Male pattern baldness
Hair loss and aging
It’s an unavoidable fact of life. As we age, we lose our hair. This has been happening since the dawn of time and, unless something remarkable happens to change the process of aging, it’s going to continue. Under normal conditions, our hair grows in a regular cycle. After resting for about three months, a new hair starts to grow. It usually grows for about three years, then rests until it is shed. This means that, every day, you can expect to see some hair fall. This is a perfectly natural event. Each new hair from the same root is slightly thinner than the hair it replaces so, over time, all hair grows thinner. Thin hair is more likely to fall out of the root.
When does balding start?
Unless something goes wrong, hair grows, is shed and regrows many times during our lives. Think of it being a continuous process of renewal. This “steady state” ends when more hair is shed than regrows. This happens when thin hair falls before its due time. There appears to be a memory system at work. The follicle or hair root only remembers to regrow if the hair falls at the end of its due time. If it falls early, there’s no regrowth unless Propecia reminds it by changing the balance of hormones in the bloodstream.
Is it usually male pattern baldness?
If you start to see a definite loss of hair at your temples and you are aged between 20 and 40, this is usually male pattern baldness. The diagnosis is made in two stages:
- looking back at your family history — there seems to be a genetic predisposition if close relatives also experience hair loss; and
- by eliminating the other possible causes including some illnesses in which hair falls out in clumps, the adverse side effects of a drug or medical treatment, poisoning by chemicals in the environment, hairstyles pulling at the roots, and so on.
What does it look like?
As the hair recedes from the temples, it begins to form a characteristic M shape. As hair is also lost from the central area of the scalp, the areas of baldness slowly join. This can create an isolated island of hair in the front central area of the head. Or the hair loss can create a bald area from the front of the head and passing over the central area and moving down towards the back.
