Hair Loss from Accutane

Hi Dr. Rassman,
First off, thanks for the helpful site. My question is regarding accucate-induced hairloss. I am a male and started losing my hair in a diffuse pattern, all over the head but more severe on the top, after a course of accutane when I was 15. It has been a very slow, gradual loss but now at age 21 it is extremely prononunced. I probably have a little less than 50% of my original density. I wasn’t sure that the hair loss was a direct result of accutane until I had a scal biopsy done by a dermatologist recently and she confirmed that it was accuate-induced (not sure how she knew that from the biopsy but that’s what she told me – I think it was something about the “properties” of the follicle). I’ve attached 2 pictures – these were from about 8 months ago and the hair loss is considerably more now than it was then.

My first question is whether there are any clinics/hospitals/studies you are aware of that are studying the side effects of accutane – either in order to test treatments or just to track users that are experiencing side effects. I’m pretty sure that my condition is untreatable and I’m just going to have to live with it, but I would be open to trying experimental treatments in order to help others out. Second, do you think there is any use in using propecia/minoxidil to try to slow the loss, or would they be useless since this loss is probably acting by a totally different mechanism? I have used both in the past without evident results, but it’s hard to tell if they were slowing the loss or doing nothing at all.

Thanks very much for your advice.

Unfortunately, there are no solutions to your Accutane problem, other than to stay away from that drug. If you have genetic balding on top of the Accutane problem, then you should get your hair analysis for miniaturization to be sure one way or the other, the status of genetic balding compounding the problem you already have. I do not have any people to recommend who are experimenting with problems like yours. Also, please see previous Accutane related posts.