Real Talk: I Think Half The People Here Have Severe Telogen Effluvium, And The Other Half Bdd

[DoctorHouse]

Is there a name for the test? I'd ask my derm in my upcoming apt, but she seems to be a moron. I only got shafted with her because she was the first available.

Unfortunately the company that offered the test is no longer in business so I don't know how it can be tested otherwise.

 

[Moosey]

A 7 month shed is in the window where it probably is not chronic.

It's supposed to be 6 months but 7 months I think you will be fine, recover most of your hair. If you have the male pattern baldness gene a lot of the new hair shafts will be thinner.

Probably won't be what it was but not noticeable to others, just you.

And if you were shedding in the back and sides it was def Telogen Effluvium.

BTW taking Duta with a 3 year cycle or during PCT is insane overkill. Way too strong, way too many hormonal fluctuations. You probably suffered some sort of hormonal shock during PCT.

When did you start the Duta? What is your Nowood level? Did you roid the full three years without a break? What did you use? More info is needed.

I started off with 5 months on 500mg test for a kickstart, and from there on just cruised on either 150mg, or 250mg up until 3 years.
My plan was to be jacked for a long time without suffering from the side effects. It worked, somewhat. As i didnt come off, i retained all my gains from the blast and continued to grow in size slowly in this time and looked great. I could bear 150/250 mg test in every aspect, except hairloss.
Considering im very prone to hairloss, i say my hair survived quite a long time. And even after 3 years, you would have to take a closer to look to realize im even balding. I was a NW2 with early signs of male pattern baldness. Thinned out vellus hair on the hairline, nothing else really. But the baldness was slowly creeping up on me, and despite me being content with everything, i decided to give my body and my hair a break. So i did my last pin january 1st, did a strong PCT and went on dutasteride at the same time. I thought since my hairloss isnt that advanved, i could recover quickly and get back on after a year.
Welp.... the PCT and the duta completely wrecked my hair. I lost like 400 hairs everyday. I shedded 8x as much hair in those 7 months, than i did in 3 years of steroids. The shedding was so bad that i lose probably 50% of the hair i had, including sides and back. In fact, the top of my head stopped shedding after 4 months, and it was the sides and back that continued to shed until recently. I went from basically full head of hair, to "just shave it bro, its over", to make it simple.

Then a few weeks ago i noticed the shedding got reduced to an absolute minimum. Like, 90% less. And i also noticed thick, dark hairs sprouting all over my hairline (probably thanks to needling), and my entire head got a shade darker due to the density (thats the top).

Now my question: You say if i have male pattern baldness, the shedding probably damaged my hair. What about the sides and back though, including the crown? I experience zero hairloss/minituarization/male pattern baldness in these areas. During my roiding years, i lost zero density and hair there. It was only the PCT + Duta that thinned out these areas. Do you think the shedding took a toll on these areas too, despite not having male pattern baldness there? Im successfully fighting the hairloss in the front, currently. But having to take care for the rest of my head would suck big time.
I know its hard to believe that i have male pattern baldness but my crown stays intact. Its just what i observed. Even when i would cut my hair short, my crown was always dense.

Pictures:
1: During BnC. Only mild signs of thinning.
2: My hair at the worst, 5 months after duta/PCT
3: 7 months after duta/PCT. dark vellus hairs sprouting all over the hairline. Overall much denser hair.

 

[djhype]

7 months is about the course of Telogen Effluvium, I would attribute very little of your comeback to needling, time is the true healer in these instances. The fact that your hair is coming back (esp Velus) is a very good sign. Now that you are on the Duta and went through the bulk of the shedding I would stay on the Duta indefinitely unless it's causing you other sides. What makes you think you are so prone to male pattern baldness? I'd say your follicles are fairly resistant and 95% of your losses were from hormonal shock fluctuations from PCT after 3 years and the Duta. Sure you carry the male pattern baldness gene, but plenty of people would have had nothing left after 3 years. Your follicles are resistant. I'm a Nor 2 and didn't lose sh*t on my previous cycles but then I did a few fasts and hopped on Tren at about the same time during a cut and now I'm a couple months into what I believe is a shock induced shedding phase, probably from the starvation periods and overworking in the gym, which has been nowhere near the 400 hairs lost a day you suffered, probably because I only ran a relatively short cycle and didn't hop on Duta after.

I bet the sides back and the crown will have next to zero damage when it's all said and done. The front will continue to make a solid recovery too.

TBH if I was you I would have just stayed on and maybe got with a TRT Doctor. PCT after 3 years is brutal and best done under medical supervision.

If it was me I'd want to make sure my hair was mostly recovered before hopping on again (current waiting position I'm in now). In your position you should give it at least 12 months from the time of PCT before you even consider it. Probably 18. Re-access then.

 

[dralex]

Yeah I'm 40 and I still care even though I'm still rocking a pretty good good head of hair. I used to model for a high end agency and developed a pretty boy complex. The thought of going slick bald terrifies me. My woman would hate it too.

Which makes it more killer for me though because I juice and I live in the gym. I've been a bb for years and I know I've reached the point where I either go dad bod or go bald, a choice I can't say I'm crazy about. Probably makes me sound like a flake and a douche but it is what it is. Mid life crisis impending. The other options like SMP and hair systems don't exactly seem that appealing though I've seen them look good.

Not desperate enough to go on finasteride though because I think it will make matters worse and I value my dick more than my hair or my muscles.

Yeah I never wanna be slick bald/have vertex balding. Probs will have another crisis if/when that happens. Ive thought about it before but hair systems sound like way way too much maintenance and is too fake for me. SMP I don’t fully understand how it works. I have a decent amount of tattoos and sh*t doesn’t always heal how you expect. I can’t imagine how shitty that’d look if you get a blowout with SMP. Seen good results online but just like any tattoo they look better online than in person. Curious how real that sh*t actually looks in person.

If it makes you feel better I’ve been on dutasteride for over 2 years now and no issues down there. Hasn’t been super effective for my hair tho. But my lifts went up. Been lifting since 15 but finally hit double body weight bench at 175lbs.

 

[Moosey]

7 months is about the course of Telogen Effluvium, I would attribute very little of your comeback to needling, time is the true healer in these instances. The fact that your hair is coming back (esp Velus) is a very good sign. Now that you are on the Duta and went through the bulk of the shedding I would stay on the Duta indefinitely unless it's causing you other sides. What makes you think you are so prone to male pattern baldness? I'd say your follicles are fairly resistant and 95% of your losses were from hormonal shock fluctuations from PCT after 3 years and the Duta. Sure you carry the male pattern baldness gene, but plenty of people would have had nothing left after 3 years. Your follicles are resistant. I'm a Nor 2 and didn't lose sh*t on my previous cycles but then I did a few fasts and hopped on Tren at about the same time during a cut and now I'm a couple months into what I believe is a shock induced shedding phase, probably from the starvation periods and overworking in the gym, which has been nowhere near the 400 hairs lost a day you suffered, probably because I only ran a relatively short cycle and didn't hop on Duta after.

I bet the sides back and the crown will have next to zero damage when it's all said and done. The front will continue to make a solid recovery too.

TBH if I was you I would have just stayed on and maybe got with a TRT Doctor. PCT after 3 years is brutal and best done under medical supervision.

If it was me I'd want to make sure my hair was mostly recovered before hopping on again (current waiting position I'm in now). In your position you should give it at least 12 months from the time of PCT before you even consider it. Probably 18. Re-access then.

My entire plan with this BnC was to get to a decent size and maintain with low amounts of test. I continued to thinn the front part of my hair despite it. I understand 250mg isnt really a low dose when it comes to male pattern baldness, but i continued to shed and thinn even on 150mg.

I would have stayed on if i knew how much PCT/Duta would wreck my hair. I thought i would come off, go on duta and experience instant regrowth. Never thought the opposite would happen. It sucks even more because considering just how much f*****g hairs i lost, i have to wait a long time before i can get back on. Who knows, maybe my hair will never recover.
I say needling helped me alot because i saw no signs of recovery up until i started adding weekly needling. My hair density would increase just a month after starting the needling protocol. I also experienced some success with needling alone when i was BnC, but i quit for some reason.
Tren + fasting is like a death sentence to hair lol. I remember when i tried to lose 10kg of weight in a month (because i got too fat) and my hair was falling out like crazy.

Thanks for all the detailed reponses you give me

 

[Bluelilac]

I have CTE and Androgenetic Alopecia in a diffuse and Norwood pattern. My CTE definitely sped up my Androgenetic Alopecia, even unmasked it leading to an earlier age of onset. My massive acute Telogen Effluvium shed stopped a year ago, I was losing 400 hairs a day from March 2018-August 2018, then it stopped totally, but not much grew back and what did was weak and intermediate hairs and vellus hairs. During this time I still continued to thin diffusely and my hairline recede, I'm now a Norwood 3...as a woman...it's a nightmare. I still don't shed excessively, but probably more than the average person and this is because hair shedding, I believe, can be a feature of Androgenetic Alopecia depending on the pattern, that is. If you are a diffuse balder, like me, it can seem like more hair is shedding than average because as Androgenetic Alopecia progresses, your hair is spending less and less time in the anagen phase and switching over to telogen at a faster rate, so if you're losing all over it can seem like your hair is just constantly shedding, albeit not anywhere near active Telogen Effluvium levels (200-500 a day).

 

[NotInmywatch]

I have CTE and Androgenetic Alopecia in a diffuse and Norwood pattern. My CTE definitely sped up my Androgenetic Alopecia, even unmasked it leading to an earlier age of onset. My massive acute Telogen Effluvium shed stopped a year ago, I was losing 400 hairs a day from March 2018-August 2018, then it stopped totally, but not much grew back and what did was weak and intermediate hairs and vellus hairs. During this time I still continued to thin diffusely and my hairline recede, I'm now a Norwood 3...as a woman...it's a nightmare. I still don't shed excessively, but probably more than the average person and this is because hair shedding, I believe, can be a feature of Androgenetic Alopecia depending on the pattern, that is. If you are a diffuse balder, like me, it can seem like more hair is shedding than average because as Androgenetic Alopecia progresses, your hair is spending less and less time in the anagen phase and switching over to telogen at a faster rate, so if you're losing all over it can seem like your hair is just constantly shedding, albeit not anywhere near active Telogen Effluvium levels (200-500 a day).

this happened to me in a very similar fashion, CTE+Androgenetic Alopecia, and most medics do not believe it's Androgenetic Alopecia but CTE.
the tragic part is when CTE stops, you regrow but ...... only to a certain extent and with some pattern, with all the permanent damage cause by Androgenetic Alopecia.
so in conclussion, CTE or Telogen Effluvium can very well mask, accelerate or worsen Androgenetic Alopecia and be a confounding diagnostic factor.
when these two pathologies coexist the damage can be catastrophic