Hello all, I just discovered this forum and have been reading continually for the last two hours. I stumbled on it accidentally and now I’m wondering why I never went looking for something like this. It’s amazing.
I’m a 22-year-old female. I’ve been struggling with my excess hair for at least six years. I’ve had laser hair removal. I’ve used Vaniqa. I’ve been on Yasmin. I’ve plucked, tweezed, waxed, used creams, and even tried a home electrolysis treatment at one point (I gave up on that relatively quickly).
I have very dark, coarse excess hair on my chin, neck, belly, upper legs, sideburns. I have dark hair that is not as coarse, but gets looong on my upper lip. I have some random dark, coarse hairs on my back, arms, shoulders, cheeks, and even one that grows out just below one of my breasts (I hate that one).
I had always just assumed that this was a genetic thing that couldn’t be treated (my mother also gets the dark hairs on her chin) until a new doctor, doing my annual female check-up, suggested that I might have too much testosterone. Since then, I’ve been through more hormone tests that I can remember. I do produce more testosterone than I need and a lot of my other hormone levels are screwed up. My endocrinologist has recently prescribed Spironolactone, and I’m going to pick it up from the pharmacy to-day. My OBGYN is also going to be putting me on birth control (which I expect will be Yasmin again) and trying to figure out if I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
Yeah, that’s me medically. Emotionally… well… I feel really bad about this. It makes me feel disgusting and unattractive (the hair and my acne, also). I hate reaching up and feeling stubble on my chin. I won’t let my boyfriend touch my face, even though he knows all about my condition, because I just can’t stand for him to feel it. It makes me so self-conscious. I carry around a razor and I’m checking all the time to make sure the stubble hasn’t gotten so long that I need to shave it again. I never let anyone see me shave, even the people who know I do, because that would make it too… I don’t know… too real for me, I guess. It would be too much for me. Honestly, even writing about this is pretty hard.
So… yeah. That’s my story. I keep hoping that the new medication will help. That we’ll get to the root of my problem and everything will be fine. I’m hoping that one day all of my hormone issues will be resolved and I can get electrolysis for the remaining hair (since the laser treatment really didn’t seem to work for me).
Still hoping,
Andrea