Female Hair Loss After Braids

HI, Dr. Rassman, I am an 18 years old female and I used to wear braids on and off for long periods during my life. This past June I decided to take them out to grow out my own hair. I started going to a hair dresser faithfully every 2 or 3 weeks and saw much improvement. Also during that time I started taking OTC diet pills and after a couple of visits to the hair dresser i noticed in August that i was losing hair below my crown. My hair dresser told me it might have been the stress of the braids that made the hair in that area stop growing and it was now regaining its strength. Since then, the area has grown and spread to the left side of my head. I am not sure if i should call these areas bald spots because there is still hair there, they are just very short compared to all the other areas. The temples, the back portion of my head, the top crown, and right side of my head still have all of its hair and i have not noticed any thinning. I am not sure why this is happening and need some advice on what steps I can take to grow back the hair in these areas.

Let the hair grow out for another 6 months and then make a proper assessment with a good doctor who understands hair. A good baseline also is a good idea just to have a measurement for the progress that you would expect to see and to rule out other problems. The differential diagnosis includes traction alopecia, female hair loss, and the huge variety of medical and scalp conditions that are discussed in previous blog posts (see Female Hair Loss category). A baseline assessment would include a full mapping of your head for miniaturization, which would then be remapped at about 6-8 months from now.