June 13 2012, 12:49 pm PT | Posted in: Diseases + Drugs
Hi doctor Rassman,I’m a 30 year old man from Belgium. For about 2 years I am following your blog daily. Thanks for this blog, because it reduced my concerns dramatically!
To keep my story short, I have severe depression and anxiety since January 2009. A couple of months after the start of my disease in 2009, I lost my hair density with a more see through scalp as result. Since then I lost more than 100 hairs daily, which made my disease worse. I lost everything, including my wife.
Now 3.5 years later I still have good coverage and I still can style my hair in such a way that people think that I have zero hairloss. I am using proscar 1.25 mg for about a year now, and the hairs I am losing in the shower are much thicker than they used to be. However, I am still depressed and obsessed with my hair, I really don’t know what to do. Please help me doctor Rassman
I visited your country about a year ago and love the place and its people.
You need to get a doctor to explore if this drug is impacting your state of mind (a potential very rare side effect). If I were your doctor, we would get to know each other… but I can not manage you from this distance. You need to get your depression under control, which may or may not be related to finasteride, since you said you had severe depression before starting the drug.
you’re not the only one to feel this way. IT IS VERY COMMON for androgenetic diseases to cause despair….this is more true if you are 1)shorter than the average male height, or 2) other factors. It is not necessarily psychiatric. Very few psychiatric medications are capable to assist this “PTSD-like” condition caused by hair loss. Hair loss can be disfiguring. Disfigurement causes PTSD, which is normal…it is not depression…but PTSD. There is truly a stigma and discrimination against people with hair loss. Fight the hair loss hard. Do not give up, even though it may take years to win. Follow the science. Follow what is proven. It may take several expert-performed surgeries to restore hair to the teenage level we all need for our current aesthetic standards. I have suffered majorly because of hair loss and one of my instructors just lost their job today in what I view as discrimination. They kept someone with no hair loss who has a DWI charge on, while firing my instructor who has a clean record, but hairloss. YOU ARE RIGHT TO BE ANXIOUS. HAIR LOSS IS A TRUE KILLER THAT ONLY US SUFFERERS REALIZE. PSYCHOTHERAPY CAN ONLY HELP IF YOU HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING PHYSICIAN WHO WILL WORK WITH YOU IN PRIVATE AND YOU ARE PRESCRIBED MDMA OR OTHER LIKE EXPERIMENTAL PTSD MEDICINES.
@alex, your a tool! Hair loss happens you’ll get over it. Spend the money in something fun!