whaaaat... i'm going bald!? but not losing hair..?? help?

[paradoxbox]

sorry if this doesn't make any sense

 

but, i think i'm going bald, probably extremely bald, but i can't be 100% sure.

 

i do know that i have an extremely strong whorl/cowlick on the back of my head and the hairs in that area seem to lay flat compared to the hairs outside of it. the cowlick area is quite large and my hair is quite strong so it cannot be brushed into another direction. it can't even be held with a hard hair wax.

 

i am not sure if that's what this is or if i'm actually going bald.

 

2 things to note:

 

#1) nobody in my family has a history of balding. nobody.

 

#2) as far as i can tell, i'm not shedding hair. i do not find hair on my pillow, i do not lose hair when i shower, and i can vigorously scrub and rub my scalp over a bright white table and only 4 or 5 hairs will fall out, regardless of whether i rub my crown or any other part of my head.

 

fyi i'm 24 years old, and my skin is extremely white (think casper the ghost)

 

here are a bunch of pics, most with wet hair. i pushed the hair around so you can see where the whorl/cowlick is, the bald looking area turned into a sort of S shape when i did that.

 

am i balding or do i have a horrible cowlick?

 

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6405/photo8wu.jpg

 

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/628/photo7q.jpg

 

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1096/photo6n.jpg

 

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6795/photo5wh.jpg

 

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/7234/photo9k.jpg

[dakota3]

Your balding! Get on minoxidil and propecia.

 

To say your going extremley bald is a bit over exagerating though wouldnt you say? There are guys on here that would kill to have the head of hair you have.

[paradoxbox]

unfortunately i have absolutely no money for medications

 

does anyone have any advice on diet? my diet is what you might call severely lacking in greens. i do eat a lot of tomatoes (2 cans of tomatoes every few days, along with an onion and garlic, i make curry and pasta sauces a lot) and a moderate amount of lettuce.

 

but besides that i generally haven't eaten greens in the last few months. i heard that this may be a contributing cause of thinning hair? any truth to it? considering there's no hair loss in my family and i don't use any chemicals in my hair..

 

this really sucks. guess it's time to shave it real short. if it still looks bad i'll have to razor it all off.

 

also why am i balding but not shedding hair? i can yank as hard as i want on the crown of my head and nothing comes out. also when i do pluck hairs from that area they appear to be the same thickness as the rest of the hairs on my head.

[Maxxy]

Welcome Paradoxbox,

 

As Dakota said, I'd get on Minoxidil. No one can tell what the results will be but given your loss, I'd have pretty high hopes.

 

I'd also consider Finasteride (Proscar/Propecia). I know you say you can't afford any medication at this time but you can get generic Finasteride fairly cheap, as for the Minoxidil you can get a 6 month's supply for around $25; it will probably work out cheaper then your 2 cans of tomatos.

[hairthere]

Your hair doesn't have to fall out for it to look thinner. The hair follicle miniaturizes at the onset of MPB.

[paradoxbox]

but i have looked at hairs that i pulled out of my head and compared them, they look the same, and i also used a webcamera with close focus and strong magnification to see right down at the follicle level and the hair doesn't look appreciably different from other areas on my head.

 

also nobody in my family has MPB or any baldness whatsoever, why is this happening?

 

i'd like to try some kind of treatment but i live in japan and there are laws against importing hair medications (foreign strengths not approved for use here) and the locally available stuff is apparently more than double the cost

[Obie one]

Hi Paradoxbox-

 

It looks like you have a very nice head of hair. Very thick and I don't think you have to worry about it. Does your crown look thinner than the other parts of your head i.e. can I see scalp? The answer is yes.

 

Do keep in mind that you did say that you wet your hair and moved it around so we could see what you were talking about. Does that mean that you wet your entire head or does that mean that you wet just the crown portion you took a picture of?

 

Anytime you wet hair and move it around as you did, your hair is going to look thinner than if you blow dry your hair and fluff it up some. trust me on this one, I've been completely bald NW 6 and done the transplant thing and have styled my hair to look thick and full.

 

It's good that you are eating certain foods for your diet. That's good for health but in terms of male pattern baldness, you're wasting your time. You can use the "BIG THREE" Propecia, Proscar or Minoxidil. Anything else to prevent hairloss on the market right now is a waste of your time.

 

You might look at some old pics in the meantime to see if your head hair has thinned on the crown. If it has and your hair means that much to you, find a way to pay for Propecia or Proscar in your country whether it's more expensive or not.

 

You can also go see a highly recommended hair transplant doc on this forum but you are very young and I don't think they will want to have you as a patient at this point in time. They can however give their feedback.

 

Hope this helps-

[azn_guy]

Hey Guys, this is my experience

 

Many folks on here say they shed 100-150 hairs a day. Most doctors acknowledge this is normal.

 

But I don't shed hair! my hair continues to stick around. What I do notice is if a hair does fall out, I can see a difference in diameter by looking at the hair itself.

 

So not every HAS to shed 100-150 hairs, eg: me

[paradoxbox]

update..

guys, i've decided that i'm not going bald. i'm sure of it.

 

shortly after i created this thread, i cut my hair very very short to see if i could see any difference and reduce the balding effect. when i cut it, i noticed that there was absolutely no thinning/hair loss happening, even though it had previously looked like my hair was thinning.

 

i have been letting it grow out ever since then. when it got to about 1/4 - 1/2 inch in length, i started to see that balding look appear again. but i wasn't quite as convinced.. i have been letting it grow out more and more, and it's a bit longer now and i definitely do not feel like i'm balding. the hair on my crown is still very thick.

 

i'm chalking this up to a very nasty whorl/cowlick pattern on the crown of my head that has either always been there or has been made worse by previous hairstyles. while it's a relief that i'm not experiencing thinning hair or hair loss, it's still a problem since i will appear bald if i keep my hair at the length that i normally do.

 

i'll have to keep it growing out to avoid the balding look.