TE, my ongoing nightmare.

by Michael
(United States)

Hey a guy, my name is Michael and I’m currently 18 years old. My story begins almost 2 years ago at the age of 17 when I had dental surgery to remove my bicuspids and incisors (sp). After the surgery I had a very bad reaction which caused me to stop breathing and my organs began shutting down. I was on life support for 3 days in a medical induced coma, and then was sent home on heavy meds to build my body back up.

Over the next month or 2 things seemed fine, my hair was probably about 4 inches long at the time and had always been very thick and curly. About 3 months after though I started to notice it was getting thinner at the front just behind the hairline but chocked it up to the fact my hair was long now and thus would look different when styled my old way.

Sadly though this wasn't the case and when I cut my hair I got to see just how bad it was, I was horrified, never before had I had the slightest hint of thinning and now it hit me like a ton of bricks, the crown of my head just behind my hairline and all the way down the back of my head was horribly thin, the back of my head was thinning, the sides were thinning it was everywhere.
I went to the doctor and like all of you here was diagnosed with TE and told to take biotin and things would clear up after 6 months. Well 6 months went by and finally around November (month 6) things seemed to have stabilized, and then around December and January my hair started regrowing so I was so happy.

My hair got almost to the point where it was back to the way it was and then for some reason it just started all over again, same exact pattern, and it happened at the same speed, slow to start then a period of intense thinning, then slow to stop. It drove me up the wall, I had battled this for the better part of the year and now after all this it was back? I lived through it again and after around 4 to 5 months it had stopped and once again started regrowing so I was happy thinking I had gotten over it for the second time.

Well here I am, almost 2 years down the road and once again right as it was almost back to the way it was my hair has taken a turn for the worse again, and this time It seems to be as worse as the first time.(second time was less intense.) My hair is once again long about 5 inches now and it has me worried because I can see the thinning a good bit at the crown and down the back, the sides aren't as bad but they are getting there.

I don't want to cut it short because I’m so worried what it will look like, but I also don't like the fact when I style my hair in the morning I have to constantly pick 14-20 hairs out of my comb every 30 secs or wipe 8 hairs off my hand from just running my hands over my hair while styling and think cutting it would be for the better. I was diagnosed with Seboherric Dermatitis(sp?) a couple of years ago but once I cleaned my diet up a bit and started drinking more water(drink at least 6 bottles a day) it and my dandruff cleared up, I only experience it now during TE shedding periods where it gets quite intense and my scalp gets very oily.


I am at my wits end, I didn't go for my follow up at the derm's office, but I did do everything she said eventually was taking up to 5000mcg biotin 1 time a day. I haven't changed my diet, aside from totalling my car about a month and a half ago, maybe a little longer I don't remember anything significant that happened. I've been under a decent deal of stress but no more than the average person going through problems they don't really have the money to fix. I self diagnosed myself with CTE since this is the third time it’s done this, it grows back but always starts back, and my hairline doesn't move, nor does the thinning stay characteristic to any "pattern" that I’ve seen of male pattern baldness online.

This condition ruined my self esteem, especially being in most eyes, too young to suffer from hair loss. I have gotten some of that back now, moved back to my home town, got a nice new job, made lots of new friends so things were on the up and up until this and now I’m scared it'll drag me right back down and turn me into that same hermit again and I don't want that, I’ve even thought about trying Rogaine, thinking of anything that could possibly help. It would be great to hear anyone’s medical opinion or just other people’s experiences for support, and maybe even confidence if you got over this illness that seems to have had a bad part in all our lives.

P.S I had blood work done at my first derma visit about a year ago and according to my father (who could have very well been lying to keep me from stressing. And I guess I should also point out it wasn’t a Dermatologist but a Dermatologists assistant? Or Resident who hadn't quite gotten the title "Doctor" yet, not sure what to call them.) Said the doctor told him over the phone he saw nothing abnormal in the results. But I do suffer from hypertension although I didn't think that would be associated with this. I’m thinking about having more blood work done and having a test done to see if I have low iron.