Does Hair Loss At The Temples Mean I Have Androgenetic Alopecia?

I sometimes hear from people who worry that the hair loss that they are noticing at androgen driven areas on their scalp might mean that they have androgenetic alopecia rather than telogen effluvium. An area that I'm often asked about are the temples, particularly from women.
I heard from someone who said: "I have been shedding hair for about 5 months. I know that this is a long time to continue to lose hair. Sometimes, I think my hair loss is diffuse. But when I examine my head, I find that I am the most hard hit in the temple area. If I take my bangs and pull them straight back, it is easy to notice that my temples have receded and thinned. I am wondering if it is possible for me to have telogen effluvium if I am having noticeable loss in this area. I know that this area is commonly hard hit when you have androgenetic alopecia because of androgens."
Before I give you what is only my opinion, I have to tell you that I'm not a doctor or even an expert. I'm a lay person who has developed opinions because of my own experience and research. So please ask your doctor about any specific concerns. In my own experience, my hair loss has pretty much run its course now. But in the midst of it, my temples were extremely thin. I worried that this meant that I was had female patterned baldness. My hair loss started after I had gone off of birth control pills, which is a situation that is known to kick off different types of hair loss, so my trigger wasn't really indicative of which type of hair loss I might have had. And, only time could tell me that one day, my hair loss would stop, which indicates telogen effluvium. Therefore, it's my own theory that this type of temporary shedding can strike at the temple area and I will tell you why.
I realize that people may argue with my opinion and say that receding temples are indicative of androgen driven loss, and I do understand this. But it's my theory that some people have significant diffuse hair loss for a very long time. And frankly, even full temples are an area that is more sparse in volume than other areas of your scalp. Not only that, but this area has a lot of fine, baby hairs that do not provide much coverage to begin with. (You can look at all photos to confirm this.)
So, when you are drastically shedding (as is the case with telogen effluvium,) it makes sense that an area that is already filled with baby hairs and a sparse area will be hard hit when you are losing that much hair. I find this situation also true of the crown. When my hair loss was at its worst, I developed thinning in my crown. It got so bad that there was actually a little part line that formed an L shape in the back of my head where my part started to creep down.
So to answer the question posed, it's my opinion that in some cases, people with telogen effluvium do notice significant hair loss at the temples and they turn out to not have androgen driven loss. This has been my experience. I'm not saying that this type of loss shouldn't make someone suspect androgenetic alopecia. I understand why it would. But I think that a sparse temple area can be indicative of more than one type of hair loss.

How do I know all of this? Because I lived it. My front area by the bangs and temples was among the first areas to thin. Eventually, I came to realize that it was both the shedding and the lack of decent regrowth that was the enemy and that this is what I needed to address. I It was a long, hard, frustrating journey which all but wrecked my self esteem but I finally found something that helped quite a bit. You can read that story  at  http://stop-hair-loss-in-women.com/

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