Did My Eating Disorder Trigger My Teen Hair Loss?

(male)
I hate to admit it, but I used to have an eating disorder.

For about a year I was bulimic, I purged just about every day after dinner. I had periods where I tried to stop, the longest I went without purging was a month. After a while though, I noticed significant hair loss (a spot on my crown so thin it’s almost bald). I stopped my bulimia about a month ago, and no hair has grown back and it still seems to be falling out! Now, I am a male so it may be male pattern baldness right? But I’m only 17!

As for genetics, all the men on my mom’s side of the family still have hair, and the only person on my dad’s side that’s gone bald is my father himself (he started going bald at 26).

Will I regrow my hair? Or is this male pattern baldness beginning to rear its ugly head?

Bulimia can certainly cause nutritional deficiencies that may cause many health issues, with hair loss being one of them. The most common cause of hair loss in men, however, is genetic male pattern baldness (MPB) — otherwise known as androgenic alopecia (AGA). Hair loss from nutritional deficiencies is diffuse (you lose hair all over your scalp), but in some men with AGA, bulimia can trigger the genetic process, though this is rare in males under the age of 17. Hair loss from male pattern baldness is in a specific pattern (as the term implies).

From your perspective, it does not really matter if your mom’s or dad’s side of the family has hair loss, because if you have the gene, you have the gene. It can skip generations, but it can also be passed down directly from your father to you. I can’t tell you that you will regrow your hair, because as I said, the bulimia could’ve triggered the process early. The only way to really tell what’s going on is to map your scalp and repeat the process over time to see how your hair loss is progressing.