Rapid Norwood Progression In Female

[Bluelilac]

Did you try natural remedies?

I’ve tried rosemary oil and I also tried spearmint tea, which I still drink from time to time. It’s supposed to help raise SHBG. My SHBG is typically already high to begin with, but I notice when I drink it daily my SHBG goes up more than my usual baseline and my free T comes down more as the SHBG binds it. My free T isn’t high, but sometimes it’s in the middle of the range and I figure I’m sensitive to it so it’s better to keep it as low as possible within the healthy lab range.

 

[hoggle]

I either had some type of mild pcos all of my life and it’s just hitting that tipping point where the symptoms are now becoming obvious after so much exposure to screwed up hormones or something triggered my hormones to go whacky. About three years back I had elevated total testosterone on multiple occasions. Like upper 70s out of a range topping at 45, but no one told me anything about it. Now it’s in range and my free T has never tested out of range, but my total T likes to bounce around and even though endos tell me it’s the free that affects your tissues, I’m always symptomatic when my total T is elevated. My last test in May showed my total T was at the top of the range at 45, but SHBG was 118 which was high end normal and free T was up from 1.4 to 2.8, which I swear I am more symptomatic when my free T starts to stray closer to the top of the range.

Sorry for the long post, but the reason women like me with “lean pcos” often go so long undiagnosed and end up developing things like adenomyosis which can develop from unbalanced hormones, and end up shockingly with diabetes is because not many people/drs are educated on pcos and they don’t realize that you don’t have the be obese or excessively hairy to have it. Everyone metabolizes hormones differently and the level of sensitivity to androgens varies from person to person. Genetics also plays a role in how you present with pcos. It’s exactly why some people bald and some people don’t. Same even goes for something like Cushing’s Disease/Syndrome. One of the pituitary/Cushing’s specialists I used to see told me she has had patients who don’t look cushingoid at all, it all depends on how your body metabolizes cortisol.

I’ll post some pics of my hair, but it’s getting to the point where it’s embarassing to post now, honestly. Lol

I have so many thoughts on this thread it's overwhelming but YES, i am lean with insulin resistance and i've had it all my life. i'd argue type 2 diabetes is genetic and being overweight is a symptom of it not the cause. nobody would've ever guess i had IR because growing up i was always 5'8 115-120 lbs. but i'd argue i was skinny "fat"...but i'd never tell doctors this and i behaved like someone with IR, addicted to drinking cokes. they'd call me anorexic so my IR is just something i keep to myself. i also have mysterious numb hands which i believe is undx'd small fiber neuropathy...i'm too poor to get a biopsy for this but it's directly associated with IR.

your shbg free t ratios are interesting to me because a few years ago, when I first realized i had IR (stressed out) and not eating enough calories because i was trying to cut out gluten/carbs, my total testosterone was at the upper part of the range but my free t was .2 and i couldn't figure this out! then after a lot of researched i deduced my SHBG was probably high. i'm less stressed out, eating more, and this time my total testosterone was at 47% of the range (definitely down)and my free t went up to .8...which is an improvement, ironically, it might mean i have more dht and if i'm sensitive to it, then yeah this is bad.

there's estrogen dominance pcos. assuming all pcos is high testosterone is just reductionist imo. i'm reading laura briden's period repair manual and there's literally two sections that apply to your situation: INSULIN RESISTANT PCOS and ADRENAL PCOS

hope you don't take offense to this but i personally have always considered myself metabolically "deranged"..somewhere early on i turned on a bunch of bad epigenetic switches and now they're attacking my hair. which in my 20s was so thick i got it thinned with a razor!!

 

[hoggle]

@Bluelilac your temples look like mine, i see the minituarized hairs...i have those too
your bangs cover a lot, i wish i could pull off bangs. i have wavy pubic hairs and it would look awful
i wonder if just assuming miniaturized hairs = high dht or sensitivity to dht, i wonder if that's incorrect also..hormones are incredibly complicated, especially in women. postpartum women fascinate me. are they suffering from fphl or just Telogen Effluvium? they don't get miniaturized hairs right..i guess just bald spots?? i have no idea

 

[hoggle]

I’ve tried rosemary oil and I also tried spearmint tea, which I still drink from time to time. It’s supposed to help raise SHBG. My SHBG is typically already high to begin with, but I notice when I drink it daily my SHBG goes up more than my usual baseline and my free T comes down more as the SHBG binds it. My free T isn’t high, but sometimes it’s in the middle of the range and I figure I’m sensitive to it so it’s better to keep it as low as possible within the healthy lab range.

this is why i'm considering topical finasteride but i don't want my estrogen to go up. argh.

IMO you need to focus on getting your cortisol down and prolactin. having high coritsol all day is very unusual.

 

[hoggle]

i googled randomly..like postpartum hair loss.


is that temporary exposure to "high" dht..sensitivity to dht? *shrug*
kind of highly doubt it all grew back

https://www.thispostpartumlife.com/blog/2019/2/17/hair-loss-this-postpartum-body

 

[Bluelilac]

@hoggle Yeah, when I was first told I had PCOS I went through all those sites too..Laura Briden, etc. but honestly, I'm not big on the holistic treatments of PCOS...they simply don't work in my case. It's strange because mine is both atypical and unique but also sort of classic in the sense that I have the IR and diabetic issues. I gave thought to adrenal pcos before too, but my dheas has never been out of range. It does shoot up when my cortisol is high, but that is normal and to be expected, but it still never falls out of range. my DHEA is always too low however, but I am too scared to supplement DHEA as it is a precursor hormone and it is a toss up as to whether it will convert to testosterone or estrogen...not worth the risk.

I wish I knew how to regulate my cortisol and prolactin, but nothing I do works and doctors pretty much gave up on me. I had a CT scan of my adrenals and a pituitary MRI, I've seen two different Cushing's specialists and still get nowhere despite my chronically elevated levels in blood, urine, and salvia. I even had the DDAVP stimulation test done to make sure I didn't have a pituitary tumor that was just too small for the MRI to detect. I do sometimes feel I have subclinical Cushing's as I have to eat a very strict keto diet and keep calories low so I can be thin otherwise I blow up super easily. I was testing with high cortisol before I started keto, as I know keto can cause elevated cortisol levels..but not in my case as they were pre-exisiting. Sometimes I think the idea of "lean" pcos is a load of crap and all it is is a bunch of vain metabolically challenged pcos women who would be fat if they didn't starve themselves or stick to a strict keto diet, lol. I also consider myself metabolically deranged, and was clearly a skinny fat most of my 20s once I got a desk job and stopped doing sports, etc. Now I do weight lifting and I'm not really skinny fat anymore..but I should 100% be thinner looking and more lean than I am for my diet and exercise routine. I dealt a lot with binge eating and restrictive eating habits, I feel like that played a big part in screwing up my metabolism and endocrine functioning. I definitely didn't have hormone issues before my mid 20s. I also still have a very regular menses and confirmed ovulation through ultrasounds and cycle day 21 progesterone levels on multiple occasions. The weird thing is that my ovaries are polycystic...but multiple RE's and reg. endos confirmed I ovualte....but the follicles are supposed to be caused by NOT ovulating...ugh. The thing with hormone issues and cortisol is its a chicken or the egg scenario...did my cortisol cause me to develop eating disordered behavior or did my ED cause my excess cortisol and IR? Researcher's don't even know...

I've had my DHT tested before and it was flagged too low, so if DHT is my issue...I guess I just have a sensitivity to it as it cannot get any lower. I wonder if I would have lost hair regardless even if I never developed IR or diabetes or any other endocrine issue. Maybe it was just genetically in the cards for me? I have DUPA though, not sure if you have diffuse hair loss as well, but I have read some studies stating that DUPA may not be linked to DHT at all and may be caused by something else entirely.

My hair loss started out looking similar to postpartum hair loss as well, but mine just never improved or grew back. Women with postpartum hair loss have a mix of conditions going on, Telogen Effluvium from stress on the body and hormones balancing out, also high estrogen slows their natural hair shedding down and prolongs the anagen phase during pregnancy so they lose those extra hairs while their hair cycles shift back to normal after the birth. It's the unlucky ones who have the Telogen Effluvium and hormonal sheds unmask or speed up Androgenetic Alopecia. In women who do not have the genetic makeup for Androgenetic Alopecia, they may develop Telogen Effluvium sheds after birth, but they will not have miniaturization and permanent hair loss.

I test my E2 levels all the time, always seem to be normal. I'm around 40-50 on cycle day 3 and usually peak during ovulation around upper 200s-300s, the higher the E2 level during ovulation indicates the number of mature follicles you have...REs have told me anything over 200 is good and its about 200 per mature follicle. Then I come back down and my progesterone goes up indicating I have a corpus luteum. I know estrogen dominance can be a feature of pcos, but it isn't in my case apparently. I think my issue is mostly cortisol and prolactin...which is why I always end up back at subclinical cushing's. I also deal with other issues, like episodic severe bone and muscle pain and my endo said I describe the pain her patients describe when their cortisol drops after successful surgery to remove an ACTH secreting adenoma. I have a friend who had Cushing's before too that I met in a Cushing's support group before I found out she lives right near me, she tells me the same thing and thinks my symptoms mimic hers. Who knows. I have about a 4 page list of symptoms and they all seem to wax and wane and I've been dealing with this since my mid 20s, was painted as a hypochondriac for years...only recently are some drs and family taking me seriously since my IR and diabetes issues were diagnosed...and my undeniable hair loss now. whenever I develop the severe bone pain my body shape changes and I end up getting accused of anorexia even though my weight remains the same. It's like I become way less bloated and I look grossly skinny and I DO look anorexic...but then when the pain disappears after a week, month, months, etc. I go back to my puffy body shape...I look thin and I weight between 100-105 lbs at 5'0 but I don't look as skinny as I think I should look for what I eat and my weight/size...it's like my body retains fluid and it's difficult for me to build muscle...obviously due to the cortisol. If I tell doctors about my body shape changes they just accuse me of having BDD or an ED, but everyone else notices it even the doctors I see notice because I look markedly different and it happens very fast. It's very strange, but my theory is that the pain happens when my cortisol plummets and then I'm able to eat like a normal person and not gain weight easily...when my cortisol is high I have less pain, but I have to eat very little to avoid putting on weight. My BMR was recently tested and is only 1075! I think when my cortisol drops and my body morphs, that's how my body would actually look if I was a normal person with a normal endocrine system. It's basically impossible for me to have anorexia...my body will never be skinny SKINNY. Not that I want to be, but just saying...I could be dropped off on a desert island with minimal food and you can come back months later and I'll either be the same weight or fatter!

Sorry this is so long! Just feels good to talk to someone else with similar issues.

 

[Bluelilac]

@hoggle I just looked at that postpartum site and yep, looks just like my hair loss...but she said hers grew back and filled in after 6 months where mine just gets worse and has been for years now. The only thing I can hope for is that it is due my uncontrolled cortisol levels and maybe if this EVER gets sorted...it can grow back in and fill in. That woman's postpartum hair loss looks BALD on the temples and hers grew back...lots of women who had Cushing's claim they went undiagnosed for years and their hair grew back, too. Who knows!

 

[Armando Jose]

I have already tried Rx strength nizoral/ketoconazole shampoo for a year. It doesn’t work for me. I no longer shed excessively but am still balding. I also get acquired progressive kinking of the hair, which is a feature of Androgenetic Alopecia

Probaby Nizoral/ketoconazole is not good for you, more when used during months

Unfortunately women can bald in a Norwood pattern and men in a Ludwig,

I am with you

I am using scalp massage brush, rosemary oil

Do you know jojoba oil?

 

[hoggle]

@Bluelilac I know what you mean, in Laura briden's book she suggests like *gentle carbs* before bed. If you have PCOS you absolutely should not eat any carbs before bed, Good Lord. I also don't like herbal supplements. I'm big on taking magnesium though and zinc....I think think it's actually helping me but herbal concoctions seem dangerous or placebos. Jmo but if someone's fasting insulin is high after lowcarbing like they need to just go on metformin. Yeah we're similar, I don't have the personality type to let myself gain weight. I just can't do it. To prove people wrong? LOL. now when I was younger before I busted my metabolism I could eat anything and still be thin but I absolutely believe that's not the case now. to complicate things I have a connective tissue disorder which means my collagen is like Swiss cheese. Hypermobile Ehlers danlos syndrome. And people who have that like don't have any muscle. It's definitely not associated with hair loss but we have weird cortisol issues sometimes and just general autonomic dysfunction.

I got my thyroid labs back today. the dermatologist didn't order ft3 but I'm shocked at how good the rest of them look. My tsh is a 2.3 and my ft4 is at 50%. In the past my TSH has gone up to a 4.5....and my ft3 is always at the bottom of the range, subclinical hypothyroidism. I'm going to order a test for myself on Lifeextensions and if my ft3 is above the 50% range I'll freak out in a good way. That means either metformin or zinc are helping. But yeah, you understand I can't tell anyone I'm on metformin. They'll think I have an ED. Absolutely look like I do but I don't care. Part of it is having no muscle tone. I also had an intestinal parasite, giardia for like 3 years... misdiagnosed as ibs-d. I understand bloating like completely. I never recovered from that completely. To this day I have trouble wearing denim sometimes because I don't like the little amount of pressure in my stomach

this leads to my next a little story. I think I've had high cortisol a few times...years ago. It would start out with me jolting awake in bed and feeling hyper-vigilant and like extra smart feeling. And then a few seconds later I would realize my resting pulse is elevated for literally no reason (100-120). so then God forbid I try to walk around and I feel like I'm going to just pass out, like I'm not breathing properly and there's something wrong with my heart. And it didn't go away for a few days. once during this time I tested my blood sugar. I ate carbs...french bread or a small sweet potato with cheese, I can't remember anyways my blood sugar went up to 172. And it hung out at like 140-150 for hours and hours and hours. I'm pretty sure I ate the exact same thing like a month later when my heart wasn't fucked up and I didn't spike nearly as high. I also experienced really bad pseudohypoglycemia and my chronic pain went way down too but I'd much rather be able to breathe, lol. When I was younger I had like actual hypoglycemia....but then I was a dumbass and tried to gain weight because of like stupid social pressure. And I'm convinced that's when I completely busted my metabolism. I should've listened to my body. My body likes being thin...my frame is small too. i'm tall but my bones are little so it makes sense tbh.

I need to research DUPA. nobody believes me because my hair was so thick growing up but my ponytail is so much lighter than it used to be. If my ft3 is normal then that means dupa or something else is even more likely. I get regular periods, heavy but regular and ovulate blah blah.

I'm really glad you had a CT scan. because a girl I worked with whose very small also in she college had all of the symptoms of an adrenal tumor. And she literally demanded doctors scan her because they kept blowing her off. So they did a scan and they found a *tiny* tumor. not worth operating on. But she forced them to do exploratory surgery. And it turns out the tumor was much much bigger than they thought and they had to operate.

Another girl I used to talk to, she has Ehlers danlos like me. I don't remember all of her issues but I definitely remember she had insulin resistance, hers would spike really high and then go very low. She read about dhea all the time. Hers was chronically low. I just remembered she as small but had a binge eating problem when she was younger? It doesn't look like she was ever overweight though. so crazy. were you by any chance a premature..underweight baby? i wasn't but i feel like the few girls i talked to with strange health problems were.

sorry I had to use voice recognition to type this up because of the pain in my hands so it's a little bit rambly

 

[hoggle]

@Bluelilac coritsol literally causes "moon face" and "buffalo hump" so yeah, i can't imagine what it does to your body. people should understand that

 

[Bluelilac]

@Bluelilac I know what you mean, in Laura briden's book she suggests like *gentle carbs* before bed. If you have PCOS you absolutely should not eat any carbs before bed, Good Lord. I also don't like herbal supplements. I'm big on taking magnesium though and zinc....I think think it's actually helping me but herbal concoctions seem dangerous or placebos. Jmo but if someone's fasting insulin is high after lowcarbing like they need to just go on metformin. Yeah we're similar, I don't have the personality type to let myself gain weight. I just can't do it. To prove people wrong? LOL. now when I was younger before I busted my metabolism I could eat anything and still be thin but I absolutely believe that's not the case now. to complicate things I have a connective tissue disorder which means my collagen is like Swiss cheese. Hypermobile Ehlers danlos syndrome. And people who have that like don't have any muscle. It's definitely not associated with hair loss but we have weird cortisol issues sometimes and just general autonomic dysfunction.

I got my thyroid labs back today. the dermatologist didn't order ft3 but I'm shocked at how good the rest of them look. My tsh is a 2.3 and my ft4 is at 50%. In the past my TSH has gone up to a 4.5....and my ft3 is always at the bottom of the range, subclinical hypothyroidism. I'm going to order a test for myself on Lifeextensions and if my ft3 is above the 50% range I'll freak out in a good way. That means either metformin or zinc are helping. But yeah, you understand I can't tell anyone I'm on metformin. They'll think I have an ED. Absolutely look like I do but I don't care. Part of it is having no muscle tone. I also had an intestinal parasite, giardia for like 3 years... misdiagnosed as ibs-d. I understand bloating like completely. I never recovered from that completely. To this day I have trouble wearing denim sometimes because I don't like the little amount of pressure in my stomach

this leads to my next a little story. I think I've had high cortisol a few times...years ago. It would start out with me jolting awake in bed and feeling hyper-vigilant and like extra smart feeling. And then a few seconds later I would realize my resting pulse is elevated for literally no reason (100-120). so then God forbid I try to walk around and I feel like I'm going to just pass out, like I'm not breathing properly and there's something wrong with my heart. And it didn't go away for a few days. once during this time I tested my blood sugar. I ate carbs...french bread or a small sweet potato with cheese, I can't remember anyways my blood sugar went up to 172. And it hung out at like 140-150 for hours and hours and hours. I'm pretty sure I ate the exact same thing like a month later when my heart wasn't fucked up and I didn't spike nearly as high. I also experienced really bad pseudohypoglycemia and my chronic pain went way down too but I'd much rather be able to breathe, lol. When I was younger I had like actual hypoglycemia....but then I was a dumbass and tried to gain weight because of like stupid social pressure. And I'm convinced that's when I completely busted my metabolism. I should've listened to my body. My body likes being thin...my frame is small too. i'm tall but my bones are little so it makes sense tbh.

I need to research DUPA. nobody believes me because my hair was so thick growing up but my ponytail is so much lighter than it used to be. If my ft3 is normal then that means dupa or something else is even more likely. I get regular periods, heavy but regular and ovulate blah blah.

I'm really glad you had a CT scan. because a girl I worked with whose very small also in she college had all of the symptoms of an adrenal tumor. And she literally demanded doctors scan her because they kept blowing her off. So they did a scan and they found a *tiny* tumor. not worth operating on. But she forced them to do exploratory surgery. And it turns out the tumor was much much bigger than they thought and they had to operate.

Another girl I used to talk to, she has Ehlers danlos like me. I don't remember all of her issues but I definitely remember she had insulin resistance, hers would spike really high and then go very low. She read about dhea all the time. Hers was chronically low. I just remembered she as small but had a binge eating problem when she was younger? It doesn't look like she was ever overweight though. so crazy. were you by any chance a premature..underweight baby? i wasn't but i feel like the few girls i talked to with strange health problems were.

sorry I had to use voice recognition to type this up because of the pain in my hands so it's a little bit rambly

Yep! Sounds like you had an episode of high cortisol. When my sleep issues started I simply thought it was some type of sleep disorder and I was skipping stages of sleep or something. I would wake up at the same time intervals all night, so like every 2-3 hours I would be jolted awake wth tachycardia. The highest resting heart rate I ever had was 168. I was accused of being on drugs by one doctor because he couldn’t figure out why my heart rate was so rapid. I’ve had so many cardiology testa run and all normal. I went through a horrible bout of hypervigilance, literally the worst anxiety I’ve ever experienced. It’s greatly improved since I changed my diet so I believe it was a mix of my high cortisol and hypoglycemia attacks, which are known to cause panic attacks and anxiety and cold sweats. I also get the diabetic level blood sugars seemingly only when my cortisol is high. My cortisol is high most of the time so I just stick to keto but there have been many times I’ve tested myself after experimenting on days I feel my cortisol is normal or low and I can eat loads of sugar and white carbs and have perfect blood sugar levels never spiking past 120.

I’ve read about EDS before. I actually wondered if I had it in the last because I have stretchy skin, bruise easily, thin kind of translucent skin (but I’m pale), joint pains, I was convinced my skin was losing collagen because suddenly it just got all thin and wrinkly and crepey but I know now that excess cortisol will cause that. I don’t have the double jointed symptoms though. I think it was mostly my weird stretchy skin that made me think it was a possibility back when I was trying to figure out what was causing a lot of my issues. I’ve met some women in a Cushing's group who actually have EDS and that was the cause behind their elevated cortisol, I believe they said.

I used to have really nice thick hair too, it only started getting thinner and shedding when I developed all these health issues and started feeling sick. I felt sick for a long time before any doctor was able to find something abnormal. I used to think I was going through menopause early because of the mood swings, hot flashes, low sex drive, hair thinning, fatigue, etc.

I wasn’t a premature baby, I was normal weight and was always around a normal weight my whole life, which is only because when this all started I began to gain weight easily so that’s how I developed my eating disordered behaviors, to keep myself in check and not put on weight. My weight fluctuates rapidly if I don’t do low carb, in the past before I had any knowledge of my hormone issues I would easily gain 20 lbs then lose it by restricting. And the weight gain would only come on from eating a normal amount of calories. I simply can’t eat like a normal woman. I refuse to ever come off keto because if I’m going to be bald I better be able to maintain my 100 lb figure! Lol

Do you think your EDS could possibly be triggering hair loss by throwing off hormones? Like with cortisol? Or causing inflammation?

I don’t know what to do with my hair at this point. I guess I’ll give the oral minoxidil I have a try. I was worried about it causing a shed as I don’t have much hair left to lose and if I have a dread shed I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep using hair extensions, I might not have enough hair to hide them after another shed. But I feel like I have to try it because it’s not getting any better regardless. I found some good wig salons in my area, I’m in Brooklyn so there’s a lot of Jewish neighborhoods and they actually have amazing wigs. I’m going to check out Dini Wigs. They look amazing and I would never ever think they were wigs, but they’re insanely expensive, $3,000-$10,000! A lot of women in some forums I checked out said that theirs lasted from 6-12 years with touch ups here and there to add more hair, etc. I think it’s probably worth it and if my hair loss keeps progressing I’m just going to have one made, obviously not the $10,000 one but I could probably swing for the 3k-4k. I really hope it doesn’t come to it but I have to say I feel better after seeing these wigs, I hate most wigs, I’m super picky and I love my real hair. I def. would need a custom wig so I could mimic my bio hair when it was at its peak.

 

[hoggle]

i want to kill someone when my hr is 140+...so at 168, i can't imagine. having tachycardia that doesn't go away makes me feel completely insane. i have POTS too...so i spike up but then it normally comes back down. i've heard about cushing and eds before! i forgot. that would be absolutely horrible. i have severe pain, like super super bad in my upper body, but i wear huge pjs and crawl in bed things calm down (except for my arms/hands they're always pinched and numb). i'm in too much pain to wear wigs bc of my neck..it's too hard to explain. it'd be cool if i could shave my head and look like natalie portman but that is not the case, lol.
,
is your blood pressure elevated? would minoxidil help with that or make it less stable, i have no idea.

OMG, that's so funny. up until my recent labs i literally said i had post menopausal hair..that's how it feels, the texture too is just so shitty. i can't hide the texture either, ykwim? toppik has been okay for my frontal hairline but i still have pubic hairs. LOL yes...i feel the same way, i gotta stay slim. my hair made me so feminine. it's auburn fwiw. like my entire identity growing up. oh well.

in ny i bet they have a shitload of NICE wigs, i'm looking at dini's instagram account https://www.instagram.com/diniwigs/... i think on sites like ig, they should make wearing wigs less shameful..and hair loss in general. i've seen a few women talking openly about their toppers. it's cool. i wish i saved my peak hair to make a wig, jk. i guess it would've expired by now. im nervous seeing toppers taken on and off...it seems like they'd pull out miniaturized hairs. https://www.instagram.com/p/ByI7373hLLu/ yes plz. but i'm like you..i'd be soooooooooooo picky though. my hair is like a unique color. id' have to match it like perfectly.

it's crazy to be in as much pain as i'm in and i technically don't have inflammation i guess?? my hs-crp is .3...that's like a general inflammation marker i've had autoimmune testing that comes back negative but i treat my body like i have an autoimmune disease or the pain shoots way way up. i'm in atlanta though, i feel like if i lived up north i wouldve seen better doctors, more scans, etc.

 

[Armando Jose]

I should've listened to my body

Good advice

BTW common har loss is a partened issue, diferent from difusse hais loss. The key question would be, why X factor only affect at certains hairs in scalp?

 

[Mandar kumthekar]

Be

Good advice

BTW common har loss is a partened issue, diferent from difusse hais loss. The key question would be, why X factor only affect at certains hairs in scalp?

Cause hairs on the top have more DHT receptors to begin with apart from that all hairs are same genetically. Given enough time I sure bald men would loose every hair.

 

[Mushu]

Wow, sorry to hear of your troubles. Female hair loss is truly still a enigma. Curious what do you do to try to lower your cortisol? I too believe cortisol plays a big part. But I don't think you should stop at reducing cortisol(that would put you in a neutral state). You should try to do things that give you feelings of euphoria and relaxation as often as you can. Whatever that may be for you.

Cushings. I would have thought they just had a chubby face. As if checking out hairlines is not bad enough, now this is going to pop into my mind if someone has a fat face.


You said your shedding has gone on for years? Do you have pics before or pictures showing the timeline of the changes for comparison? You probably are also experiencing telogen effluvium in conjunction with some receding. I don't see your hair getting that kinky look, which is good. Your hair loss definitely is more pattern like as opposed to normal thinning as we age. I don't know your age, but you seem fairly young. I'm not a fan of minoxidil at all unless it's super aggressive.

You're already on top of things as far as tests,etc. I hope you figure this out.

 

[hoggle]

do you guys have like weird shorter hairs at the front of your scalp? i know it's hard to tell probably bc your hair isn't long..

i wonder if this is from dumping minoxidil on my head? they don't feel miniaturized..but maybe they are in the super early stages. my derm said they looked broken off

http://www.issam.ch/freetesto.htm


is a cool calculator

 

[Bluelilac]

Wow, sorry to hear of your troubles. Female hair loss is truly still a enigma. Curious what do you do to try to lower your cortisol? I too believe cortisol plays a big part. But I don't think you should stop at reducing cortisol(that would put you in a neutral state). You should try to do things that give you feelings of euphoria and relaxation as often as you can. Whatever that may be for you.

Cushings. I would have thought they just had a chubby face. As if checking out hairlines is not bad enough, now this is going to pop into my mind if someone has a fat face.


You said your shedding has gone on for years? Do you have pics before or pictures showing the timeline of the changes for comparison? You probably are also experiencing telogen effluvium in conjunction with some receding. I don't see your hair getting that kinky look, which is good. Your hair loss definitely is more pattern like as opposed to normal thinning as we age. I don't know your age, but you seem fairly young. I'm not a fan of minoxidil at all unless it's super aggressive.

You're already on top of things as far as tests,etc. I hope you figure this out.

I’ve tried many things to lower my cortisol but honestly nothing has truly worked. I’ve taken months off from my job, reduced my hours/work from home, bi-weekly massages, ashwaghanda, meditation, psych treatment, diet changes, lower intensity exercise, etc. etc. I just feel like my HPA axis is too messed up to be repaired.

Cushing’s causes a lot of symptoms and I would imagine so does hypercortisolemia regardless of the source, tumor or no tumor. Hair loss, excess body hair, muscle pain, bone pain, clavicle fat pads, moon face, diabetes, insulin resistance, facial plethora, thin skin, melasma, etc. Accoridng to one Cushing’s specialist, her patients tend to lose their frontal hair the most. Strange thing is many women report their hair grows back after curing their Cushing’s, but I believe those women strictly had Telogen Effluvium, no Androgenetic Alopecia. I think if I could get my cortisol under control my hair wouldn’t shed and maybe would thicken up a bit, but I doubt my temples could fill back in. They’re pretty bald and all that’s left are those colorless teeny tiny vellus hairs. I for sure need to work on my mental health, I have a lot of depression and already struggled with ocd and body dysmorphic disorder so that puts a lot of stress on me. It’s a chicken or the egg scenario really, did my ocd and anxiety and depression cause my high cortisol or did my high cortisol cause my mental health issues?

I was diagnosed with Telogen Effluvium then CTE along with Androgenetic Alopecia. My shedding always stops and then I’m good for months but then it’ll randomly kick up again. Seems to correlate with my hormones though as it seems the shedding takes off during my luteal phase while I’m PMSing.

I actually do have some kinky hair, that Acquired Progressive Kinking. They look like pubes lol. I can find them dispersed throughout my entire scalp. Some of them are very thick and super dark, almost black. They’re weird. I’m assuming it’s dht squashing my hair follicle so my hair is growing out all kinked and weird. Or at least according to Dr. Jeff Donovan that is the case.

I’m not old but I’m not young either lol, I’ll be 32 soon. When this first started it was pretty mild but I knew I was shedding more than normal but my sides were thinning in front of my ear and that was it, it didn’t match male or female pattern hair loss then and I felt super sick so I always assumed maybe it was a thyroid issue or something. Obviously it wasn’t. The sides thinning started in 2016, maybe 2015. The temporal recession didn’t start until March 2018 at the same time my heavy Telogen Effluvium really kicked in. That died off in August 2018. It’s been fairly stable since with mild sheds here and there but my thinning keeps worsening and I keep receding at the temples and sides. My nape is also receding and my hair thinned everywhere, back is all thinned out and my top is starting to thin now. My front is developing a balding area too, like dead center of my forehead. It’s crazy how fast it all started but I must have been thinning for years and didn’t realize.

I don’t have any old photos of my hairline. The problem is I always wore bangs my whole life so all old photos don’t look much different as you can’t see my hairline. And I never took pics of my hairline as I was never worried I was balding. I didn’t start taking photos until I realized my temples were receding.

Do you have elevated cortisol levels?

 

[Bluelilac]

do you guys have like weird shorter hairs at the front of your scalp? i know it's hard to tell probably bc your hair isn't long..

i wonder if this is from dumping minoxidil on my head? they don't feel miniaturized..but maybe they are in the super early stages. my derm said they looked broken off

http://www.issam.ch/freetesto.htm


is a cool calculator

I have those, they’re definitely miniaturized hairs. I actually lost a bunch today just scratching my head. Now I have a nice new bald spot. My hair just keeps growing back thinner and weaker and those little hairs are about the last stage before I develop vellus hairs. It’s a pattern I’ve been watching for the last year. The little hairs have no structure, they’re very weak and curl and are fluffy. And they’re very light brown and super fine whereas my normal hair color is a darker brown. Every time my hairline seems more receded, I have a new crop of those baby hairs come up.

 

[Mushu]

I’ve tried many things to lower my cortisol but honestly nothing has truly worked. I’ve taken months off from my job, reduced my hours/work from home, bi-weekly massages, ashwaghanda, meditation, psych treatment, diet changes, lower intensity exercise, etc. etc. I just feel like my HPA axis is too messed up to be repaired.

Cushing’s causes a lot of symptoms and I would imagine so does hypercortisolemia regardless of the source, tumor or no tumor. Hair loss, excess body hair, muscle pain, bone pain, clavicle fat pads, moon face, diabetes, insulin resistance, facial plethora, thin skin, melasma, etc. Accoridng to one Cushing’s specialist, her patients tend to lose their frontal hair the most. Strange thing is many women report their hair grows back after curing their Cushing’s, but I believe those women strictly had Telogen Effluvium, no Androgenetic Alopecia. I think if I could get my cortisol under control my hair wouldn’t shed and maybe would thicken up a bit, but I doubt my temples could fill back in. They’re pretty bald and all that’s left are those colorless teeny tiny vellus hairs. I for sure need to work on my mental health, I have a lot of depression and already struggled with ocd and body dysmorphic disorder so that puts a lot of stress on me. It’s a chicken or the egg scenario really, did my ocd and anxiety and depression cause my high cortisol or did my high cortisol cause my mental health issues?

I was diagnosed with Telogen Effluvium then CTE along with Androgenetic Alopecia. My shedding always stops and then I’m good for months but then it’ll randomly kick up again. Seems to correlate with my hormones though as it seems the shedding takes off during my luteal phase while I’m PMSing.

I actually do have some kinky hair, that Acquired Progressive Kinking. They look like pubes lol. I can find them dispersed throughout my entire scalp. Some of them are very thick and super dark, almost black. They’re weird. I’m assuming it’s dht squashing my hair follicle so my hair is growing out all kinked and weird. Or at least according to Dr. Jeff Donovan that is the case.

I’m not old but I’m not young either lol, I’ll be 32 soon. When this first started it was pretty mild but I knew I was shedding more than normal but my sides were thinning in front of my ear and that was it, it didn’t match male or female pattern hair loss then and I felt super sick so I always assumed maybe it was a thyroid issue or something. Obviously it wasn’t. The sides thinning started in 2016, maybe 2015. The temporal recession didn’t start until March 2018 at the same time my heavy Telogen Effluvium really kicked in. That died off in August 2018. It’s been fairly stable since with mild sheds here and there but my thinning keeps worsening and I keep receding at the temples and sides. My nape is also receding and my hair thinned everywhere, back is all thinned out and my top is starting to thin now. My front is developing a balding area too, like dead center of my forehead. It’s crazy how fast it all started but I must have been thinning for years and didn’t realize.

I don’t have any old photos of my hairline. The problem is I always wore bangs my whole life so all old photos don’t look much different as you can’t see my hairline. And I never took pics of my hairline as I was never worried I was balding. I didn’t start taking photos until I realized my temples were receding.

Do you have elevated cortisol levels?

Yes I'm sure we all do at certain times of day(not enough sleep,etc) or times in our life. Yours is chronic. Ever since I took Finasteride, it's been almost non existent, so something hormonal for me. My libido is still pretty much the same except I don't get inflammation (pimples) on my hairline or as many pimples as I used to. DHT related perhaps for me.

The things you listed in general to reduce stress is common but I can only suggest to do more of the things that make you have feelings of happiness and be consistent. Only you would know and it can't be forced. I know it's cliche and easy to say, but you're a beautiful gal so, try to think positive and relieve yourself of depression, ocd, body dismorphic order.


If I'm not mistaken the black highlight is where you're receding and it used to be the same thickness as your forelock previously. Black is your temples and red is your temple points(usually the top recedes a bit if non aggressive, mine did but has recovered some) and seems normal.

It looks quite like my receding/thinning(genetic) + telogen effluvium, but your follicles seem in better shape than mines was at the time. The reason I could tell my issues included telogen effluvium was because my hair was thin/thicker throughout my life at various points(after looking at photos through the years) but when I started taking care of my hair/health better, it was already starting to recover without Finasteride. The genetic part( reversing miniaturization) was improved by Finasteride. There's also some age thinning involved, but I've recovered quite a lot.

 

[hoggle]

I shed 225 hairs washing my hair yesterday and biopsy confirmed androgenetic alopecia, yippeee. They didn't even biopsy the worst part of my hair

I shouldn't be sad, I knew I had it. Just had to vent here

Maybe I should just jump into topical finasteride and forget about lowering my estrogen.