Traction Alopecia

[Damien]

Unfortunately I styled my hair in a manner that was very aggressive. I used to push my hair up at the front of my crown quite vigorously, and with some very abrasive wax.I remember seeing hair on my fingers, but didn't think i may have been doing irreversible damage. I did this for may 6 months, and now have quite a sparse area here.

Previously i had a full head of hair (I've checked some photos just to make sure) and everybody started asking me what happened to my previously thick head of hair. Unfortunately my regrowth seems quite modest, and i stopped this trating my hair like this 12 months ago now. Also many hairs in these areas seems to pull out very easily. Otherwise the hairs look normal, really no thinner than others, and my scalp seems quite normal, although it appears a little redder than the rest of my scalp. I only just started washing my hair 6 motnhs ago, and since then i think there been some inprovement. What do you think is going on? Do you think i'll ever get a full recovery?

Thanks for your help

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Damien:

Only time will tell if recovery is full, but it's far from impossible.

No role of diet that I know of . . .

Dr. R

[Damien again]

I forgot to mention that I'm 26 years old male, and although you may suspect male pattern baldness i can assure you this is not the case. In actual fact you can see where my hand slip along my scalp to stand my hair up. these regions show a well cemarcated line of hair loss, as this is where much of my hair was removed by the abrasive wax i used.

The regrowth sort although good also sucks a bit b/c its doing so in a hair replacement sort of way ie. little clumps growing together.

Do you think its unreasonalble to expect a full recovery?
Can diet have an affect on poor regrowth?
Please help me,

thanks again for your time, Damien.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Damien:

It is hard to say.  Sometimes hair which is treated the way you say you treated yours takes quite a long time to regrow even after gentler treatment is instituted.  In any case, there is little you can do at this point to speed the process of regrowth.  On the other hand, ordinary hair care procedures like shampooing and conditioning will not aggravate the problem, as any hairs which did the circumstances would come out anyway as a normal process.

Good luck.

Dr. R