TE? Androgenic Alocepia?

[Digress]

Hi, just a quick intro, I'm turning 18 this year and have been dealing with hair loss for about 2-3 years now.

I just went to a dermatologist today and he asked me whether any of my family members was experiencing hair loss, I told him my dad was, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not because of male pattern baldness but because of stress related issues.. I say this because during the duration of the past 2-3 years, his mom passed away due to a long fought battle with cancer.. and not long after (about less than a year) his father also passed away..we were completely torn after all this happened. We were also experiencing many family related problems which I won't go into.. he sleeps very little each night and though we try to cook him home made meals, it's very hard because of the job he has.. and so he has to eat out alot. (sorry if I seem like I'm getting offtrack.. trust me, there's a point to this backstory). So, the dermatologist believes I have hereditary female pattern alocepia ..I'm guessing because my dad is experiencing hair thinning. He also did this thing where he pulled my hairs, he didn't say anything about that though.. (this was a horrible experience, he tried very hard to make me feel horrible about myself and made it very clear that I was wasting his time) and that's about it.. he diagnosed me with hereditary female pattern alocepia

We moved to our new house around 4 years ago, I was severly depressed and didn't eat very much (I skipped alot of meals) because I was ashamed to eat in the cafe alone during high school (yes I was that awkward antisocial teenager you see in those movies).. this and the passing away of my grandparents made my highschool life completely miserable, and it was also during this period of time that I started to notice that my hair was thining (my dad's hair thining began during this period aswell).

Does anyone have any insight on this..? Am I wrong to suspect this is Telegen Effluvium? because although I'm not a dermatologist.. I've done quite a bit of researching on this..

Please and thank you.. I really appreciate any input at all..

[kathie47]

Sorry about your un-empathetic experience at your doctor's!

I'm not a doctor, but from what I've learned about hair loss in my own research, it sounds like you may be on to something. Both emotional and physical stress such as that caused by a death in the family and an irregular diet can cause hair loss and is sometimes linked to Telogen Effluvium.

The hair pulling your doctor did sounds like the test doctors perform to determine the type of hair loss, such as Telogen Effluvium:

In active telogen effluvium, the gentle hair pull test will yield at least 4 hairs with each pull. If the patient's active shedding has ceased, the hair pull will be normal. Forced extraction of 10-20 hairs will yield a large percentage of telogen hairs. If greater than 25% of extracted hairs are in telogen, the diagnosis of telogen effluvium is confirmed.

There is one caveat to reliance on strict physical findings or numerical criteria in the diagnosis of telogen effluvium. Each patient's scalp hair has an individual characteristic growth cycle. There are patients who have a very long anagen phase and a small proportion of hair in telogen at any given time. These patients may experience an episode of telogen effluvium but have completely normal physical findings. History alone must guide the physician to the correct diagnosis in these cases.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1071566-overview
Do you have photos of yourself before and after your hair loss occurred? That may help in a professional diagnosis.