HELP!

[absconders]

i'm an 18 y/o male

in the past 2 weeks i have literally gone from never even thinking about the possibility of hair loss to absolutely obsessing. i've had mild depression for the past year (probably more) and this is making it 10000x worse. for hours a day i'm on these forums. searching the same freaking things on google and yahoo answers all the time: "normal amount of hair to lose in shower", "is this a receding hairline", "normal amount of hair to find on pillow in morning", "how to identify miniaturized hairs", etc etc etc...i have finals coming up and this BS is literally all that's on my mind.

i don't know if i'm being paranoid or if it's the real deal!! every single time i touch my hair i look at my hands to see if there's any hair there. for the past couple days i've absolutely dreaded the shower because seeing those hairs on my hands freaks me out! (i still shower every day don't worry haha.)

i seriously can't tell how severe my situation is. on one hand it might be complete paranoia, because i've gone from showering, brushing my hair, playing with my hair, with absolutely no concerns (never counting hairs or anything like that), to checking my hands, head, computer, shirt, etc all hours of the day to find stray hairs. so i dont know how many hairs i used to lose in the shower. i would never look. i would never check my desk to see if there was a hair lying there. maybe it's the same amount...

on the other hand, why would i start freaking out over this all of a sudden?? my mom and aunt recently checked to see if i was going bald (hairline, crown) and said it looked great. i got my haircut last week and my barber didn't say anything. everyone i read about says "yeah i first noticed at 20, didnt really get noticeable to others until 24...." why am i freaking out all of a sudden??

i don't look any different, my hairline doesnt look receeded, my crown looks normal, and as far as i can tell my hair doesn't feel any different, but.....

i'm pretty sure i'm in the early stages of male pattern baldness. at least tell me that it doesn't happen THIS quick......i'm not gonna go from having a beautiful full head of hair to NW4 in like a year am i?

 

[Ryukil]

This makes no sense. So you have no symptoms and you're freaking out?
Do you have OCD (no joke, I have it and it can cause you to worry about things that aren't there)?

 

[absconders]

it's not diagnosed but i probably have OCD among other things

the main symptom i'm talking about is shedding. i lose 20+ hairs in the shower and i noticed a bunch (~8) on my pillow this morning. my problem is that i'm looking for and counting them all the time. so i can't tell if my shedding is the same as it has been, or if it's gotten worse

 

[Ryukil]

It's normal to lose something like 100 - 200 hairs a day. For everyone. Hairs fall out, then more grow in.

 

[absconders]

so youd say 20-30 hairs in the shower isnt a cause for concern?

male pattern baldness runs on both sides so im going to get it eventually, i just dont know if its happening yet

 

[aj218]

I can relate to you. I first started noticing something weird when I was 18, that I was losing quite a bit of hair (around 20 hairs)in the shower and I thought it was due to stress as I had a lot of problems at uni. Also I checked online and alot of people said that a receding hairline is a real sign of male pattern baldness.

4 months later and I'm standing under a light in front of a mirror and I notice that I can see my scalp, something I had never seem before. I decided to check my hairline (it was hidden to to a fringe) and i notice that my right temple had receded.

Fast forward to now, nearly 2 years later, and I am now nearly a nw2 and my hair has diffused thinned.

So what I'm trying to say is that it can happen like that. However, you could also be suffering from Telogen Effluvium hence why I talked about checking my hairline. If it had never receded I would have just thought I had Telogen Effluvium.

Also this whole lose 100-200 hairs a day is kinda bs as would you not notice it everytime you take a shower. I never saw 100-200 hairs fall out when I wasn't losing hair and I would've noticed as I have always been kinda worried about hairloss as my uncle starting losing his hair when he was 20.