Shedding Hairs Get Thin At Root

Hi Doc, I’ve been on propecia for 4+ months. Ive started the infamous sheds about a week ago. I would say 90% of the hairs I shed are extremely thin. The ones that look like they are about dead. What’s weird about it, and what worries me, is that so many of the shed hairs seem like it thins out at the end (closer to the root). What trips me out is that my hair is about 4 inches long, so I get to see the trend of hair thickness from before propecia to now. And the fact that it looks like my shed hairs gets thinner at the roots gets me a little paranoid. Are shed hairs, whether affected by MPB or not, usually meant to thin at the end? Or is this a classic sign of MPB attacking my hair? Thanks Doctor!

What you are seeing is the shedding of the miniaturized hairs. Some physicians believe that the shedding impacts these miniaturized hair as they are forced into the hair cycling. The hair on the scalp follows three life cycles:

1. Anagen
2. Telogen
3. Catagen

Once the hair falls out, I would expect that it would be replaced by a new, stronger hair coming into its Anogen phase.