Bigmac
Administrator
Staff member
Hair loss affects many men and women each year, it can be caused by heredity (programmed in your genes) some medical conditions and even medications.
People can generally lose one to two hundred hairs daily as part of the body's recycling process, this is a temporary process, hairs are lost when brushing, washing and combing, so finding a few hairs on your hairbrush or in the bath tub each day is completely normal. Scalp hair starts to become noticeably thinner when more hairs are lost through normal shedding than the scalp is renewing. Thinning starts becoming visible when around 40% of the scalp hair is lost.
Involutional alopecia is a natural condition of hair thinning with age. More hair remains in the resting phase.
Androgenic alopecia in men is called male pattern baldness . It is a generic condition affecting both men and women, this can cause a receding hairline, a gradual loss of hair from the crown and frontal scalp.
Telogen effluvium is when a large number of hairs enter the resting phase at the same time resulting in noticeable thinning.
Traction Alopecia is caused when the hair is pulled to tight, ie in beading where there is constant pulling on the hair which causes tension and stress.
There are also more serious varieties of alopecia which cause the loss of all body hair (alopecia universalis) and loss of hair patches in children (alopecia areata). Doctors do not know why some hair follicles have a shorter growth period than others, but there are some factors which have been proven to affect hair growth. The principle ones include:
Genes, both parents influence a person who suffers from male or female pattern baldness
Hormones, such as abnormal levels of androgens
Stress, illness and childbirth can cause temporary hair loss
Drugs, including chemo therapy, blood thinners & birth control pills
Cosmetics, over shampooing, perms, bleaching etc.
The bottom line is that there are many causes of hair loss, some permanent, others temporary, and determining which is at work in an individual is the first step in developing a program to treat the condition.
Below you will find individual topics offering basic advice, in the main forum you will find more helpful topics where I encourage you to join in and discuss your hairloss issues.
People can generally lose one to two hundred hairs daily as part of the body's recycling process, this is a temporary process, hairs are lost when brushing, washing and combing, so finding a few hairs on your hairbrush or in the bath tub each day is completely normal. Scalp hair starts to become noticeably thinner when more hairs are lost through normal shedding than the scalp is renewing. Thinning starts becoming visible when around 40% of the scalp hair is lost.
Involutional alopecia is a natural condition of hair thinning with age. More hair remains in the resting phase.
Androgenic alopecia in men is called male pattern baldness . It is a generic condition affecting both men and women, this can cause a receding hairline, a gradual loss of hair from the crown and frontal scalp.
Telogen effluvium is when a large number of hairs enter the resting phase at the same time resulting in noticeable thinning.
Traction Alopecia is caused when the hair is pulled to tight, ie in beading where there is constant pulling on the hair which causes tension and stress.
There are also more serious varieties of alopecia which cause the loss of all body hair (alopecia universalis) and loss of hair patches in children (alopecia areata). Doctors do not know why some hair follicles have a shorter growth period than others, but there are some factors which have been proven to affect hair growth. The principle ones include:
Genes, both parents influence a person who suffers from male or female pattern baldness
Hormones, such as abnormal levels of androgens
Stress, illness and childbirth can cause temporary hair loss
Drugs, including chemo therapy, blood thinners & birth control pills
Cosmetics, over shampooing, perms, bleaching etc.
The bottom line is that there are many causes of hair loss, some permanent, others temporary, and determining which is at work in an individual is the first step in developing a program to treat the condition.
Below you will find individual topics offering basic advice, in the main forum you will find more helpful topics where I encourage you to join in and discuss your hairloss issues.
