Just When You Think Life Is Amazing.....

by Alex
(New York, NY, USA)

I never had a good roll of the genetic dice. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder at eighteen. I had been in therapy since I was a child. To compound that, I've been treated for high blood pressure since I was about nineteen. But none of these conditions made me feel any less than anyone else. Hair loss has caused me to feel worthless and become a complete wreck. Here's my story....

2010 was shaping up to be the best year of my life. I had been accepted to a Master's program at a local university for library science. I was tutoring part-time. And I began dating the most amazing woman I've ever known. Everything was perfect. Sure, I was still living at home at 26, but I was making some money, getting my degree, and finally enjoying a successful relationship. And then it all came crashing down. I don't know exactly what started the crash. At the end of June, I signed up for two graduate classes for the summer semester. It was stressful. One of the classes was a literature class and I was constantly studying and working on my papers. However, I still made time to see my girlfriend. Everything seemed to be going fine, albeit the stress level was high from school.

Then, on July 24th, I went over my girlfriend's house. She sat me down on the couch and told me she thought she was pregnant. I was completely shocked. We ended up heading to the local Rite Aid pharmacy to pick up a pregnancy test. I sat on her bed, while she went into the bathroom and took the test. The result was negative. I was relieved. My life wasn't dramatically altered...or so I thought.

Around the same time as the pregnancy scare, I switched to a new blood pressure medication. It was a beta blocker. A few days later, on July 26th, I began freaking out, as hairs were falling from my head. I was going bald.

I went to my general practitioner and my psychiatrist, and both assumed that the reaction was just from the medication. I switched back to my old blood pressure pill. Still, hair kept falling off my head.

A week or two later, I was over at my girlfriend's brother's house. We were playing football. As I exercised, I noticed at least 20 hairs came out as I sweated under the August sun. I realized that when I sweat, I'd lose hairs in the frontal hairline, so I stopped exercising. I barely even left the house.


The hair loss seemed to be slowing down in August, while I avoided exercise or heat, until the school year started on August 26. I signed up for 4 classes. I quickly had to drop one. One day when taking the subway back from home a big clump of hair fell out. I was mortified. I started missing classes. I made an appointment with a dermatologist but it was too long a wait before the appointment. I called my sister's dermatologist (she has acne) and immediately made an appointment. It couldn't have come any sooner, as the night before the appointment, my scalp looked relatively fine, despite the hair loss, but upon waking that day, long strands of hair were falling out of my hairline and my hairline was completely wrecked.

The doctor proscribed Rogaine, Extina, and Clobetasol. He was unsure of the condition, but gave me steroid injections into my scalp. The thinning slowed down noticeably afterwards. I went back to him 9 days later after I noticed a little bit more thinning. He injected me with more shots. The hair seemed to be growing in thick. My hairline was fine. After about two weeks or so, the hair started to thin. I never felt my hair as thin as this before. Also, strands kept falling out. And not just in the hairline. Hair is falling out diffusely from along my side and back as well as the front and center. The doctor ran an autoimmune test and the tests came back normal. He asked if I wanted to test my scalp, but I refused because I was afraid of scarring. The next week I came back and he said it was likely male pattern baldness.

Right now I continue to take the medicines he proscribed. I went to my psychiatrist today and though my hair feels thin, the doctor (who has male pattern baldness) says my hair looks fine. I plan to start taking Inhairit pills, shampoo, and conditioner to add to it. Also, I've started taking Valium to calm my nerves so I can function in daily life.

I'm just afraid that I'll lose everything along with my hair. My overemphasis on hair loss has caused some tension with my girlfriend. I try not to talk about it, but it's always present in my mind. I cannot concentrate in school. I plan to take the next semester off. I just hope I can get my life together again.