I See Cyclic Changes in My Hair and Do Not Understand Them

Doctor can this happen on propecia. Ive been on it for 2 and half years with good results, maintained and thickened a bit, but my hair is weird. the first year on propecia it looked like it was getting worse, then into the second it started getting better over all. then again half way through the secong it looked bad again, and then a few months later it thickened again. I take pics, and that’s how I can tell. also there is a single hair that I excluded from the other hairs to follow and look at to see how it progresses, and to give me an overall picture on how the other hairs might be responding and growing. the last month or so that specific hair thinned and looked like it was gone, and then a few days a go I see It growing and thickening again. I know this is a weird email lol, but from you experiences does hair go through diff stages?

To be exact I started propecia in june 2013. from june 2013 to june 2014, it looked like I lost ground a bit, so I still stuck it with propecia. then around January 2013 my hair started looking good, and was thicker and the pics I took started to show a difference from the baseline. around april of 2013 my hair looked thin again and looked like I was reverting back to baseline. around august till about now my hair has looked its best. I started noticing new hairs sprout from the hairline that were not there before, and the looked so much thicker, and way different from baseline. its basically at its best. my question is why does it go through these stages? bad, good, bad, good, etc? is that normal?

Our hair will cycle and grow in different stages, so some hairs fall out while others grow from a stem cell that regenerates the hair follicle. You may be noticing some changes, but you cannot really say with scientific objective certainty what is really happening with just subjective observations or pictures. For example, dry frizzy hair in dry fall weather can make your hair seem voluminous, where oily damp hair in the humid summer days can make your hair seem flat and thin. Even different shampoos or hair products can affect how your hair may look and feel. For a more accurate analysis, we try to quantify it with measurements such as a miniaturization study and hair bulk measurements and compare the values on a yearly basis.

Finally, you need to understand that being on Propecia does not mean your hair loss will stop. Based on your genetic predisposition you will continue to lose your hair to the predestined hair loss pattern. Taking the medication (Propecia) means it will probably slow the process of hair loss down but each individual’s response to the drug is different. There may be some variations where you may notice less hair loss and more hair loss over the many months to years. We generally lose about 100 hairs a day (on the average), but this number is also highly variable with time for the individual. So I think what you are experiencing is likely normal.

Simply put, what you see may not reflect what is really happening. That is why we measure hair bulk with the HAIRCHECK instrument and also a microscope for a Miniaturization Study. The metric (numbers) what they instrument tells us, will allow us to compare a year ago to today and determine if you are really losing hair or not.