I Was Prescribed Propecia After the Doctor Just Glanced At My Head

I am a bit of a hypochondriac, I admit it, and every once in a while I really fear losing my hair. I am a 26 year old male and haven’t experienced shedding, hair in the drain, etc, but I recently looked in the mirror and worried that more scalp may be showing than before. Of course this could be my imagination, because I don’t look at the back of my head very often. No history of hair loss on my father’s side. On my mother side, I have one cousin with hair loss, but neither his father (my uncle) nor my grandfather had hair loss. I have always had very thin/fine hair.

I recently went to a dermatologist, who after looking at my hair for about a half a second, said I had early signs of MPB and prescribed me propecia. He didn’t ask about my history or symptoms at all.

I don’t want to take the propecia unless I am certain that I am losing my hair. I’m not convinced that I am, but I also don’t want to delude myself either. I was wondering what advice you could give me. I am sending a couple pictures, if that can help you give me a recommendation. Many thanks.

I discuss all of the time that the diagnosis is made in the early stages before hair loss is evident by mapping out the scalp hair for miniaturization and establishing a metric for it. If you don’t do it this way, then the next step is recession and frank balding, not something you want to find all of a sudden. The early miniaturization will show the beginning process very clearly so that if you take appropriate medications, you might stem the problem before it gets to frank balding. If you do not have miniaturization, then you probably do not have early balding and do not need medications. A simple glance of the head is not going to cut it for a case like yours.