Hair Cycles Have a Finite Number?

Dear Dr. Rassman,

First, thank you for your great site which is daily helping thousands of hair loss sufferers.

I am a 21 year old male. I suffered from trichotillomania in my teens for 6 years. Now I am 2 years pull free and had full regrowth. But there is something else I am worried about and would appreciate your valuable opinion. I have read that hair repeats its cycle only a determined number of times. So even if hair regrows, it will one day fall out before other hair that has not been affected because their number of cycles was reduced from plucking? Is something like this possible to happen?

Thank you for your time and consideration

That is an interesting question. I would doubt that you will have hit your cycle limit, but there is no way to tell that I know of. The general experience of those with trichotillomania is that once the pulling stops, if the hairs are not lost permanently, they will return to normal (and by normal, I mean the number of cycles that will be found in the surrounding hair). With that said, I do not believe that anyone can tell how many cycles are left in the hair that was victimized by the traction alopecia. Sorry, I am just a mortal doctor with limits in my knowledge!