Category: Hair Loss Causes

A little under 2 years ago I went through a rough patch in my life and decided one of the ways to get back on track was through proper diet and exercise. I decided to become a vegetarian and began running twice a day. Over the course of 4-6 months what had originally begun as an attempt to get my mind off of my other troubles became and obsession in its own right and I essentially went on a crash diet which lasted 3-4 months. I was not particularly large to begin with but suddenly had lost 40 pounds.

A few months later I noticed the hair at the front of my head seemed to be thinning. The thinning continued to progress in a diffuse manner with no discernible pattern. My hair has been thinning for the past year and a half and, although I still have a relatively intact hairline, there doesn’t seem to be any regrowth. This has all been made worst by the fact that I recently became relatively successful in a career that puts me in the public eye.

I have done a good deal of research online and it seems that I would fit in the time-frame for telogen effluvium. Is it possible that a bout of telogen kicked off by a crash diet could last a year and a half or should I just accept that I have some sort of permanent diffuse hair loss?

I’m sure you realize this, but a crash diet is not a good idea for so many reasons. Malnutrition can impact your hair and cause thinning and hair loss. Generally, it takes about a year before you start to see some form of recovery, but in my experience most men generally do not regain everything they lost from the malnutrition and stress on the body. It’s even possible that your crash diet triggered the genetic hair loss that otherwise would’ve appeared later, but I’m just making guesses at this point.

Hello Doctor,

I have an important question about miniaturization. Is it possible to have a hairline that keeps receding pass NW2 and still show no miniaturization? Also, NW3 is considered early balding but is that only when miniaturization is present? If someone is at NW3 or NW4 with no miniaturization would Propecia be recommended or not? Also, why is it that some young adults start losing hair early?

Thanks

Miniaturization sometimes is not the forerunner for balding at the Norwood Class 3 or 4 stage, but it usually is present if looked for. The change for a Class 2 to an early 3 pattern may not have miniaturization, but the further back the pattern becomes evident, the more miniaturization will be seen.

This blog is an excellent resource; I studied it extensively and used it to decide on Propecia as a course of action 3 years ago. I have a question with respect to Propecia and nocturnal erections. You mentioned in a previous post that, “the lack of morning erections is a known problem with Propecia.” Why is Propecia associated with lower quality/quantity of nocturnal erections? I am trying to assess the safety of prolonged propecia use, as the results are excellent. Could this side effect be a fast track to ED?

Getting an erection is important if it occurs when you want it. Nocturnal or morning erections are often just part of the overhead of being a man. Now that I am in my 60s, I can look at this problem differently than when I was 15 years old when my morning erections went from the time I woke until 3pm when school let out. A morning woody is OK, annoying at times, but it is important (morning or night-time) when it is called into action by the appropriate circumstance. I don’t believe that a reduced morning or night-time spontaneous erection frequency is a problem for men of any age, providing that the plumbing works when needed.

If Propecia (finasteride) reduced the frequency of morning or nocturnal erections and at the same time reduced your penis’ erection capability, then Viagra or other such drugs may be the best way to manage that problem. I suspect that the nocturnal or morning erections will be less frequent with people on this drug, but I never did a study of this for statistical analysis nor have I seen such a study elsewhere. Many men use Viagra even when they are not taking finasteride, and I believe that erectile dysfunction (ED) is a problem for 30% of men between the ages of 30-40, and 40% for men between age 40-50, and better than 50% for men over 50 years old. So the use of Propecia does not set up a man for this eventual problem, just his aging process does.

Okay, this might sound ignorant, but I believe the only natural cure for hair loss is Estrogen. This is why a lot of women don’t lose their hair as bad as men, because they primarily carry the Estrogen hormone. So if scientists or whatever were to reverse the tables when actually dealing with Male Pattern Baldness and how Testosterone (the male hormone)converts into DHT, then it’s obvious that the male individual lacks the estrogen hormone which is a key factor of healthy hair growth.

For instance, if a man were to get castrated, he will grow a full head of hair because of the fact that his male reproductive organs were cut off. And having a penis and testicals is a key factor in producing testosterone in men, thus having less estrogen in their systems.

Yeah, I know this might sound ridiculous, however, I think that a man who suffers from MPB should take estrogen injections to the scalp in hopes that it will wake up his dead hair follicles and produce new ones, thus, have a full head of healthy hair. What do you think?

Oh, and I enjoy the blog…Much success and God bless…

You are partly right. Estrogen does protect against hair loss in women, but not in men who have much higher testosterone levels. More testosterone means more DHT and for male genetically impacted hair follicles, that is death to some of the hair in the pattern of balding. Having the testicles removed will save you from more hair loss, and although you can keep your penis (as that is not part of the hair loss formulae), I wouldn’t recommend this route.

My husband has high blood pressure and he for some reason he is loseing the hair on his leg’s could that have anything to do with his blood pressure? or is the loss of the hair on his legs from something else?

If he is taking medication for his high blood pressure, that is known to cause hair loss in some individuals, but I am at a loss to explain the hair loss on this legs as an isolated finding.