Category: Drugs (Cause Hair Loss)

Hello, I am 24 years old, around a year and half ago I noticed a lot more hair coming out when I combed and in the shower drain. Prior to that and pretty much up till now my lifestyle was poor: gained weight, bad diet, no exercise, smoking marijuana, bad sleep… Also I was dealing with depression (and still am in some ways), took Wellbutrin, a common anti-depressant, for a little bit, but stopped when I noticed my hair thinning fearing that it was the cause. Things are better now and I am getting back in shape, gradually and getting my life back together. My hair is nowhere near as thick as it used to be, so my question is: Will living a healthier lifestyle now get my hair to the way it was at all, or are the hair follicles just dead and this is as thick as it will ever be? Thank you very much for your time.

Often, men with genetic hair loss will accelerate it when they live the lifestyle you’ve described above. The drug Wellbutrin does have hair loss as a side effect. Living healthier is clearly better, but if you are undergoing aggressive dieting, it will not help your hair loss as that is another cause of hair loss. Eating a healthy diet and consistency on that diet is the key. Get a good hair doctor and find out if you have genetic hair loss, get a diagnostic mapping of your scalp for miniaturization to confirm if it is actually male patterned balding and then being smarter you can decide what, if anything, you need to do.

Dear Dr. Rassman

I am 33 and suffered from depression and anxiety attacks over a period of years and took numerous antidepressants including Zoloft and Surmontil. In addition I took sedatives such as Xanax and Temesta. During that time I did not notice any hairloss, even though I experienced a huge amount of stress. I am on the way to recovery now and stopped taking the antidepressants over 6 months ago and am weaning myself off the Xanax. For the last 6 months I have been experiencing mild hair loss, especially noticeable on the front hairline. Gaps are appearing in the hairline, which was normally full. I wash my hair about 4 times a week and comb my hair when washing it. In total I notice about 20-30 hairs on my hands and comb every time, which I never did before. I have no family history on either side of baldness. I have the following questions:

1) Is it possible that I could be experience temporary hair loss as a result of a history of using antidepressants and huge stress, and am having something of a delayed reaction? If so when can I expect hair to start growing back, if at all?

2) Does hair generally become thinner and recede in any case with age?

3) How can the loss of 50-100 hairs a day be normal? It seems like such a huge amount. Even given that new hairs are growing, that is around 30,000 hairs a year.

Thanks for any advice.

Kind Regards

Stress and antidepressent medications can cause hair loss. In some people, the hair shafts become finer (rather than coarser) and develop less densities of the hairs themselves with age. Most people lose about 100 hairs per day and they grow back about the same number of hairs each day.

I am a 33 year old male and am convinced that I am losing my hair at the front of my head. I have thick hair, but it is certainly thinner, i.e. I seem to have less hairs per square cm. I can also see my scalp at the front, which I could not around 1 year ago. When I comb my hair, or wash it I notice hair in my hands or in the comb. I would say that the number of hairs is around 5 or 6. This is also something pretty new to me. What I would like to know is, am i going bald and how can I determine the rate? Also I take Xanax in small doses and what like to know if this has an effect. Would Rogaine help for frontal hair loss?Finally, how long should I wait before I have a hair transplant. I don’t want to go bald before I do. Thanks.

Xanax can cause hair loss, but I would think that if you are thinner in the frontal area, then you may be having genetic male patterned hair loss. As I have said many times in this blog, a diagnosis includes an examination for miniaturization, which would be evaluated throughout the head to determine what your genetic pattern might be. At 33 years old, your pattern should be evident when your scalp hair is mapped out. I am ingorning your 6 hairs per day loss as that is low and probably a wrong estimate, but the thinning of the hair in the front is more of a concern for me. If you have male pattern balding, the hair in the front will be heavily miniaturized and will show up nicely on magnification imaging. If that is the correct assessment, then Propecia may help slow or stop the hair loss.