reductase is made. Noticeable hair growth isn't often seen for about 6-8 months, with shedding and temporarily less hair. About 1 in 8 men, propecia doesn't help. Rogaine is also used to keep your hair from going into telophase (where the hair falls out and grows new in a couple of months). Visually it acts like propecia, with the initial loss and later increase.

 

Those two usually don't work in the front temple region (where I got my HT), but work well for up on top for those with diffuse balding.

 

It could also be other things, stress/infection/endocrine system issues.

 

I am no expert, someone else should be able to help ya more. Hope this star helps.

[fixing-it]

I will say this about propecia,2 months is not long enough to do anything and its hard to believe your endocrinologist would not know this and have you on it for 9-12 months.

[UCALex]

I know 2 months is not enough time to notice a difference with propecia. I am most concerned with the hair loss from all parts of my head and the fact that I don't have family history of this. It makes me worried that something else besides male pattern baldness might be occuring.

[Dr. William Lindsey]

The endocrinologist may have specific thoughts behind his/her recommendations and you ought to ask them.

 

As to 2 months of propecia...in my opinion, if you are going to take the first pill, you need to commit to 1 year of therapy (barring the need to stop due to side effects). Even if you are the world's best responder to propecia, you won't see much until the thickening and deminiturizing hair grows out a few inches.

 

Again using my tree analogies: if you have a field full of trees that haven't been watered and they are in Virginia clay trampled by cows/livestock, and then you fertilize the ground and get some nice rain, and the livestock goes to another field, it will be next spring when the trees start to really grow.

 

Same deal with hair.

 

Unfortunately if you do respond well, stopping propecia is like letting the cows back into the tree farm and turning off the rain. So you are on it for the duration.

 

Dr. Lindsey McLean VA

[UCALex]

Thanks for the responses guys. My other question is before I start back on propecia is there a definite way to tell that it is mpb and not something else. Also for those with mpb do you lose hair from all parts of your scalp. for example if I gently pull from the very back of my neck I can easily remove 2-4 hairs at a time. The same with right in front of my ears and other places where I did not think you were supposed to lose hair.