Re: frustrated

> I'm 26 years old and have been dealing with facial hair
> for sometime. It's more noticable in my chin area and neck.
> I've had tons of blood work done and my endocrinolagist cannot
> seem to find anything hormonally wrong and says my test came
> back fine.

Do you know what tests they did? Estrogen levels? Overall testosterone levels? Free testosterone levels?


> She put me on the sprolactine and a birth control that is
> suppose to slow the hair growth.

They often do -- but at the expense of messing up your hormones overall. A bit of a blunt instrument.

> Needless to say nothing has changed and the hair seems to be
> increasing the older I get.

You would expect it to increase the older you get as your natural estrogen levels will be dropping and so your hormone balance changing towards more androgen-influenced.


> I have to pluck atleast twice a day

That's really tough -- how do you ever find time?

> and still have hair to show

As obviously it must before you can get a hold of it to pluck

> and now the hair is comming in ingrown and causing cyst
> like bumps until I'm able to remove the hair causeing scaring.

The hair root gets distorted by repeated plucking

> I don't know what to do at this point and am become so embaressed
> it depresses me.

The last thing you can afford to do is to let it get you down, so what you need is a method of dealing with the hair in that you can be happy with and will give you confidence.



> I don't want to date because I don't want to be seen as a freak!

Don't let that stop you -- why let facial hair ruin your life at 26?


> I've heard of the saw palmetto extract, vanique cream, and laser
> if anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it!

Vaniqa cream works well for some people, but it doesn't stop the hair growth, just slows it down a bit.

Laser works fine for some people with very light skin, very black hair and hair growth that's not hormonally-fuelled -- though I suspect yours may be, if you're plucking so frequently.


> I seem to be the only one in my family with the problem
> so I have noone to relate to.

That makes it a whole lot tougher for you.

For what it's worth, here's my experience.
I certainly wouldn't have wanted to experiment with adjusting my hormonal balance, as I always hoped to have children -- and now have. In any case, when my moustache started growing in big-time as a teenager, I couldn't possibly have afforded treatment supposing I'd wanted it, so I borrowed my father's Norelco electric shaver and shaved it off. By the time I was 15 I was shaving every day. One thing I can say is that I think that having "faced" the issue so early has helped me. Of course I would rather I didn't have a moustache. It probably restricted the number of guys who were interested in me BUT it didn't stop me getting a great husband and the way he looks at it is that he got a wife who's got very high testosteronelevels and as a result is far keener than most women on the physical side of our relationship. The fact I shave has certainly not spoiled our relationship and indeed without exception the other men who know I shave have all been extremely nice about it -- they're interested in a curious sort of way, but certainly not nasty -- just the opposite.

I've found that shaving (I still like the men's Norelco rechargeable razors) takes less than two minutes in the morning and I can be absolutely certain that nothing's showing. It's no hassle at all. I know my views are minority views, but all the same, they reflect my experience and may be of help to someone.