Telogen Effluvium and Male Pattern Baldness, Together?

I am a 21 year old suffering with MPB. Even though I have not been mapped out for miniaturization,I know I am a NW2 and what made me realize I MPB was the back of my crown felt thinner. My question is this.

Can Telogen Effluvium occur along with Male Pattern Baldness? The reason I ask is the fall of 2007 I lead an extremely stressful nine months of school combining with that I did crash diet where I ate healthy but I did not eat enough, I was technically starving myself. From 2004 to 2008 I wore my hair to my shoulders and when I cut it off this past April I noticed how thin my hair specifically my front and back had become.

Did TE set in along with MPB or did my stressful life speed up my MPB?

Thank you also for this website, it is very informative.

Yes, telogen effluvium (TE) and genetic hair loss can co-exist. Your history of weight loss and stress can cause TE, but with this in your past and the stress and starvation corrected, the hair should come back to normal within a year or so. The risks here are that your stress and poor diet could also have kicked in the genetic hair loss, but a good miniaturization study should show that if this is the case. Also, if you do a hair pull test this will show TE if you have it.

I’m borrowing the following paragraph of text about the hair pull test from DermNet NZ:

“Hair loss associated with excessive shedding results in a positive ‘gentle hair pull’ test. Grasp a lock of hairs to determine if any can be extracted with firm pull. Normally 0-2 telogen hairs can be extracted: these are hairs in the resting phase, identified using magnification by a rounded bulb at the proximal end. An elongated or tapered end indicates anagen hair (growing phase); anagen hairs extracted by the gentle hair pull test are pathologic.”