If you suffer from male pattern baldness (Androgenic Alopecia), and you are not coping well with the fact that you are losing your hair, it may be that you are getting little – if any – sympathy from your friends and family.
When you express your displeasure with you receding hairline, those around you may offer a response like these:
- Just be glad you’re healthy. It really could be a lot worse.
- It doesn’t look bad! I didn’t even notice.
- Your dad had even less hair than you, and he looked fine.
- Stop being so sensitive. It’s not big of a deal.
While those loved ones may mean well, those words only make the problem seem worse rather than helping you cope with your male pattern baldness. After all, of course it could be worse, and in a few months it will get worse as hair continues to fall out.
You don’t need someone to tell you it doesn’t look bad. You have a mirror, and YOU aren’t happy with the way you look. Sure, your dad had less hair, and that’s exactly what you figure your hair will look like in time.
As for being sensitive, how could you help it? There is something happening to your body that you’re not happy about. Of course it’s going to bother you. No, you don’t have terminal cancer, but that doesn’t mean that you should just be able to shrug off male pattern baldness as though it were an acne outbreak that will be easily cured with some medicated cream.
The fact is that there is NO cure for male pattern baldness. This is something that you are going to have to learn to deal with – one way or another – for the rest of your life.
Perhaps your fears include some of those listed below.
- No one is ever going to love me when I look like this
- I look way older than I am
- I cannot be attractive and bald at the same time
- People are laughing at me behind my back
Let’s address those one by one. First, plenty of bald men find love every day. It’s just not realistic to think that you must be physically perfect (whatever that means) in order to find love. You will, however, have trouble finding and maintaining a relationship if you do not learn to have a good opinion of yourself. Your low self-esteem will create, first, a roadblock to a relationship and, second, problems once you are in one.
Do you look older than you are? You might. Studies done showed that the perception of men with male pattern baldness was that they were older than they actually were.
As for being attractive, the truth is that many celebrities choose to be bald. Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis and Jack Nicholson are just a few. Also, there are many women that find bald men very attractive. But the issue of whether OTHER people think you are attractive is not nearly as important as what you think of yourself.
Finally, it is really doubtful that people are pointing and laughing at you behind your back because you have male pattern baldness. By some estimates, 75% of men suffer from the condition. If someone wanted to point and laugh at all the bald men that they saw that would be a full time job with a LOT of overtime. Truthfully, other people are not paying nearly as much attention to your hair loss as you are. Many people probably don’t even notice.
Make a Decision
The bottom line is that, while there are products to treat the baldness, there is no actual cure for male pattern baldness. The underlying condition is going to be there. If you really are unhappy with your hair loss, and don’t think it is something you can learn to like, then you may want to research some of your options. The best option is, of course, to buy Propecia, which is the only FDA approved medicine to treat male pattern baldness.
There is nothing wrong with finding a way to undo some of what nature has done. People spend billions of dollars every year on all types of cosmetic surgery procedures. If you think that finding a way to treat your hair loss will make you feel better about yourself, then do it.
Do What it Takes
If you have decided to seek treatment, then you are going to have to follow the instructions of whatever product you choose to the letter. Remember that even the most effective treatments will only work if you use them according to the manufacturer’s specifications.
You will have to be willing to invest some time and money and, even then, you still might not get the results you want.
Build Your Self-Esteem
When coping with male pattern baldness, there is something that is far more important than trying to regrow your hair. That is building your self-esteem. Today it is hair loss, tomorrow it may be wrinkles or weight gain or whatever else comes next. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t treat the hair loss, but you should learn to like who you are even if you are completely bald.
There is much more to you than the way you look. What kind of person are you? What have you accomplished? What goals have you set for yourself? How do you treat the people that you love?
All of those things are far more important in determining who you are than how much hair you have on your head.
The best way to cope with male pattern baldness is to learn to like yourself enough to know that a physical change doesn’t detract from WHO you are. When the treatment that you chose starts to work, you’ll feel that much better.
You’ll know that you don’t NEED your hair, but when it starts growing back, it will just be like icing on the cake.
