Losing hair is a normal occurrence for men but many guys wonder:
Am I going bald if I can see my scalp when I look at myself in the mirror?
Hair loss is something most men will face in their life especially as they age. But it’s also normal for men and humans in general to lose hair from their head on a daily and regular basis. So losing your hair isn’t necessarily the same as going bald.
Hair also grows in cycles and is replaced when it falls out. When hair doesn’t get replaced as quickly as it falls out, it leads to baldness and more specifically male pattern baldness in men.
There are a number of reasons why men go bald and different types of hair loss, too. Let’s look at the different scenarios.
Are You Losing Your Hair Or Going Bald?
During the Exogen Phase (shedding phase) of the hair growth cycle, hair falls out at the end of its lifespan and is typically replaced by new hair over time.
The Exogen phase is the final phase where the hair falls out having reached the end of its life. It is not unusual for 50-150 hairs to fall out per day for the average man in this phase. Some men can lose up to 200 hairs per day which is a concern as this is what leads to the thinning of hair and eventually baldness.
Hair Growth Cycle for Men
So it’s normal and expected that you will “lose” hair on a regular basis. The question is whether your hair loss is permanent, where your hair falls out faster than new hair grows back to replace it. This is what leads to baldness. Some hair follicles stop producing new hair and over time, hair thinning occurs, leading to baldness.
When Does Male Pattern Baldness Start?
First off, what is classic male pattern baldness?
Hair is lost in a well-defined pattern, beginning above both temples. Over time, the hairline recedes to form a characteristic “M” shape. Hair also thins at the crown (near the top of the head), often progressing to partial or complete baldness.
NIH description of male pattern baldness medically known as Androgenetic alopecia
Male pattern baldness can start as early as the late teens or early 20s. For many males, the balding may not noticeably start until their 30s. By their 50s, over 50% of men will experience male pattern baldness of some kind. So it’s very common and it’s likely you will experience it at some point.
For many men, the questions then become whether to do something about hair loss and if so, what and when specifically?
Am I Going Bald If I Can See My Scalp?
This is how I first noticed I was going bald. I remember being in first year university at age 19. I’d washed my hair and it was still wet which has the effect of making it look thinner. The hair clumps together and may make your scalp visible, leading you to believe you’re going bald. I noticed that the hair on my crown area (top of the head) appeared to be thinning.
But for me, when my hair was dry and I looked at myself head on in the mirror, I could still clearly see that the hair on top of my forehead area where the hairline begins was clearly thinning. I turned sideways and could see through the remaining hair on my scalp. That was the first time I knew that I was going bald.
Now this was back in 1989 so there was no Internet for me to consult. I simply believed what I read about hair loss and hoped that what I saw in the mirror was temporary.
Hair Loss Rumors and Facts
I believed many of the rumors and myths at the time regarding hair loss. I considered a number of different things:
That my hair loss might be due to stress. I was finding university to be somewhat challenging and I was living away from the home for the first time. I wondered if my hair loss was temporary and would reverse?
The Truth: While stress can lead to temporary and reversible hair loss, it’s not the main reason for permanent hair loss.
I had really thick hair growing up. I remember my dad – who also had male pattern baldness from a young age – telling me when I was younger that I had very thick hair and wouldn’t go bald like him. Well, he was wrong unfortunately. I went from having very thick hair to thinning hair by my early 20s. With hindsight, my hair loss came quite quickly and I didn’t even notice it until the day I looked closely in the mirror.
The Truth: You might have thick hair early in life but there is no guarantee it will last. There are a number of reasons why baldness occurs, too.
You get your hair from your mother. Growing up I’d been led to believe that you get your hair from one side of your family, namely your mom. My mom has a full head of hair and it’s pretty thick so I’d been led to believe that I’d be ok hairwise since you get your hair from the female side of your family. No such luck.
The Truth: Hair does come from genetics but the truth is that you get your hair genes from both sides of your family. And therefore your hair loss genes can come from both your mom and your dad.
So we know that hair growth and hair loss come from genetics but in the bigger picture, doctors are still trying to fully understand what this means. This is why even today we can only reactively deal with hair loss rather than proactively treat the symptoms early on before it’s a problem.
My Hair Loss Experience
As mentioned above, I first noticed my thinning hair when I was 19. So for me, the hair loss was noticeable quite early considering what we just discussed above. Around that time, I had already noticed a small number of guys I went to school with who had thinning hair worse than me but were the same age.
I also saw a few balding guys who were slightly older than me by a few years. I assumed that their situation was what I might have to look forward to.
I can still remember the exact time it dawned on me, looking into the mirror in my university dorm room, and noticing that I had thinning hair.
In some respects it was similar to when my eyesight started getting bad and I didn’t immediately notice that I needed glasses. My eyesight slowly deteriorated and it wasn’t until one day at school when I had trouble reading the blackboard that it hit me. My friend handed me his glasses and I tried them on.
Holy smokes!
I couldn’t believe the difference. Suddenly everything seemed clear for the first time in awhile. My eyesight had slowly gotten worse gradually until one day it when it finally became noticeable, albeit with help of glasses borrowed from a friend.
My hair loss was the same. Even though I saw myself in the mirror while shaving everyday, I didn’t notice that my hair was thinning until one day when finally it hit me. It got to the point where it was finally visible.
At that point, I didn’t do anything about it except think a lot about the ramifications and the reality that I was going to face:
I was going bald.
The question(s) was how much longer will I have hair and am I going completely bald?
And what if anything should I do about it?
Eventually about 3 years later I did do something about it and bought a hair replacement system, something that I don’t recommend. But with hindsight, I look back and realize that in the 3 year period from when I first noticed my hair loss to when I bought the hair system, my hair had continued thinning but really not as much as I may have thought it was at the time.
And my hair loss continued to be in the crown and forehead area, classic male pattern baldness. My hair loss accelerated after that time to the point that by my late 20s, the remaining hair on the top of my head was very sparse.
When To Deal With Hair Loss
The million dollar question. The sooner you do something about hair loss, the less noticeable the transition. If you get a hair transplant, the work could be done in stages over time so it may be less noticeable.
But if you get a hair replacement system like I did, one day you have less hair and suddenly the next day you have more! People start asking questions that you may not want to answer if you wait too long to do it. So the sooner you do it, the better. In theory.
This was something I struggled with as I’m a procrastinator by nature. I tend to delay things that I’m unsure about and overthink and over analyze things. At the time I first noticed hair loss and began thinking about it more frequently (1989-90 timeframe when I was 19-20 years old), I started considering various options to deal with it.
Why Deal With Hair Loss?
These days bald guys are everywhere. Many celebrities, CEOs, actors and famous athletes shave their head and no one gives it a second thought. I don’t really remember this being the case when I was first dealing with my hair loss though.
At the time, my hair loss bothered me for several reasons:
The Way Baldness Made Me Look: I didn’t like the look of my thinning hair especially at a young age. I couldn’t believe I was already losing my hair in my early 20s. I’d been led to believe at that point in my life that a guy with a full head of hair was normal and a guy with thinning hair was deficient. I looked older than I wanted to be.
The Way Baldness Made Me Feel: From a young age, we hear jokes about bald guys and men with no hair and the guy with the bad combover and the old dude with no hair and the one with the bad toupee and so on. Even today it’s not uncommon to hear a guy referenced by his (lack of) hair as a joke and no one says anything to object.
The Way Baldness Made Me Feel (Continued): Thinking back, my thinning hair really bothered me. I looked at classmates who still had full heads of hair and I wondered WHY ME? It really started to get me down mentally but I never told anyone because of the embarrassment.
Going bald made me look and feel old even though I was in my early 20s and still in university! And the first time I had someone comment on my thinning hair was enough to make me realize that I needed to do something to avoid this becoming my new normal moving forward.
Perhaps you feel the same and wonder how – if at all – you should deal with your hair loss.
How To Deal With Hair Loss
Here’s what I considered at the time I was debating how to tackle my hair loss.
Doing nothing: I remember at the time really believing that my hair loss was temporary and that it would correct itself. Either that or my hair loss would plateau and it would suddenly stop falling out and I’d be ok with the result. Neither of those two theories panned out of course so I then started thinking about an actual plan to move forward with.
Shaving My Head: I briefly considered shaving my head but being 1989-90, I remember thinking that head shaving wasn’t really a “thing” like it is today. Or at least I didn’t believe it was. I don’t recall seeing too many guys my age shaving their head back then. I guess I didn’t seriously consider shaving my head as an option at the time simply because I didn’t believe it was a popular idea.
Hair transplant: I never really considered a hair transplant and didn’t research it to any extent. The thought of going under the knife voluntarily at that point in my life did not appeal to me. Stories of guys with bad hair transplants abounded, too. Some early and cheap hair transplant options transplanted clumps of hair rather than the strand by stand method used today that left guys looking like they had hair similar to toy dolls. In other words the final result was very noticeable. Clearly, if you do something about your hair loss you don’t want it to be noticeable to others.
So I focused on a hair replacement system as a possible option. But I also knew that doing something like that meant it would have to be a long term, ongoing solution that cost money.
A hair replacement system involves taking human hair (someone else’s) that matches your hair color, texture, etc that gets weaved into a nylon mesh and then bonded onto your scalp to cover the bald area(s) in question. That might not sound believable or appealing but the before and after pictures of actual patients really sold me. They looked good.
Given my aforementioned proclivity for procrastination, I took the plunge and went ahead with this option. I decided to do something before my hair loss became really noticeable. If you click the link two paragraphs up, you can read about the pros and (mostly) cons of a hair replacement system in my personal experience.
Approved Treatments For Hair Loss
As of writing this, only two hair loss treatments are medically approved by the FDA to treat hair loss:
Minoxidil (ie. ROGAINE): Minoxidil was initially used to treat high blood pressure but when a female patient using it noticed significant and unexpected hair growth on her legs and face, the link between the product and hair growth was determined. ROGAINE was first approved in 1988 for hair loss and comes in liquid and foam formats currently. Minoxidil is approved to treat hair loss on the scalp only. So if you’ve read that you can use ROGAINE on facial hair to improve beard growth, understand this is not the approved purpose so you’re on your own.
Finasteride (ie. Propecia): Finasteride was patented in 1984 and became was approved for medical use in 1992. Propecia specifically was approved by the FDA in 1997 and is offered in tablet form taken orally.
Both products need to be taken continuously for benefits to be maintained. So like a hair replacement system that I chose, the usage and cost continues into the future.
And again: Scalp hair grows due to genetics as we just mentioned but facial hair grows based on genetics and hormones. So these products are designed for scalp hair growth only.
Conclusion
- Over 50% of men will experience hair loss by the age of 50. Male pattern baldness can occur as early as your teens or 20s.
- Hair growth and hair loss is inherited from both parents.
- Scalp hair grows due to genetics whereas other body hair including facial hair is based on genetics and hormones among other things.
- The only two drugs currently approved by the FDA to treat hair loss are Minoxidil and Finasteride which are most well-known commercially as ROGAINE (liquid form) and Propecia (tablet form) respectively.
- While many men use ROGAINE for beard growth, the truth is that it was only approved by the FDA for facial hair growth and isn’t actually recommended for facial hair.
- What is your motivation for tackling your hair loss? Is it strictly the aesthetics of baldness that bothers you or is there a mental component that you are dealing with as referred to above?
Are you losing your hair or are you already there? When did you first notice your hair was thinning? Let us know in the comments below!