I Am Noticing Thousands of Hairs Falling Out

Hi my name is Nick (male) i’m 17 years old and i have recently notice thosands of hairs falling out from all over my head. I have long blonde hair and have recently been waking up and there are loads of hairs on my pillow. My dad started balding at 16 does this mean i will to? also my mums dad had a full head of hair when he died at 50. do you inherit the hair gene from mum or dad? Although alot of hair is falling out there is no signs of receding from the top what so ever. do you think i’m going to go bald are these the symptons. Thanks for taking the time to read this e-mail.

It is certainly not normal to lose THOUSANDS of hairs. The average person has 100,000 hairs on their head, so if you are really losing say 3000 hairs per day, you would have been bald in a month or so, losing 2000 hairs/day would put you at bald in a couple of months, and losing 1000 hairs/day would cause you to be bald in three months. It is typical to lose 100 hairs a day. At the rate you are describing (I think it is less than you think it is) and with your father’s history of balding starting at about 16 years old, you may be progressing to some sort of hair loss. I cannot comment on whether you will be bald, because I have not examined you. Furthermore, you may want to pay particular attention to the areas of your scalp where you are losing hair. A typical male pattern hair loss spares the back side of your scalp. If you are losing hair on the back side of your scalp there may be other medical cause that you may want to see a doctor about it and get your hair mapped out for miniaturization to obtain a diagnosis. The good news for those who are balding is that when the diagnosis is confirmed, drugs like finasteride work well to slow down or stop the hair loss, particually in the young man like you.