Hair loss can be traumatic for men too

‘My self-esteem suffered, I was bullied and dating became difficult.’ Photograph: Yay Media AS/Alamy

I was moved by Geneva Abdul’s article (‘If it can happen to Jada, it can happen to us’: meet the people living with alopecia, 1 April), and am glad to see alopecia getting more attention. But I was disappointed that it only talked about autoimmune-mediated and female hair loss, leaving out the most common form of alopecia – male pattern baldness. While it is probably easier to lose hair as a man than as a woman, many men find going bald unpleasant, even traumatising, especially when hair loss occurs at a young age.

Premature baldness in men has been linked to depression and anxiety. This was certainly my experience when my hair suddenly began thinning at the age of 18. My self-esteem suffered, I was bullied and dating became difficult. Cultural binds that on the one hand require men to reach increasingly unattainable beauty standards while on the other hand deriding them if they are seen to be concerned about their appearance only make this worse, and obscure the basic fact that hair loss is unpleasant, regardless of one’s gender or its cause.
Will Trinkwon
Chichester, West Sussex

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