Month: March 2008

Hi,
Thank you so much for answering my question: After Taking Propecia for 2 Years, Suddenly I’m Shedding

I have an important update. My primary care Dr. said I was most likely shedding from stress (I’ve been experiencing EXTREME stress at work and even in my personal life). The diameter of my hair feels thinner, even in the back of my head down to where my hairline is at my neck. Classic symptoms of TE, I believe. So, I had my Dr. do a DHT serum test and here are the results:

DHEA, Unconjugated 224 Normal in males is 180-1250 ng/dl.
Testosterone, Total 580 Normal is 241-827

So, since my DHT levels are on the lower side (224, probably from the propecia), is there a good chance my hair loss has been halted or greatly slowed down??? I’d appreciate your professional opinion. Thank you so much and keep up the GREAT work!!!

DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) can increase DHT (dihydrotestosterone) levels, but the DHT reflects testosterone and I would expect that the more testosterone you have, the higher the DHT levels would be. DHT levels have no significance by itself for addressing your problem and it makes no sense to me to obtain DHT blood serum levels.

While I have no doubt that one can get this test, I have to wonder why someone would want it and what it would really do for you. Regardless, I don’t run these types of tests routinely, and thus I am not knowledgeable enough to give you the information you are looking for.

Although there is a direct connection between circulating DHT levels, tissue fixation of DHT and hair loss, I do not know what constitutes an effective drop in DHT. Certainly there is no way to determine if it is working on your hair without mapping out the hair for miniaturization and looking for a reduction of miniaturized hair over time.

Doctor, this is an amazing story that I’d like you to read! Please read, and you’ll be amazed at how some clinics are misleading people into spending hundreds of dollars to cure hair loss.

I’ve had a receding hairline for the past few months, and I’m only 18 years old. So I visit a really reputed homeopathy clinic,and this is what they tell me. ‘Your hair loss is due to bad water in your locality. The water in your locality is too harsh’. Is this true? Does hard water really cause hair loss? If so,then why don’t more and more people lose their hair in my area? I ended up reading a couple of your posts on water quality and understood more.

Then,here was their second reason. ‘There is also a lot of pollution in your area,which is causing this hair loss. You need to be careful about smoke. Also,try not to smoke or inhale smoke, it causes rapid hair loss’. This startled me very much. I felt like everything in this world causes hair loss. They did no miniaturization or pull-tests on me,just directly gave me reasons why I was losing hair-without first checking if I actually was losing or not.

They charged me $100 for this non-sensical stuff.

Now here were the solutions. They prescribed a weird shampoo which was going to combat all my hair loss woes. The shampoo claimed to restore any man’s “crowning glory” within 30 days. This shampoo cost $60. Secondly, they told me to use some strange-smelling oil that cost $35 for a 50 ml bottle. They then prescribed a second sitting a month from the first one.

A friend of mine went to this same ‘reputed’ clinic and told them he smoked. And immediately, they told him that smoking was causing his hair to grey at the age of 18. My friend never knew his hair was greying! And then they tell him that a lot of his hair would grey by the age of 21. They then prescribed him the same shampoo that they prescribed to me.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to them and did not buy any of those strange products. I did go to them for my second sitting (it was included in the cost of the first one). I then told them what I learnt from your blogs-like the only drug approved for hair loss was Propecia, and then asked them about tests for miniaturization and such, and they were dumb-founded. They only mentioned to me that their products were ‘herbal’ and ‘safe’,and that a lot of patients had good results with them. They then showed me before and after pictures of some patients, which looked quite fake.

I then decided to go to a ‘real’ clinic, with internationally acclaimed trichologists. And they told me that I wasn’t even losing hair after doing the tests. They said that I currently had a normal hairline, albeit matured, but it wouldn’t be wise to think that that would be the same for the rest of my life, and told me to get a test done once I turned 19 to see if I need any Finara (which is Finasteride here).

It pains me to see people get fooled this way, and those who actually spend money on the weird products sold. I did waste roughly $100 on stupid things, but well, it was educational after all!

Thanks for sharing this with us. As I have said over and over again, let the buyer beware! This is an important lesson you have learned, and I hope your story helps others. Some people, however, need to learn the same lessons on their own.