Any tips for a guy loosing his mind... and hair? (1 Viewer)

[RyanAn]

As I look at my family portrait taken in Nov of 2008, I see a happy soul with a full head of hair, with only a slight bit of receeding. Now, in July of 2009, there is a soon-to-be vacant patch in the lower middle of forhead of hair if that makes sense. I just don't get it.
I admit I have had a ton of stress in my life, and over the last 3 or 4 months it's been terrible. I've read that stress has been known to create a temporary loss of hair, but for how long and why would'nt I of lost my hair years ago when I first started getting ultra stressed out?
I've heard that your hairloss depends on your maternal side. Well, my 75 year old grandfather on my mother's side still has a full set of hair. While, both my father and his father lost their hair in their early to mid twenties. I'm actually 23 right now.
I purchased Rogaine today and it states its only for the "Vertex" or the back of the head. Well, what would happen if I put it on the front where I'm having issues? If I can't use Rogaine, what can I do if any? Do they make products that work for the front of the scalp?
I've seen commericals for stuff like mhallstars.com with Wade Boggs and Chavo Guerrero as spokesmen. Is this the best possible thing I can do? Surgery?
I'm not a vain person and I realize hairloss is going to happen, I'm just trying to postpone it for a while. I don't want surgery, I try to eat healthy and keep my cool and stay calm. I just don't need this right now...
What have you tried and how well has it worked?


Thanks

Ryan

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I would guess it's mostly heredity at work, plus mixing of genes. My brother went bald in college: I have a mostly full head of hair at age 56. Our dad thinned a lot but my mother's father had a full head of dark hair at age 80.

 

[DaveF]

Bald's the thing at work. Gen Xers shave their head if they've got a receding hairline.

I think in 30 years, kids will do combovers and laugh at all the silly bald grandpa's

 

[Will_B]

Could be that you're low in iron. Men aren't supposed to take vitamins with iron, because iron is bad for men's hearts or something, but, you could take a children's vitamin with iron and see if anything changes (it would take a couple months to see if anything changes, of course).

The Rogaine stuff is BS, since according to the fact sheet enclosed within the packaging, your hair will fall out the moment you stop using it.

And the non-Rogaine shampoos that promote themselves as washing away various hormones or whatnot are simply deep cleansing shampoos, no different than, say, Head & Shoulders. Any deep cleansing shampoo is said to stimulate hair folicles a bit, so there's no harm in using them, but their claims are exaggerated.

Until genetic engineering becomes fun & easy (which won't be in our lifetimes), baldness will be a part of our lives.

Nonetheless, check into your diet and see if you're missing something that hair likes. Iron, Omega-3s, flax seed oil, etc.


Oh -- one other thing. If your hair loss started at the same time as you started some sort of diet, look at that correlation and consider that maybe you cut something out that you need.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Originally Posted by DaveF

Bald's the thing at work. Gen Xers shave their head if they've got a receding hairline.

I think in 30 years, kids will do combovers and laugh at all the silly bald grandpa's

I don't shave my head but I take a hair clipper and mow it as close as it will go, which is pretty close. I advise accepting the results of heredity and the march of time. My doctor once told me that the hair that rogain grows is pretty thin and fuzzy looking.

 

[Cees Alons]

Hair is greatly influenced by the circulating hormones.

When a baby is born, it will often have relatively dense hair and a stronger colour, caused by the hormones of his/her mother. Within a few months, that will be gone.

During childhood, the hair will be, well, childish, but of course with a general outlook according to the kid's genes.

Then, at roughly 16 yrs, a boy will get the male type of hair. Which sort of hair that is, depends on his genes: like his father, like his grandfather-1 or like his grandfather-2. Together with a slight change of colour goes an important change of hairline: this may even be the tonsura Pauli or the tonsura Petri.
(Some man start getting grey on that age already.)

But here's the catch: hairs normally live to get 7-10 years old before they die and drop out. So the changing hair-growth, especially the hairline, will start to show roughly 7 years later, from a man's 23th birthday on, hardly before that.

It has nothing to do with stress or anything else, just with age and maturity and the life-span of a hair.
Enjoy what you have, and don't buy expensive lotions and hair-waters to fight what's yours: they won't work.

Some people who feel they are balding, complain about seeing many "hairs in their sink". Sorry, as a person who has a heditary amount of ample hair I can tell you that the amount of hairs falling out each day is proportional to the number of hairs you have (except in the case of very specific illnesses and/or treatment with extremely aggressive drugs). Under normal circumstances, you don't lose hair when individual hairs are falling out, because the same amount of new hairs will be started.

So, better take an example from Jean-Luc Picard, to baldly go even where no man has gone before. Except in this case: all men.


Cees

 

[Philip Hamm]

http://www.amazon.com/Oster-Fast-Feed-Clipper-Attachments/dp/B000B76T52/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1249907666&sr=8-4

 

[Bill Cowmeadow]

I have moved on to just using the clipper. I was using the 1/4 inch guard, but I was just fooling myself. I don't look like I used a
Bic, but just a slight stubble. I like my new look, so does everyone else.

Go for it. to hell with all the other mamby pamby rogaine crap.

Besides, if your stressing over it and who knows what else, using the clippers will reduce the number of things on your mind by 1.


Edited by Bill Cowmeadow - 8/12/2009 at 12:17 am GMT

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Make it so!

 

[Matt Butler]

I was developing a bald area awhile back.

Clippers are now my friend.

Ill be 36 in a couple months too.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Let me be clear. I am not only recommending clippers and the bald/stubble look, but I'm specifically recommending the Oster brand clippers in my original post. I've been through a few pairs of clippers in the last few years and these are by far the best set I've used. I'm sure there are better clippers on the market, but the Wahl and other ones that I've had were all worse. Make sure to lube them every time you use them. If you need a large bottle of Wahl clipper oil check your local "Sally Beauty Supply" store.

You'll never pay for chemicals / Rogaine, never pay for a haircut again. It's the best.

 

[JonZ]

http://www.revitashampoostore.com/product/spectral_dnc.html

http://www.revitashampoostore.com/product/revita_shampoo.html

Reviews for these products have been exceptional.

 

[RyanAn]

Thanks to everyone who gave me tips, I just have'nt been able to get on the site that often lately. To update, my hair is still getting thinner and I have reverted to a shorter hairstyle again. I might end up shaving it but I can't say for sure if I will. If I have the money one day, I may look into alternative treatments, but for the time being hats are back in style. ;0

 

[Will_B]

"I might end up shaving it but I can't say for sure if I will."

If you do, that's something to do at the end of winter, when your face will be pale -- so the contrast between your white head and your pale face won't be as strong as the difference between your white head and your tanned face.

 

[tyler payne]

Sorry I'm so late to this party, but I thought I would add my two cents. I am 33 years old and I have been shaving my head skin close for about 8 years now. Well, to make a long story longer. In my early 20's I noticed that I was getting a pretty bad receding hair line. By 25 it had receded almost to the middle of my head, and I was developing a big bald spot in the back of my head. Needless to say I was desperate to try something.

I first tried the Rogaine for a couple of months. No luck at all. My next step was to consult with some clinics about hair replacement. This I found out is rather pricey, and was just not an option on my budget. So I went to the lady ,who for the previous couple of years, had been cutting what was left of my hair and asked her for some styling options. She suggested I use clippers and cut it to a "stubble" length. (Think, Jason Statham)

This worked rather well! People said I looked younger with a shaved head, compared to a head of hair with bald spots. (Funny how that works.) The problem I had with the " stubble" is that it kinda works like Velcro in that it attracted not only lint and fibers, but also dirt. So I had to rinse my head with water a couple of times a day to keep it clean. The other negative was that, because your hair does not grow evenly, I had to use the clippers every couple days to maintain an even length.

Well, I finally decided that if I was going to have to maintain my hair every couple of days I should just shave it completely and have been doing it ever since. I usually shave it every two days, and after getting some practice, it takes me all of 5-7 minutes.

So here I am a happy, content 33 year old bald man. I wouldn't mind having a full head of hair, but I also don't mind the way I look now. Besides, some women really dig the bald look. And the women that don't like bald guys, well I can't see them liking a guy with a receding hair line, and bald spot that much more.

Ultimately, you gotta do what is going to make you feel comfortable with yourself. Try a few different things out and see what works for you. But I gotta say, as stressed out as I was a few years back about losing my hair, I don't give my baldness a second thought these days. And at the end of the day, the amount of hair you do or don't have on your head has very little to do with the person you are.

Tyler

 

[Bob McLaughlin]

Great post Tyler!
I feel your pain, RyanAn. I always had a nice thick head of hair, but in the past few years I've had major receding going on in two ever-deepening "channels" above each eye. I thought about Rogaine but I don't think it's worth the money. I've thought about changing my hairstyle (which could probably use an update anyway) but for now I'm just living with it.

 

[Carl Miller]

I started losing my hair in college when I was 19, just like my grandfather on my mother's side did. I flipped out, went to the doctor, found there was nothing wrong with me and by the time I was 24, I had that U pattern with thick hair left on the sides and in the back...That remained full and thick through my mid 30's but has thinned in my early 40's. I maintained a shaved head for several years, but grew tired of the effort required and just let it be.

Ryan, I have to say that it really doesn't make much difference. I was initially really worried about how it would effect dating and stuff, but I met my wife when I was 20 and losing my hair and have met more than a few women over the years who find bald or balding men attractive. Sure, there are some who do not, but generally, women care less about a man's hair than most men realize.

If you're confident and happy with who you are, losing your hair will not effect you.

 

[Will_B]

Oppositely related to this, the Tria laser for hair removal just had a substantial price drop. It's one of the first home laser electrolysis devices that is not a scam. About.com has articles about it: hairremoval.about.com/b/2009/11/03/tria-laser-at-home-slashes-price-from-795-to-595.htm

 

[Mike Frezon]

I just wanted to chime in and agree with Bob that that was one well-written post by Tyler.