A Bald Admission

From my youngest adulthood, men I’ve known have had a phobia about hair loss. There are the few who shave their remaining follicles and wear their baldness proudly. Some go for surgical hair plugs, others for toupees or FDA-approved drugs and lotions with varying degrees of restorative success. But most, in the end, make their peace with the passage of time, comb what’s left each morning and get on with living.

For women, however, hair loss is almost a secret, never spoken of, that I can remember, in the circles I’ve traveled. Well, here’s a secret exposed: I’m losing my hair.

It didn’t happen just recently. I’ve noticed it for several years and it has become more apparent since I let my hair grow long. The loss is following the standard progression for what the medical community calls “female pattern baldness.” Rather than a receding front hairline that afflicts many men, my hair is thinning all over my head, particularly at the front and the crown.

Although the extra effort annoys me, I can hide the exposed scalp with some minor styling, most frequently pinning my hair up with clip in back so that it covers the most egregious loss near my crown. But I’ve wondered lately how much hair I will lose. Will I be completely bald one day? And do I care?

Well, yes – for the time-being, anyway.

A casual stroll around the internet informs me that aside from chemotherapy and some other medical treatments, the causes of hair loss (technically called alopecia) are usually genetic predisposition, levels of male hormones and aging. For every five men who experience hair loss, three women do, and there is no known prevention.

Medlineplus, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) website, says that the topical application of non-prescription Minoxidil may help grow hair in 20 to 25 percent of women, but it is expensive and must be used for the rest of one’s life. Transplants, they say, although expensive and with a small risk of infection, are effective and permanent.

WebMD warns that the success of transplants varies dramatically with the skill and training of the physician, and that women should save their money in regard to the many topically-applied products that promise to stimulate the scalp or unblock pores. They don’t work.

Hair loss, except as a result of medical drug therapies, is of so little interest to the authors of The Merck Manual of Health and Aging that it’s not even listed in the index, nor does Andrew Weil address it in his new book, Healthy Aging.

Since I can’t be bothered to apply a lotion to my head twice a day, particularly for such iffy results as the experts suggest, and the expense, pain and number of surgeries hair plugs require enduring are not in my nature, it appears I’m stuck with thinning hair and the only question left is my vanity.

There are always wigs and hairpieces, but they need the professional care that I abandoned when I let my own hair grow long. Some women – there is no way to know if they are bald or not – make colorful turbans a fashion statement. But I can’t wear scarves with any success so I doubt I could master turban wrapping.

Another approach might be to embrace baldness. A few well-known women have deliberately shaved their heads. Singer Sinead O’Connor comes to mind and there was a period a few years ago when some young women expressed their youthful disdain for convention by shaving their heads.

But that route requires a desire to make a bold, even outrageous statement every time you step out the door and it becomes not only one’s primary definition in the eyes of others – “She’s bald, you know” – but (forgive the pun) a bald appeal for a kind of attention that feels unseemly in relation to who I think I am.

Also, unless one’s head is attractively shaped, such a stunning departure is only sadly dispiriting or perhaps even comical. There is no way to tell which way one’s own head goes until after the fact of the shave and if it's not good, you're back to wigs and turbans.

Vanity. Vanity. Vanity. “Vanity is so secure in the heart of man,” said Pascal, “that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this and you who read this.”

Oh, how I wish I didn’t care
At all, about my thinning hair.

Comments

[savtadotty]

I would trade my non-thinning hair for healthy skin...even healthy aging skin. We all have our flaws, and sometimes don't even know what they are. At least with the visible ones, learning to deal with them starts at Step Two.

[Winston]

savtadotty has a couple of good points there, including the one I came here with - we all have flaws. God knows I've got mine.

It is my understanding that with some people this progresses to a point and stops, with others it proceeds to almost complete baldness, but some fast and some very slowly. If you want to divert attention from it, start collecting hats, caps, berets, chapeaux of varying styles, colors, etc. I have known women - and men - who lost hair to chemo or radiation therapy and decided they liked the freedom and ease and time savings of baldness, so kept it that way, usually by displaying a different hat or cap each day. Always makes for some interesting conversation.

If you decide to do that, I will send you a Tennessee Titans cap, which I know you would be absolutely thrilled with...

[Takoma Gardener]

Terrific post and comments, too. I was just reading the article in the current New YOrker about hair transplants, where I learned that one-third of all women have a problem with hair loss, and I thought ooh, what would I do? So now I know - use scarves, hats and turbans, and enjoy a new freedom I'd never thought about before - no more highlighting. Susan

[Joy Des Jardins]

My dad started balding quiet young, and my mother has always had very fine, thin hair. I'm not sure how I got the thick hair gene out of that; but I've always wondered when the tides would turn and I'd wake up one day with hair everywhere...so far, so good. Suffice to say...we love you thinning, turbaned, or bald-as-a-billiard ball Ronni.

[kenju]

My hair sytlist told me a long time ago that if I let my hair stay long, I would continue to lose it at a more rapid pace than if it were short. The weight of the longer hair helps loosen them in their follicles, he said. So......much to mr. kenju's dismay, I cut it short and it remains so. My hair is not thin, so maybe he knew best.

[Terri]

Interesting post, Ronni. I've recently been reading Minerva's blog at A Woman of Many Parts. A young cancer victim, her account of losing her hair due to chemo was heart-wrenching. Her poignant writing brought forth a lot of empathy for her loss. A woman's hair is supposed to be her "crowning glory." Although at this stage of the game...hopefully, we've all grown beyond that. However....I think our vanity reaches an extra high level when it comes to thinking about the loss of our hair, no matter the cause.

[kenju]

I know it should read "the weight of the longer hairs"....it's early...lol

[Laura]

I feel like I shoudl say something nice and positive here - and I'm sure that you will find a way to deal with it, because that is what you and other strong people do, in my experience, no matter what "it" is.

But my hair is my favorite thing about my physical appearance right now, and has been since I was perhaps seven or eight, and when I think of 'what if' - I would be horrified. So it's not like I have a lot of room to say anything on that topic either.

At least now I know, thanks to comments above, that if my hair ever starts thinning I should give up and have it cut. I _LOVE_ it long, but I'd rather have it thick and shorter than thinning and long. If that day comes, I'll just have to adjust (and hope that adjusting helps).

What about the extender things they sell, meant to merge with your own hair? Do those require as much work as the wigs and such? Is there anything a professional stylist could do, that would require not too much upkeep and help?

No idea if those questions are helpful or you've already run through them. But I figured I'd throw them out there.

Regardless of what your hair does (or doesn't do), I like you and admire you and I'm glad to know you - and I doubt I'm the only one. Unfortunately, I doubt that helps the reaction to the hair itself, either! I hope it stops (or even pauses) soon so that you have less to adapt to and longer to adapt.

[Jimmy Porter]

Nothing wrong with a bare head. If you can handle the effects it might ilicit from others, go bare headed. A shaved head looks kinda nice on ladies, however, the first thing one thinks is "cancer." My vote is to shave it close, polish it and go.

[Rain]

My sister-in-law had this happen to her in her mid 30s and it is very hard on a woman at any age. My daughter in high school got ringworm but where it cropped up everywhere else, it wasn't until she had lost a huge chunk of hair on one side of her head that we realized it was centered in her scalp. That took creative hairstyles to hide as the last thing a teen wants to admit is they have a large bald spot.

Beings my mom had very thin hair as an old woman, I figured I might face that myself someday (not to mention friends who've been on chemo) and feel like you that it'd be hard. Possibly cutting it shorter would help to stop the loss as they tell men losing hair to wear it short.

My sister-in-law did get hair growth back with the cream but not sure whether she stayed with it as they divorced a few years later.

It's hard when we are bombarded constantly with our hair being our crowning glory (hence buy this conditioner, coloring agent and style). Again we can end up being the victim of advertising to create some ideal image, and the whole thing is to sell products, not help us be comfortable with who we are and our differences. We live in such a superficial culture

[Karen]

I have had thin hair since my late twenties, and it is getting progressively worse. It's strange that we women don't/won't talk about it. It is even difficult writing about it here.
I have taken up wearing a synthetic wig now. My previous hairdresser is most upset since she is not getting her $42. This move follows my not having her highlight my hair any longer. I have found the synthetic is easy to manage, and I cut my own hair very short to go under it. LIfe is much easier now and I feel more confident.

[Ronni Bennett]

Wow - what a bunch of terrific comments.

Winston: It's not the sports part that's the problem. If you knew how dorky I look in baseball caps, you wouldn't have said that.

Joy: You know how much I appreciate that last part.

Kenju: I've heard those things about long hair pulling itself out, and I think about it. But I remember, too, the old women of earlier, immigrant generations I used to know who didn't believe women should "bob" their hair. They had beautiful gray or white hair piled on their heads in all sorts of imaginative ways, so I'm not so sure about that idea. Or maybe they were hiding the thin spots under all those buns and twists like I'm doing now.

And my hair was thinning for four or five years before I started to let it grow out two years ago. When I fell asleep on the commuter train, I always woke with my hair smashed flat and the thin areas showing.

Laura: Thank you - I forgot to mention extenders. The problem with those is that they last only about four weeks and they damage the real hair. Since I stopped coloring mine, it's the healthiest it's been in decades, just not enough of it.

Jimmy: If I ever decide to go bald, you'll be the first to get a photograph of me.

And as to hats, aside from my collection of fur, winter ones for warmth (they're gorgeous too and feel so elegant to wear), they annoy me the rest of the year - always blowing off or getting in the way or making my head sweat. Wigs make my head sweat too.

Since I gave up makeup and got too chubby to care much about fashion anymore beyond comfort and color, personal care has become simple: toothbrush, soap, shampoo. What a relief!

I'm pretty sure it's the vanity about my hair I have to deal with of now.

But any of the above could change at any time...

[Winston]

I just had one additional thought. An old boss of mine in the corporate world was naturally bald starting in his 20s - genetic thing. When I met him he was in his 40s and looked good bald, Yul Brenner good. He would smile and say in his high-pitched Texas drawl that "God gave most people hair, the rest of us he made perfect!"

[Susan]

Hey! Me too...seriously thinning hair, that is! For a very long time, I was frazzled by this...but I keep it short..it's curly and I have stumbled on to a GREAT shampoo that adds VOLUME even if it does serious damage to my checking account. Wash and wear is the agenda daily. Bald in guys can be very alluring...not so much in - uh - ME!

[Claude]

I quite understand what you call vanity! It would take guts to go "baldly go where no one has gone before" ;)
I have lots of hair, but I would feel naked without it.
I am just as concerned about my skin breaking out with acne, which is not reserved to teenagers, unfortunately, and which has proven practically impossible to cure.
It used to drive me crazy, but believe it or not, I have got used to it...

Just one last thing, hats, turbans and the like are no good for your hair and would probably help thinning it out.
Yes, I know, I am not being encouraging here...

[Millie Garfield]

I am in the same boat as you Ronnie. My hair was never thick but years ago I was able to wear a page boy, pompadour or have my hair teased in the latest fashion and it would stay for a week.

If you look at any of my video blogs you can see how fine my hair is. My hairdresser up North recommended two products, one is a cleanser and the other is a booster, company name is Nioxin. I tried it for a while but gave up on it because I Could Not Get It Out of the container! As a matter of fact, that's one I made a video blog about.

I contacted the company and got no satisfaction.

I guess all we can do is grin and BARE it.

[joared]

My hairdresser told me the same thing about the weight of long hair contributing to hair loss which I conveyed to my son some years ago. He was sporting beautiful long blond hair as a youth and young man which he said he wanted to enjoy while he could, reporting also that it attracted the girls. He said he was already considering the possibility he might begin to bald later. The hairdresser said he was actually accelerating his possible hair loss by leaving his hair long. Is there actual scientific support for this proposition, or is this just a myth, old wives tale?

Ah vanity, rears it's head in so many ways. From what little I know of you, Ronni, I suspect you may well experiment with some of the options described to determine what feels most comfortable.

Perhaps, you'll choose more than one option, varying, dependent upon your mood and attitude at the time ... oh yes, and weather conditions to maintain your body heat in cool weather and winter.

I can see you in a turban for some occasions and have seen some very attractive ones. Contrary to your concern, I think you would soon master wrapping one, but don't they have some that are "pre-wrapped?"

There is something to be said for what I imagine to be the convenience of the bald pate, but you probably can't predict for certain your acceptance level for that state unless you try it for a while.

There is always just accepting what hair you have from day to day, combing what there is and letting the bald spots shine through if your hair doesn't cover them all.

How about trying to locate a hair dresser especially familiar with the issue to assist in direction to take?

You really have me thinking on this since a few months ago my hairdresser expressed some concern to me several weeks in a row that an unusual amount of hair was in the basin after she shampooed my hair. I told her I must be "molting" like chickens do. The "molting" has stopped, but now everytime I comb my hair, I find myself spotting my scalp shining through in a couple of places and seems like I have to exert more effort to comb the hair so it doesn't show. I wonder if teasing hair contributes to hair loss?

As my brother was balding, he often said, "You can't have hair and brains both." You think? :)

It's your mind we cherish, Ronni, but you must know that.

[Jean]

My first thought was what Kenju said, that the weight of long hair may exacerbate the problem. But I love your long hair, and you are right to recall when many more old women had long hair and no doubt covered thin patches with the length of it piled up. Before sacrificing your long hair, I would maybe consult a trichologist about how likely cutting it short really is to help, and how long you might wait to see how it goes before such a step.

I forgot to add that I'm sure it's worth trying some holistic remedies for hairloss: herbs, homeopathy, mineral supplements, scalp massage.

[Jean]

sorry, that last one was me too :-)

[Aaron]

Have you tried aloe vera? I prefer the "embrace the baldness" approach myself, but I have a few years left before that's an issue.

I'm currently working with a client (http://www.jandemiracleproducts.com) who offers a shampoo/conditioner combo based on aloe vera, and also rosemary and some other herbs.

While I'm not bald myself, I've been using the product for about a month and it does seem to do a nice job of making my hair thicker, smoother and softer.

The only downside is that I'm used to shampoos that foam, and this stuff doesn't foam too much.