Hey all. I'm a male, 17 years old, nearly 18. My hair has been thinning for almost 2 years now in a funny pattern. I don't know if it's baldness but it's gradually getting thinner all over. I've tried everything I can think of, I even tried Propecia and all it did was give me side effects. Shaving isn't an option because I don't like my head, it's big and I've been told it has a weird shape. This didn't matter at all when I had lots of hair to cover it up, but now that I'm faced with the prospect of losing my hair it's starting to matter a lot, which is why I'm looking into hair pieces. Some guys my age can pull off a very short hair/shaved look, but I just can't.

I feel like such a loser walking around in public with my pathetic thinning hair. I can't have it styled the way I want it anymore because it's not thick enough. I do use concealers for special occasions but they're not going to work forever.

The main reason I want a piece is to feel better about myself. Obviously I wouldn't go around telling people I was wearing it, but if a few people found out it wouldn't be the end of the world. I would just explain my situation to them. It's not like I asked to lose my hair.

I want to shave my hair off and get a full cap which looks like my old hair. I'm going to try and drag it out as long as possible before I do this, because I realize wearing a wig every day is not going to be easy. But it's the only realistic option I have, because as I said the medications don't work for me and I can't shave my head, it just won't work.

I want to get a medium length custom full cap that looks something like this:

http://i44.tinypic.com/dpai34.jpg

I'm young so I could easily get away with a dense style like that. I just want to know, how much maintenance would be involved? How often would I need to take it off? How often would I need to wash it? How hard would it be to remove it and attach it again?

I'm not too worried about the maintenance because I already worry about my hair for hours each day, so compared to that the maintenance for a hair piece is almost nothing. But I just want to know what to expect.