I Was Diagnosed with PCOS Six Years Ago and I’m Losing My Hair!

I am 23 years old. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 17 and was placed on birth control pills. I started to take them regularly, but they started making me sick, so I quit taking them and didnt take them for several years. Just recently I went back the the practitioner who diagnosed me with this and she placed me on a slow-release iron tablet daily along with a new birth control that has iron in it.

I have started losing hair around the middle-back of my head mainly around the crown area. It looks like my part is getting a lot wider, and the part is spreading down to the back of my head. I used to have really thick curly hair but now it is getting thin around the top, and in some patchy areas.

At first, since I am a Registered Nurse, I thought stress was causing it. The last time I went to the doc, she said I was anemic with low iron levels, hence putting me in daily iron, so I thought my anemia was causing it. I’ve been on and off birth control, so I thought that could be another cause.

Am I too young to use a topical treatment such as Rogaine? or Sephren? Sephren is an oral and topical treatment for hair loss in women. What do you recommend? I feel like I am losing more and more hair by the day and it really stabs a knife into my self image and self confidence. I’m desperate for some answers. I wish someone would lead me in the right direction so I can start growing hair in those thinning spots. I don’t want to be bald by the time I’m 30. PLEASE HELP!!

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) causes hair loss in women who can also inherit the genes for balding/thinning. It is a very difficult condition to treat, as the treatment is often unsuccessful. Since you’re already under the care of a doctor, I’m not sure what I can offer. You need a good doctor/patient relationship.

Hormone therapy might help with the PCOS-related hair loss, though since you mentioned stress and anemia, those are other potential reasons for your thinning hair. I just have no way to know what is causing your loss, or whether it is a combination of things. You aren’t too young for minoxidil (also known as Rogaine, which is FDA approved to treat female hair loss), but the oral Sephren is just a vitamin supplement with no peer-reviewed published clinical evidence that it works.

There is a new cosmetic treatment that we’ve mentioned here called Scalp MicroPigmentation (SMP) which we offer to address the thinning problem in many women. One such patient can be found here.