bad facial hair distribution

Hi.  I am a 25 year old white male with an unattractive and puzzling facial hair distribution problem:  

I have extremely thick black stubble all over my face, including neck, cheeks, chin, and pipes.  When I say thick here I mean sandpaper thick.  However, on my moustache area I am almost totally hairless, with only a few widely spaced soft thin hairs, and those only appear after several days of not shaving the area.  The change is completely abrupt, with the 'pipe' area having thick and black stubble on either side and nothing visible on the upper lip.  To make matters worse, it is uneven, with the pipe on the right side creeping a bit more around the corner than the left.  This has been the case ever since I began bearding around age 18, and I have even tried to let the moustache area grow for up to a month, with no results beyond a few soft thin hairs.

I am sick and tired of hearing the 'genetics' explanation.  My father is bearded with the moustache area as full as everywhere else, and I have observed that my mother's father and her two brothers have thick upper lip stubble.  Plus I have never seen or heard of this facial hair configuration on anyone else.

I am convinced that there must have been some developmental problem along the line.  I would like to know what might have happened and what I can do about it.  The only explanation I can come up with is that as a teenager I used to have a lot of acne above my upper lip, and in order to prevent it I would to saturate the area with rubbing alcohol.  I don't know if this could have contributed to the problem.  Possibly some hormones were inhibited from reaching the area for this or another reason.

I should also mention that have I brought this problem up to a nurse-practicioner at the health services at the university where I work.  She told me to try applying minoxidyl to the area.  I did this for a few weeks, but it was very irritating to the skin and didn't seem to do anything.

I am desperate to fix the problem.  It looks very unattractive even if I shave daily because the stubble is so dark and thick everywhere else.  Please help!  Can anything be done to stimulate the growth that I have been myseriously denied?

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

There are all sorts of variations in hair distribution, which cannot be explained by genetics, hormones, or whatever.  I don't know of medical treatments which will grow hair to any useful extent.  If you are embarrassed by the appearance, you should look into laser hair removal of the hair you have, to make your face look more even.  I think that is by far your best bet.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff