Hair Loss, Hair Found
30 ways to disguise, slow down, or even stop the balding process.
The guy who cuts my hair doesn’t believe I’m going bald. I’ve known Dan since the sixth grade, and he’s been a good friend and a better barber. But he only smirks and rolls his eyes when I mention my widening forehead.
Dan refuses to acknowledge that my hairline--or his own, for that matter--is headed north. But setting aside questions of paranoia (mine) or denial (his), we are both among the 70 percent of American men who will experience some degree of pattern baldness in their lifetimes. And if I’m not much consoled by the fact that hair loss is largely genetic, I’m glad to know that there are lots of things I can do about it.
Before you wig out over the clumps of hair clogging your comb, it’s wise to know the difference between natural daily shedding and permanent pattern baldness. The adult male scalp maintains about 100,000 hair follicles, nearly all of which are in a constant state of growth. Most men shed between 50 and 100 hairs each day, a loss that’s imperceptible because the same number of hairs are simultaneously growing out to replace them.
Besides this normal shedding process, there are many forms of hair loss. A few have medical origins, but the most common manifestation of balding is male pattern hair loss, which can begin as early as your college years, and which eventually results in a receding hairline and/or balding at the crown. How denuded you’ll get, and how quickly, is dictated by age, heredity and hormones.
Hair Loss is for Manly Men
Unless your hair is receding as a result of recent stress or illness, you’re probably one of millions of men who are just too darn manly for their own good. According to Dominic Brandy, M.D., co-founder of the International Society for Hair Restoration Surgery, most male pattern balding is the result of what is termed “androgenetic alopecia.” Simply, part of the reason that you’re losing hair is the result of hormones (primarily testosterone) that control the development of masculine characteristics. The other part is the work of genetics, which determine the age at which your follicles will begin to produce an enzyme called dihydrotestosterone.
“When the testosterone present in hair follicles combines with DHT,” Brandy says, “hair follicle receptors, which are sensitive to DHT, begin to shrink. Eventually, these shrinking follicles stop producing hair altogether, leaving you to consider the ever-growing list of hair-replacement alternatives.”
If you’re lucky, things haven’t gone past the preventive stage (click on “Hang On to Your Hair” at right). If you’re not lucky, and if the take-it-all-off look handed down from Yul Brynner to Michael Jordan to my UPS guy isn’t your style, then there are numerous avenues to consider.
A hair-replacement piece is the fastest way to cover a shiny skull, though some of the less expensive approaches will make you look like the love child of Burt Reynolds and William Shatner (click on “Hair Today” at right). Even the good ones have to be bought in pairs so you have a spare on hand when your main mane is at the cleaners. There’s also a lot of expensive upkeep involved, and your replacement will itself have to be replaced after about two years.
On the other hand, a friend of mine swears by his Hair Club membership. “They fixed a membrane to my scalp,” he says, “and the hair sort of grows out of that. Except it isn’t real hair. And it doesn’t grow. But it looks real, and I can jump off the high dive and it stays stuck to my head.”
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