Did you know over 80 percent of people (men and women) suffer from hair shedding during their lifetime?
Noticing hair patches getting wider each day does nothing but add to your stress and depression. The bald patches, minor or more significant, can make you look unattractive and aged. There were times when hair shedding was only a men's problem. However, nowadays, you can see many women experiencing the pain of hair loss at some point in time.
That is to say, hair loss is a common concern of men and women worldwide, regardless of their age. Women especially experience hair loss due to several reasons. Dr. Deborah Scott- A dermatology professor at Harvard Medical School, considers determining the process going in the body to manage hair thinning issues necessary.
Though people experience hair loss as a part of their natural hair growth cycle, excessive seasonal shedding can lead to baldness. Counting the number of hair a person loses every day isn’t possible. But if you’re shedding more hair than you’re supposed to, it might be a sign of an underlying cause.
While finding the solution to the hair loss problem is essential, you must determine the reasons causing the pain. Here is a list of some reasons that can cause hair loss, especially if you ignore the symptoms.
Loss of Hair in Men and Women
Medical Condition
You might not have heard about it, but many medical conditions can cause hair loss in men and women. The conditions often include lupus, diabetes, thyroid problem, and anemia. Sometimes iron or any other nutritional deficiency can also lead to hair fall.
If you suffer one of the mentioned conditions and experiencing hair loss, you must see your doctor treat help you find the solution.
Hormonal Imbalance
One of the most common causes for which men and women suffer massive hair shedding is hormonal imbalance. It may happen at any age due to different reasons. PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome), for example, is a condition that causes hormonal imbalance in women.
One of the symptoms of this hormone disorder is hair loss. If the condition persists or you overlook the symptoms, it may cause cysts in the ovary and many other side effects, and hair loss is the most common one.
Furthermore, starting or stopping birth control or contraceptive pills may cause temporary hormonal balance. This imbalance of hormones in the body often develops hair loss or thinning. Imbalanced hormones in males can also be the reason for hair loss.
An increase and decrease in androgen levels (hormones that affect the male reproductive system) can cause excessive hair shedding in men.
Medicines Side Effects
Some medical treatments have hair loss as a significant side effect. They may disrupt the natural hair growth cycle. Often, medical side effects cause two types of hair loss.
Telogen effluvium
Telogen effluvium isn’t only more common and causes your hair follicles to continue or restart the resting phase. The state also causes your tresses to shed permanently. Blood thinners and beta-adrenergic blockers are the drugs that can lead to developing telogen effluvium.
Anagen effluvium
The condition affects patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment. It occurs when hair is in an active growth phase, and the drugs inhibit the function of matrix cells that produces hair.
Alopecia Areata
Alopecia areata is another medical reason that causes baldness in men and women. Conditions like asthma, atopic dermatitis, hay fever, vitiligo, thyroid disease, or Down syndrome can trigger Alopecia. The baldness in this condition develops in small or giant patches. The density of patches is lesser on the top or front of the scalp in Alopecia compared to other conditions such as telogen effluvium.
Pregnancy
Hair loss shortly after giving birth is common in women. It doesn't happen due to any underlying medical issue, whereas the declining estrogen levels cause hair shedding.
Understanding the difference between Seasonal Hair Loss and Medical Hair Loss
While Hair loss or thinning in autumn and winter may be a seasonal phenomenon for many people, the results are barely visible. However, if you’re one of the individuals who lose much more than 60 to 100 hair every day, it might be a severe problem.
Losing a lot of hair daily requires close observation to understand the cause of the problem. One of the reasonable indications of whether you're experiencing excessive hair thinning is to keep checking your parting or the areas where you section your hair. If your hair fall is unusual or extreme, it will cause your parting or sectioned hairline to look wider.
Some hair loss in both men and women is perfectly normal and often a part of the regrowth process. Occasionally, people lose a significant amount of hair daily, but their quick regrowth covers the loss and makes it unnoticeable.
However, detecting slow regrowth or constant hair falling in a specific pattern can indicate any underlying hair loss condition.
As mentioned above, if your hair is thinning at the crown or temple, this could signify permanent hair loss conditions like MAGA (Male Androgenic Alopecia) in men. This type of consistent hair shedding on specific areas on the scalp in women is known as FAGA (Female Androgenic Alopecia)-female pattern hair loss.
In conditions like these, consulting a dermatologist or hair care expert is ideal. A hair expert may suggest hair treatments and therapies, depending on the situation and severity of your hair loss problem.
Ways to Treat the Hair loss
Improve your diet
Use hair thickening products
Incorporate deep conditioning
Take supplements
You can also try wigs made of natural hair (though it doesn’t treat your hair loss issue, it can help you hide baldness or improve the outlook of your hair).
Summing Up
Overall, hair loss is a common condition that is temporary most of the time. But if you lose excessive hair, you must take notice and see a doctor. The given reasons will help you understand the causes of hair loss.
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