Last Updated on May 9, 2020 by Robert Price
I receive a fair number of questions and comments from balding youths/young men. This is a recent one:
Hi, I’m Ved. I’ve been balding since I was 15 or 16, and it’s too much. I need to cover it at all times, and both the front sides are partially gone. I don’t know what to do. I’m using castor oil+coconut oil, but I see no regrowth of hair; it’s hurting my confidence. I don’t know what to do. Help!
My Advice for Ved – 5 Tips on How to Deal with Balding as a Teen
- Get a Parent/Supportive Adult Involved – You probably won’t be eligible for any kind of medications such as Propecia without parental approval. Moreover, I don’t think you should face this challenge alone, so I’d suggest that you seek input/advice from your mom, dad, or other influential adult in your life.
- Castor Oil isn’t Going to Cut it – I’ve seen some small studies and anecdotal evidence that suggest it can promote hair growth, but it’s not going to be a sufficient treatment option for someone with aggressive balding at the age of 17.
- Read this Article – Balding in your teens – Here’s How to Keep Your Hair and Stay Sane. Bonus – A couple other articles that may help you include: The Top 7 Hair Loss Treatment Options, How to Beat the Balding Blues – Overcome Your Hair Loss Insecurities in Two Weeks or Less, and the Top 7 Benefits of Embracing Hair Loss.
- See a Dermatologist – This will help you determine the extent of your hair loss and get some information about the treatment options, etc.
- Hang in There, and Get Support if You Need it– The shaved look is en vogue, so that’s an option for you. I’m sure you feel like the odd-man-out right now, given that hair loss is not very common at all among high school students. That said, by the time you get to college, you’ll feel much less alone, as many men begin the balding process in earnest while in college. If your hair loss really bothers you, you could consider seeing a therapist or other mental-health professional.
Hope that helps. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, Ved. What can I say, the universe is an unfair and ugly place sometimes. Best of luck to you on your journey.
Robert Price is a writer, consumer advocate, and hair loss researcher with thousands of hours of experience in the field. His goal is to keep you out of the hair loss rabbit hole, underworld, or whatever you want to call it. He founded Hair Loss Daily, the unbiased hair loss blog, in 2016. You can learn more about Robert in the my story section of this website.
Teen male pattern balding would be much more acceptable if it were more common. After all, misery loves company. Right? Just kidding, but seriously, if say, half of young men in their late teens were already going bald, it would be considered normal and even desirable. It might even be a rite of passage, something to be proud of and something to look forward to. What makes it so traumatic is that MPB gets such bad press even for mature men. The impression one gets is that bald men are socially inferior to men with a full head of hair. That is a cultural attitude I wish I could change. But I can’t. Despite that, all my life, as far back as I could remember, I wanted to go bald. The sooner, the better. The faster, the better. There was nothing I could do about it, as it was something totally out of my control.
I also couldn’t rationalize my intense desire to go bald, nor could I stop wanting to go bald. Believe me, I tried. But as much as I desired to go bald, I was afraid that no attractive girl would date me or marry me if I was bald. I was conflicted. Decades later, after I finally started to go bald, my wife told me she loved male pattern baldness and had always wished that I would go bald. She was thrilled and begged me to just let it happen. So it turns out that there are women who love MPB and I am lucky to have married one of those women. So there is hope for young men who are losing their hair. It’s not the end of the world.
I’m still envious of young men who are going bald and I wish it had happened to me in my 20s. I wish it had started slowly in my late teens, then rapidly in college and I wish I had been Norwood 6 or even 7 by my late 20s. I’m in my mid 70s and I have been Norwood 6+ for 20 years. I love MPB and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to a full head of hair. That said, I feel very bad for young men who are losing their hair and hope that some day someone will develop a treatment that will allow them to keep their hair into their old age. Now that I am in my 70s it feels very ‘right’ and normal to be bald. Of course, it helps that most men my age are at least partly bald. We are in the majority. 🙂
Always nice to hear from you, Eric! I agree with you. If MPB were a “normal” teenage phenomenon like acne, growth spurts, etc., it’d take the burden off of all men to some degree, as the worry over losing your hair wouldn’t be a significant factor. Interesting that you say this: “I feel very bad for young men who are losing their hair and hope that some day someone will develop a treatment that will allow them to keep their hair into their old age.” Coming over to the dark side, so to speak?! Just kidding!
Coming over to the dark side? Definitely not, but I’m glad you asked that question. Not for a minute do I regret going bald. Actually, I love my MPB now more than ever, especially since my hairline seems to be receding a bit more, mostly in back. I LOVE that! At this rate I will be fully Norwood 7 in a few years. None to soon, as I will be 75 in a few months. I’m running out of time.
But I DO feel bad for teens and men in their 20s that go bald, because it’s still so socially unacceptable. And I still vividly remember the panic I felt when I first started going bald more that 20 years ago. Had my wife told me ahead of time how she felt about it, I would have celebrated losing my hair. There would have been no anxiety. As you recall in a previous posting, I went bald twice, the second time by choice. When the effects of saw palmetto began to wear off and the hair I had regrown began to thin out, I deliberately stopped taking saw palmetto, desperately hoping I would go bald again. It took less than six months, as I recall, for all the hair I had regrown to disappear. What a thrill that was! They say love is better the second time around. So is male pattern baldness. But my MPB experience is obviously unique. How many men get to go bald twice? And how many men have a desperate urge to go bald? How many men get to choose to go bald? I would love it if some other guy out there felt the same way I do and shared his experience with us on this site. But so far, that has not happened. I’m the first and so far the only one.
But for 99%+ guys out there MPB is a catastrophe to be avoided as all costs and I feel very bad for them. Not so much that they go bald, but that they hate it so much. I sincerely hope that they find a medication or supplement guys can take to prevent or at least postpone MPB. The only downside to that would be that everyone would think I’m crazy to choose to remain bald. After all, who in his right mind would choose to remain bald when a ‘cure’ was available? But as I have said before, you could not force me to regrow my hair. You could not pay me enough to regrow my hair. I look and feel much better bald than with a full head of hair. If only I had begun to go bald in my teens and had been Norwood 6 by age 25, like several of my college classmates. I know it would have been a shock at first, but I also know that I would have gotten over the shock very quickly. And I would have looked a lot like that photo of that young man at the top of this page, as I have worn glasses almost my entire life and I had a ‘baby face’ like him back in my early 20s. I would have loved that. No such thing as ‘prematurely bald’, for me.