Dandruff Shampoo, Ethnicity, and Other Hair Loss Questions

Hi, I’m a 21 year old male of white American (european?) and Bangladeshi (father’s side) descent. I feel that I’ve been shedding hair at a fast rate, but I honestly can’t tell. Hair loss does run in my family. My father is bald and some distant relatives on my mother’s side are as well. I’m a fairly hairy person overall, and I’ve been wonder if that’s also correlated with scalp hair loss.

I tend to have a lot of dry scalp problems for reasons that I’ve never understood. Often, showering using new water makes my head so dry that the area of dry skin creeps to more apparent parts of my forehead. On the whole though, it usually doesn’t — staying on upper scalp area overall (as opposed to sides and back).

There was a time that I suffered a few anxiety attacks and I lost an IMMENSE amount of hair that time and was sure I was experiencing hairloss. I hope that’s enough background. Here are my questions:

1. Is there a particular pattern of male-patterned-baldness that I should be looking at? From looking at me, at least not to my eye or anything else’s, I have a full head of hair. However, I’ve been losing a lot of hair lately, and I definitely do feel that it’s noticeable in the front crown area.
2. Do you think I am a decent candidate for propecia?
3. Do you have any idea why anti-dandruff shampoo works sometimes and not others? Does that impact my hairloss?
4. Generally speaking, is the hair on the back and sides of a head always thicker than that on top? I don’t know how to view my ethnicity in this regard, because of the mix.
5. Does length of hair affect hair loss?

Thanks.

1. You may inherit the genes from one side of your family, so what you can expect will reflect the inheritance pattern, which varies widely in different family lines.
2. Young men with hair loss (and miniaturization) will find that Propecia (finasteride) will slow down the genetic component of hair loss. I can’t specifically say whether you’re a good candidate without seeing you first, at least in photographs.
3. There are different types of dandruff shampoos. If one doesn’t work, try another one. Some are just more effective than others (see Wikipedia for treatments). Dandruff does not cause hair loss.
4. The hair in the back and sides of your head will not miniaturize and therefore, if you have genetic balding of any degree, will be thicker than on the front and top.
5. Hair length does not dictate how much hair you will lose unless you abuse it.