Male, 18, 6’2”, 205 lbs, stress recently & weight loss - am I balding? (Photos)

Hi! Thank you for your question regarding thinning hair and recent stress. One great treatment that is low risk and great for your age is PRP. PRP, or Platelet-Rich Plasma, stimulates hair growth and address concerns of hair loss or thinning hair. The PRP treatment has little to no downtime. In the office, we draw your blood, spin it down in a centrifuge, and extract the PRP. Then, the PRP is injected in your scalp. The PRP treatment takes about 30 minutes. Some patients experience mild tenderness for 1-2 days, but Tylenol can be taken for any discomfort. You should plan at least 3 treatments, 1 month apart to start.

For hair regrowth, I suggest the following to my patients:
Start Theradome now (see link) and in office PRP/acell, you can do early transplant if you want. You need a formal evaluation to see what type of hair loss you may have. when you have hair loss its best to do a full hormonal workup for internal optimization plus scalp biopsies or scrapings to rule out any stress related, inflammatory, autoimmune or infectious causes of hair loss. In general most people with early hair loss have telogen (stress related) and/or androgenetic (normal aging) and both can be treated with in office treatments like steroid injections, PRP/acell, Exosomes and at home treatments like oral medications, oral vitamins like Viviscal, topical exfoliating sprays like Restorsea, and weekly growth factors like anteagemd. See an expert for an evaluation. If hair loss is significant it may requires hair transplant (follicular unit translation) Best, Dr. Emer

It’s not possible to say the cause with these photos. Certainly androgenetic alopecia and telogen effluvium are on the list but one cannot say without an up close examination. Keep taking photos every 3-6 months. See a specialist if possible. If it’s a telogen effluvium from weight loss, or stress or asymptomatic covid19 infection, things will improve towards the end of 2022 but it will take that long. If androgenetic hair loss is starting then it won’t. Photos every 3-6 months are key here and will be helpful to your doctors. Don’t take them monthly as it will be less useful.