20 year old bald male.. from the effects of surgery

by Ross
(UK)

I'm a 20 year old male who thinks he has had Telogen effluvium in the past. When I was 15, I was a really good soccer player. I played for a professional team, and without being big headed, was clearly going to be a professional player when I was older.

In one game, I blew out my knee, and was told that I would never play again. I had an operation, and was just lucky that I could walk again. This had a big impact on my life, as soccer was so important to me, it was my life, and hopefully going to be my future career.

After my surgery, my hair declined rapidly, I started receding really bad on the frontal area of my forehead... Enough that I had comments from everyone saying that I was going bald. I believe that after a year my Telogen effluvium slowed down, but didn't stop completely. I gradually receded each year, and now I am 20 years old, nearly completely bald. I have a bald patch on the crown of my head, and I have got to the point where I have to shave my head because the hairs are so thin they barely even grown anymore! I saw a doctor when I was 17, probably a bit too late, I should have gone as soon as the rapid increase in hair loss started. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with my blood tests and recommended I use rogaine which I started using with no positive results.

I'm not going to lie and pretend that I am happy with my baldness. I always considered myself a good looking guy when I was younger. I was confident around girls, and was more than happy with the way I looked. Now I look in the mirror and think that I am ugly. I do not get many girls, and I receive a lot of friendly banter about being bald. I've learnt to laugh it off, and dish the banter back to anyone that makes fun of me, but deep down it does affect me and I wake up everyday and just wish that my hair would be what it used to be when I was 15. Everyone presumes I am at least 30 years old and I get really embarrassed about it! I could never go through with a hair transplant, too much money, and it would be so weird to randomly go back to college and suddenly have a full head of hair!


I thought I would share my story. Has anyone else suffered something similar to this after affects of surgery or a bad injury?

Editor’s Comments,

You are not alone and thank you for sharing your story with us. Hair loss can definitely wreck a person’s life but right here we can all find a place to rant and share it out.

What you need to do now is to get used to your condition for from my perspective of your story, it’s gonna be hard to get your hair back since most of it are gone.

Nevertheless be strong and if you really want hair, you can try on wigs after college where you start a new life. All the best!