Category: Hair Loss Causes

Hi Dr. Rassman,
I am a 38 year old male with recent thinning at the vertex. I’ve been training all of last year for the LA Marathon with weight and long distance running. Would all the extra testoterone from working out have an effect or speed up the process of mpb? Thank you.

I doubt your exercise and training will result in the progression of MPB, even with a slight elevation in your testosterone level. If you are genetically predisposed to lose hair, you will lose hair. Even if it has a slight effect would you do anything differently? Would you not run a marathon or not exercise and become a couch potato? Perhaps a couch potato with more hair?

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Dear Doc

After years of loyal service I found that 1/4 a pill of proscar a day has stopped working for me & I am shedding hair again.I upped the dose to 1/2 a pill proscar a day & after 4 days of use I can get an erection but am finding that it takes a very long time for me to ejaculate & when I do,the ejaculate is signifcantly reduced.I am also suffering from brain fog & hot flashes. What should I do ?

I don’t want to stop the medication because I don’t want to go bald. Any suggestions ? Would decreasing the dose to 2mg a day make a difference ?

I am really desperate for feedback. Thanks in advance.

The dosage of Propecia was arrived at because when Merck went through the FDA the 1mg dose was found to be lowest effective dose to get the desired result based on the clinical trial program that was done. That may suggest that a higher than 1 mg dose may be more effective, but that was not studied for treating hair loss.

We do know that higher doses of finasteride will increase the known side effects. A decreased ejaculate is one of those side effects. With regard to brain fog, there is nothing that I know of that will support this as a known side effect of finasteride. Be careful that you are not setting yourself up for this and obsessing too much. If you want to play around with the dosage, wait a few weeks between changes as it takes that long to change the tissue levels of the drug.

I notice that when I brush my hair, some of the hairs that come out are thin and wispy and approx 6 months old, some are normal thickness but only about 3 months old. The rest of my fallen hairs are full length and obviously time for them to fall. Does this mean anything. Thanks

You can lose up to 100 hairs or so a day. They may break off when you are brushing and that could be the cause of the different lengths of hair. If you think your hair is thinning or falling out at an alarming rate, you should have you scalp hair mapped for miniaturization.

(male)
I have lost all of the hair on the outside of my legs from the knee down. I do not have any medical conditions that should affect this. Thank you

I do not know enough about you — like your age, for starters. If you know you have nothing wrong with you, then what value can I have? I think you need to link with a good doctor and then let him/her tell you that you have no medical conditions, and/or possibly identify something that is wrong.

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Dear dr.
i am 19, and sleep only four hours a night. this has gone on for years. i also have a lot of stress. a friend told me this is why my widdows peak hairline is so drasticly receding, is this true?!

would sleeping more and stressing less do any good?!!!! Thank you soo much for your time doctor.

Some people get along just fine on 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and while that might be stressful for some, others (like me) get along on little sleep without stress.

Stress can cause hair loss. A maturing hairline also occurs in people between 19-29 years old. Look at the photos in Maturation of a Hairline — Moving From Juvenile to Mature and you will see the different between a balding and a maturing hairline. See a doctor and make sure that he/she gets your scalp mapped out for miniaturization to see just how far back the change in your scalp is occurring. If you are balding, then stress reduction and probably Propecia is a reasonable alternative.

Hi,
lately we were discussing baldness, and we ended up with a couple of unanswered questions. A lot of people lose their hair, only on top of the head, but we couldn’t find out why. A friend of mine told me that the hair on the side and the back of your head belongs to the bodyhair, and therefore you don’t lose it. Is this true?

Thanks in advance!

Most cells in our body have a ‘death’ time programmed into them. For reasons unknown, part of the hair on the scalp in about 45% of the male population may have programmed earlier death (the balding pattern seen in balding men). This patterned hair loss does not impact the hair around the sides and back of the head, the 3 inch wreath of hair we call permanent hair. Men generally do not lose hair on the sides and the back part of their scalp, because it is a genetically programmed trait not to lose the hair. This fact allows hair to be transplanted from the back and side of the head (permanent hair) to the balding areas. Furthermore, hairs on the side or the back of the female scalp are not generally considered permanent and when they have female genetic hair loss, it is usually a more diffuse type of hair loss impacting the hair all over the head. This is why most women are poor candidates for hair transplantation as they do not have this permanent wreath of hair around the sides and back of the head.

There has not been a good explanation that I’ve heard for this permanent rim. There was an interesting book I recall titled Sex, Time and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain, who had proposed a connection that might explain male patterned balding. He postulates that man’s history really goes back to tribal living when we had 150 people in a tribe (no large civilization existed at that time). He noted that 7% of men had extreme balding, and the same number of men were left-handed, color blind, and gay. He postulated that in the days when men hunted, there were left-handed spear tossers, men who could see through the camouflage of animals (color blind), men whose heads would go above the bush to spot game animals would not frighten the animals (animals knew to run from men and balding men did not look like men to these animals). The same number of men had to stay ‘back at the camp’ and protect the women (gay men). Not a bad guess, eh?

Hi
I suffer from high acidity which is virtually triggered by anything I eat. I have been loosing hair from the time I started being acidic. Can it be a contributing cause to hair loss?

I do not know of a connection between stomach acid and hair loss.