Going Gray and Losing Hair at 14

Hi,
I’m only 16 years old and i’ve noticed I’m losing alot of hair, more then the 100 hairs a day that is “normal”, probably about 400+ a day. My hair has been going gray since I was 14 years old and I’ve died it a few times using the same product each time so I don’t think thats the problem. Since it started (or maybe a day before?) it was VERY itchy, and has been since. Is there anyone you can recommend going to see? or anything I can do myself? As its obviously far from normal losing hair/graying at 14-16yrs old.

You have an interesting problem which is not common and so your first step (based on your symptoms) should be to go to a dermatologist. You should expect that they will want to get some blood tests and possibly do a scalp biopsy. The dermatologist will likely advise you to stop using the hair dye at least until a diagnosis is established since dye in itself can cause itching and hair loss in some cases.

Before you go, there is one thing you can do – perform a hair count. Here is how you do it:

1. Clean your brush and shower drain of all hair and change your pillowcase.
2. For one week, collect all the hair that falls out and place it into an individual baggy marked with the day of the week.
3. At the end of the week, sit down and count EACH hair in EACH baggy — keep a tally.

If your hair loss is less than 100 hairs per day (and some experts say 150 hairs), this is considered a normal amount of loss. When you go to a doctor for this problem, this will also be useful information for them so you might consider making a copy of the tally or bringing the hairs in so that they can be examined under a microscope. Whatever you collect, the actual hair loss will be higher because hair falls out everyplace you go, so if you count 100 hairs/day, it is possible the actual loss might be double that number. You will want your scalp mapped out for miniaturization to determine if you have premature genetic balding.

Hope all goes well!