The psychology of treating male hair loss is often overlooked but I find it to be one of the more important aspects in regards to achieving a successful outcome. I also think there are a lot of odd ways of thinking and misinformation in some of the topics relating to this stuff.
The three main categories I can break this subject down into would be Acceptance, Risk, and Treatment of the hair loss itself.
Psychology of Treating Male Hair Loss
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I just want to clarify before starting, some guys become aware of hair loss and choose to do nothing and embrace it. This is 100% fine (for them) but the article is framed to help men who want to treat hair loss but inevitably face some common psychological roadblocks.
Let’s get into the psychology of treating male hair loss.
Acceptance
This section is about discovery and acceptance, a lot of people get stuck in this stage. When looking at the psychology of treating male hair loss you need to cover acceptance.
I won’t touch on actually discovering that you have hair loss but that is important in and of itself. The longer you wait the harder it is to halt and potentially reverse. I will mostly be talking about what happens when men finally do discover they are losing hair.
For example, many men may notice hair loss and it will affect them but they will waste time not seeking treatment and instead claim they are experiencing:
- Telogen effluvium “It’s just a stressful period!”
- Thyroid issues – They wish
- Vitamin deficiency – Pipe dream
- Mature hairline – Also known as MPB
You may have searched for causes and solutions in things like diet, sleep, lifestyle, and blood flow, which I’m not denying may help and are somewhat of a factor but again, if you have the genetic predisposition for MPB focusing on these things won’t give you results.
“The proportion of men with moderate to extensive hair loss increased with increasing age, ranging from 16% for men 18-29 years of age to 53% of men 40-49.” Study As you can see, male pattern baldness (MPB) is fairly common in men (shocker). For the vast majority of guys out there this will be the cause of your hair loss. Even if you do have stress, vitamin deficiencies, or thyroid issues, you may still be experiencing male pattern baldness. It’s 100% fine to go be tested for these conditions (I have) just to make sure, however, you should know it’s likely a waste of time.
I did my testing through Marek Health, a telemedicine company owned by Derek from More Plates More Dates. They are great and I love everything he is doing! Their full panel included some concerns I was having like vitamin deficiency and thyroid issues but also gave me hormone levels like testosterone, estrogen, and DHT so that I could have a baseline reading before starting treatment if I decided to. Turns out my DHT was on the higher end and my vitamin and thyroid levels were all in or near-optimal range (another shocker).
So why do so many men want to claim that their hair loss isn’t male pattern baldness and is instead something else like what I mentioned above? I think it has to do with the fact that it is something they can control and is not an uncontrollable predetermined genetic trait or perceived failing on their part. If they do have a controllable deficiency or other medical issue then there is potential for it to be reversed or fixed. Lifestyle factors can easily be modified whereas genetic traits may be harder to change.
Of course, these are just my theories – things like denial, fear of being judged, stigmas around hair loss, beauty standards, etc all play into this.
The second aspect may have to do with the fact that some of the treatments relating to male pattern baldness are surrounded by a lot of fear with things like side effects. This is especially true in online communities. If male pattern baldness was easily treated and reversed with no negative side effects I think a lot more people would be more willing to jump into direct treatment instead of searching for other potential causes.
Acceptance is an important part of the psychology of treating male hair loss.
Risk
Risk is huge when discussing the psychology of treating male hair loss.
A lot of people feel that hair loss medications are risky. They likely are in lots of different ways. You have to weigh those risks against how much you value your hair and for how long. You should research your options make an informed, confident decision, and always evaluate how you feel. This stuff is so personal and unique for everyone depending on risk tolerance, how aggressive your loss is, and what you want to achieve.
Like anything, there are extreme viewpoints on both sides of this topic but in reality, you should research yourself using high-quality sources of information and potentially even try out different options. You could find that you might be a hyper responder who grows an insane amount of hair back from just a small amount of medication or you may be someone who is the exact opposite and gets no results or you may be someone who gets negative side effects.
But if you don’t research, decide what to do, and eventually take action you won’t know. Once your desire for hair is greater than your fear of anything else you will take action. Or you won’t and that’s also fine. The point is that it’s up to you, but you should have all the information so that you can weigh out the options.
Like the meme above shows – many guys are fine with having a bit of early-stage hair loss and view hair-loss drugs as not being worth it. This isn’t entirely logical because they are using their current hair as a comparison against the risk of treating hair loss. They may be weighing the risk vs reward of current hair loss vs improvement rather than just maintaining against loss that will come in the future.
I don’t think they are adequately assessing what their hair will look like in later stages after avoiding treatment. This is also when treatment and reversal becomes much harder meaning if you want to do something about it you will need much stronger compounds compared to if you had just started something slight at the first signs of loss.
Depending on the type of hair loss it may be pretty easy to hide. Certain kinds of receding hairlines and especially diffuse thinners can style hair in ways to hide balding. This may lull people into a false sense of security and prevent them from taking early action.
It may seem easy to delay treatment because the impacts day to day are not drastically different even if you don’t take action. Only over a long period will the impacts accumulate to a point where you want to take action. The risk of taking medication feels a lot greater than doing nothing when you can just style your hair for a few minutes and push off the matter until tomorrow, and then the next day, and so on.
Eventually, you won’t be able to keep ignoring it, especially if you are the type of person to already be thinking about this type of thing.
Treatment
You can even see this in terms of men who take action with some type of treatment but still ignore the root cause. Interesting in terms of the psychology of treating male hair loss. Again, this isn’t bad, but if you take these routes you need to be informed and prepared for the hair loss that will still come.
Minoxidil
Minoxidil is a growth stimulant that can give insane regrowth, especially for diffuse thinners. It can make previously thinning hair look amazing with gobs of thickness depending on individual response. However, what Minoxidil doesn’t do is correct the cause of MPB which happens at least in some major part by DHT sensitivity in the scalp.
Some guys use Minoxidil and think they are treating hair loss only to get shocked when the problem returns a few years down the line.
Hair Transplant
The same thing can be said for hair transplants. Hair transplanted from the back of the scalp or head area will forever be safe from DHT as they are genetically resistant. Hence you see most men still grow side hair even if the top of the scalp is completely fried. The final extent and size of pattern loss just depend on the person.
These transplants give the appearance of healthier hair for men with a receding hairline but if you don’t take action against the root cause of hair loss you may become a victim of a “bad” hair transplant when the loss continues and now you have a full hairline with no scalp hair in the middle.
I like hair transplants but it is highly dependent on the extent and type of loss you are facing.
Check out this result from Hasson and Wong. This is an older guy so it may be safe to assume his hair loss was pretty stable in this pattern. What I mean is he probably won’t lose much more if he has been stable like this for years. You can see while he did lose a lot of hair on the top he still has quite a bit of coverage that makes a full hair transplant much easier.
Compare it to this guy who is at the same Norwood scale (6) but with so much less of a starting point just due to genetic pattern of loss, head shape, etc. The second person does appear to be older and received way fewer grafts but I think the starting images portray the point well.
Hair transplants actually may be a great option for those with stabilized hair loss patterns (usually this happens at an older age so you would have to wait and see) but you need to be careful when relying on a hair transplant that occurs when you are younger. I don’t even know if these two are using medication; the images are just to illustrate a point. Everyone’s loss likely has some point where it stops.
My point is this: don’t fall into the trap of thinking you don’t need medication if you aren’t 100% sure of the extent of your loss. This is a key point in terms of the psychology of treating male hair loss.
It would hurt to waste the time, money, and donor grafts on a transplant if you’re just going to shave it in a year or two.
Final Thoughts
If you are experiencing hair loss and want to do something about it, I hope this post gave you at least a bit to think about. The psychology of treating male hair loss can be a huge factor.
What would have saved me gobs of thickness and density is that if you start earlier you can use way less in terms of medication to prevent loss compared to what you would have to do to recover your hair. This ties into my method of micro-dosing topical finasteride, if I wait 10 years for my hair loss to keep progressing and then decide I want to look good I’ll have to hit it so much harder leading to a likely much greater strain on normal biological function.
If I had something like this which explained the psychology of treating male hair loss in the first two years of noticing hair fall it would’ve saved me so much time and mental energy.
So no matter what you choose to do, good luck!