For those of you that aren't aware, I have been on a very aggressive treatment regimen for about a year now in it's existing form (as seen in my signature) to fight my hair loss (of the most common form, androgenetic alopecia - male pattern). I have been having a fair amount of success. My entire frontal hairline, and the hair on top of my head have thickened and my density in these areas have improved. My temples have regrown to a degree, and I've managed to slow down the loss of hair in my crown area... My crown area has been my biggest problem. For the longest time I thought I had seborrheic dermatitis of the scalp (and I still think I do have this) which made things a bit more difficult when it came to trying to regrow the lost hair. As well this year I found out that I have a form of Folliculitis Decalvans called Lichen Planopilaris. I was diagnosed (tentatively, still waiting for the autopsy results) just last week....
This is a particularly troublesome (to say the least) form of hair loss where the follicles actually die off from what is thought to be an immune-reaction. Thankfully, it seems to be only effecting my crown area and my legs mostly. According to Kevin McElwee, of Keratin.com, this form of hair loss eventually usually "burns itself out", and comes to an end.
Anyway, I would much rather have good old normal male pattern baldness than Lichen Planopilaris. I did some research on the net and found that some doctors believe that exposure to chemicals may be involved in triggering it. I asked my dermatologist about whether he thought that the topicals in my regimen had anything to do with it, and he said that he highly doubted it, but he said that in some people who are already genetically susceptible to Lichen Planopilaris (something like less than 1% of people, such great luck I have
) it may be possible that a reaction could occur that triggers it from using topicals.Anyway, after much thought, I decided to stop my topicals temporarily to see if there would be any improvement in the level of inflammation. Lichen planopilaris causes redness and swelling around the hair follicles. After about 8 days of not using any of my topical treatments, I am both happy (and sad) to report that it seems like this inflammation has stopped. I see about an 80% improvement in the areas that had the Lichen Planopilaris. I'm happy because if this sticks it means the Lichen Planopilaris will probably go away. I'm not so happy because it means that I can't continue to use my treatments... at least for the foreseeable future anyway.
I have another appointment with the derm in mid-January, where I'll see if he confirms my observations. If so, I'll do a little experiment. I'll start re-introducing my treatments back into my regimen one at a time. First I'll try one treatment for about two weeks, see if it causes any reaction. Then I'll stop that treatment, and try another for two weeks, see if it causes any reaction, and so on. I want to identify for myself which treatment I may be having a reaction to. I have a hunch that I know which one it is. I'll report my findings here.
Now, I'm sure some of you are alarmed thinking that perhaps one of my treatments caused this LPP condition to occur. To you I want to re-iterate that LPP occurs in about less than 1% of the population. I am one of the people that it seems to have hit. I was already susceptible to it. I don't think my treatments caused it, but I may be experiencing some kind of a reaction (some people can die from eating tomatos or getting stung by a bee). We all react differently to different things. It may just be my luck (or lack thereof) that one of the treatments in my regimen contains something that my body don't like. Oh well.... I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, don't freak out and if the treatments are working for you, continue to use them.
In my own case, once I've done my little experiment to see if I react to any one particular topical treatment, due to my problem with sensitive skin (I am allergic to a lot of things) I will probably (and very sadly for me) stop using the topicals altogether and stick with the Proscar 1.25mg internal treatment. I will probably pick up a lasercomb as well. My plan is to just hang on to what I have for as long as possible, and if all else fails I'll be giving Hasson and Wong a call... They do amazing work.
Best Regards,
Sam
P.S.
Last Christmas, something like 40000 people died in an earthquake in Bam, Iran. This Christmas already the death toll has exceeded 60000 from the tsunami in South East Asia, and is likely to rise to beyond 100000 deaths (roughly equal to the number of Iraqi civilian casualties caused by the ongoing war in Iraq). Lot's of misery in the world these days. I just wanted to send out my condolences to everyone who has suffered from these losses.
Also, I want you guys to put your own hair loss situations in perspective. If you've got friends and family that care about you, you're really well off. I'd like to encourage everyone to try to donate whatever you can to the relief effort for the tsunami, and to keep yourselves up to date on what's really happening in the world. If you don't like what you see, please do something about it. We all share this small planet.
Wishing you a peaceful, happy and prosperous 2005.
