Supplemental Testosterone and the Possibility for Worsening Hair Loss

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One thing I’ve noticed is that men in their 20s oftentimes have very rapid hair loss and that hair loss starts to slow down as they enter their 30s and 40s, not always the case, but that is one thing I’ve noticed. I think one of the reasons why this can be the case is that men’s testosterone levels diminish somewhat as they age. The one risk factor though is men that are taking exotiogen testosterone. In other words, supplemental testosterone. And that can cause further hair loss and may need to be managed more aggressively with medical therapy than otherwise. The one thing is I’m not trying to tell you not to take testosterone because obviously low testosterone can cause a lot of side effects that are very unpleasant for men in their Middle Ages, but it is also something that I want you to be careful with especially if you’re suffering from hair loss. And if you’re listening to this podcast you probably are. So it’s one of those things that I would be very careful with even for women if they’re getting testosterone replacement just be careful if that’s causing further progression of hair loss. Now what are the things that you can can look for? You know, we’ll first is your symptoms, you know, if you are actually having progression of hair loss and you just started testosterone you may want to be looking at that as something to be very careful about and then I would Work with your doctor to say, okay. Well, you know, where are my limits? You know, some people say well I’m in my normal range. You know, why would that actually cause a hair loss issue. If I’m in the normal range of testosterone. Well, there are several reasons. First of all, the normal range is something that’s very arbitrary. We define normal range for an average of individuals saying this is what we define as trauma, but it may not be normal for you. And that’s one thing when we talk about for example functional medicine or medicine that is intended to optimize your body. Oftentimes. these normal ranges are out the window because we don’t necessarily follow something that’s exactly within what we call normal. And so you could be also high normal. I mean high normal may not even be normal as I just alluded to so you want to be really careful if you’re seeing progression of hair loss with your testosterone therapy is to really either increase your anti DHT therapy like finasteride. Let say that you were getting by with finasteride three times a week or once a week or four times a week and then all of a sudden you’re seeing this you may need to increase that you made it at need to add minoxidil you made it need to start finasteride if you were not on it. And or you need to adjust your testosterone. So the easiest way is obviously to adjust your testosterone. I’m not an endocrinologist. I’m not an anti-aging doctor. I’m going to leave it up to them to counsel you appropriately on that side of the equation at the same time I am a hair loss surgeon, a hair loss physician. I am focused on managing someone’s hair loss issues. So of course, there’s a variety of other things that can cause hair loss in men or women, but I just want to talk about the fact that not to assume that normal is normal and not just to say well it’s just testosterone I’m not going to be worrying about it. The doctor is going to treat me appropriately and I’m just going to deal with whatever happens but I really want to encourage you to think about that in context of your hair loss and look for your symptoms of what’s going on.