I started paying attention when the biology teacher in high school used male pattern baldness as an example of a dominant trait while droning on about genetics. I was doomed to have a chrome dome because there were bald men on both sides of my mother’s family, as far as the eye could see. My heart began to race with fear. Discover potential causes of hair loss in men under the age of 25. I worried about going bald for the next 20 years as my hairline receded and my hair gradually became thinner. I find bald men to be disfigured. I felt sorry for them, so I made an effort to hide it by maintaining clean, fluffed hair with a blow dryer. That hardly qualified as a baldness treatment, but there didn’t seem to be any other options. I shrank from the expense and maintenance of a hairpiece. It didn’t seem like minoxidil was very effective. Hair plugs were hideous; one man I met appeared to have burned his head with a cigarette several times, and each burn spot had sprouted a tuft of hair. I went through stages of denial, rage, negotiation, and depression similar to a man who has been informed that he has a terminal illness. I finally came to terms with the fact that I would soon join the ranks of bald men, but I was still not at peace with the idea. Find out more about how men’s self-esteem is impacted by hair loss. Then, in my mid-30s, I all of a sudden stopped giving a damn about having hair. I had the impression that a switch had been flipped inside of me, turning off the shame I had experienced as a result of losing my hair, and I never worried about it again.
