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Hair Loss: You Can Be a Victim
FARRAH Fawcett’s layered locks. Twiggy’s bob cut. Marilyn Monroe’s platinum blond curls. All these iconic hairstyles have been imitated by most women all over the world, proving that the hair is the most important part in the overall appearance of a person. It’s no wonder women go through various treatments such as perming, rebonding, straightening, coloring, hair relaxing, and hot oil to have the best hair ever. But with all the treatments that technology can offer today plus the environmental and emotional factors, not a few women suffer hair loss.
Hair loss, or in medical term, alopecia, is characterized by hair falling out, resulting in smooth and round patches on the scalp. This problem might even be an early sign of diseases such as lupus or diabetes or even cancer.
The hair is made up of a strong protein called keratin, which is also a major component of skin, nails, hooves, and teeth. Keratin can be inflexible or hard or soft. Hair and nails on humans tend to become dry and brittle because the dead keratin is being pushed to greater lengths at the rate of about six inches a year. The thicker the layer of keratin, the healthier the hair.
Experts say that the normal cycle of hair growth lasts for two to six years. Each hair grows approximately one centimeter (less than half an inch) per month. During this time, about 90 per cent of the hair on your scalp is growing at any one time and about 10 per cent is in a resting phase. After two to three months, the resting hair falls out and new hair starts to grow. The average adult head has about 100,000 to 150,000 hair and loses up to 100 of them a day, so finding a few stray hair on your hairbrush is not necessarily a cause for alarm.
Types of Hair Loss
• Androgenic Alopecia. A genetically predisposed condition that can affect both men and women. Men with this condition can begin suffering hair loss as early as their teens or early 20s.
• Alopecia Areata. A condition that results in coin-sized bald patches. In about 90% of cases, though, the hair returns, usually within a few years. This disease remains unexplained. It is thought to be an autoimmune disease, meaning the immune system revs up for unknown reasons and affects the hair follicles or emotional stress.
• Alopecia Universalis. All body hair fall out.
• Telogen Effluvium. The hair thinning over the scalp that occurs because of changes in the growth cycle of the hair. A large number of hair enters the resting phase at the same time, causing shedding and subsequent thinning. This is a temporary hair loss that can occur within a few months after a high fever, a severe illness, or extreme stress, and in women following childbirth.
Hair Enemies
HERE are the factors that affect one’s hair growth:
• Stress. Experts say this is the most notorious causing agent of hair loss. Stress triggers your body to accelerate balding and falling out of your hair. So keep your stress level in check. Release the tension and stress by doing things that you really enjoy such as having your nails done, or reading a good book. Physical and emotional stress because of one’s illness, injury, or trauma may cause the hair to stop growing which is followed by hair falling out in two or three months later. When physical or emotional equilibrium is regained, the hair will again begin
to grow.
• Hereditary. If one’s hair starts to go bald in her early 20s, it’s safe to say that she will develop baldness and that she inherited it.
• Hormonal Factor. If androgens and estrogens (hormones in human) are imbalanced, this will result to hair loss. A woman’s hormones can begin to decline and lose balance as early as during her 30s. One of the most shocking examples of this imbalance is hair growth appearing on the upper lip or chin, or coarsening of the hair on the rest of the body. An overactive or underactive thyroid gland can also contribute to hair loss.
During pregnancy, high levels of certain hormones cause the body to keep hair that would normally fall out. Three months after giving birth, the hormones go back to pre-pregnancy levels or the normal cycle, causing hair to fall out.
• Heavy Styling. Hair products that have toxic chemicals such as in some dyes, gels, relaxers, and sprays.
Hair Friends
HERE are some ways to treat hair loss:
• Medications. Taking vitamins like biotin supplement stimulates hair growth. Studies show that Biotin is one vitamin that helps prevent and cure hair loss. Biotin can be found in food like eggs, malt-made food, cereals, and brown rice.
Rogaine and propecia are the only drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat baldness. Rogain is a topical solution that may be applied directly onto the scalp where hair growth is desired. Propecia is the first pill that can treat male pattern hair loss. Like all prescription products, it should be given under a physician’s care.
• Herbal Tea. The most natural way of curing hair loss is to drink tea regularly. Herbs have been used for years as a treatment. They help improve blood flow to the scalp, thus stimulating hair growth and giving hair volume.
• Scalp Massage. Aside from a balanced diet and eating nutritious food, massaging your scalp every day will stimulate blood circulation and ease out stress that is the leading factor of hair loss.
• Hair Transplant or Hair Grafting. If hair loss is severe and medications aren’t effective anymore, hair transplant or hair grafting is the last option. Not all patients who experience hair loss can undergo hair grafting. It is not recommended for women with a wide-spread pattern of baldness, those who don’t have sufficient ‘donor’ sites, and those who form keloid scars or thick skin tissue. Hair grafting consists of several sessions to achieve desired results. Side effects after each session are swelling, bruising around the eyes, lack of feeling or sensation, and itching.
Love Your Locks
1. Coconut milk not only gives shine and luster to hair, it also gives scalp nutrients and prevents hair loss. Apply coco milk all over the scalp and gently massage hair to the hair roots, leaving it for a couple of minutes, and then rinse.
2. Cut down smoking, taking caffeinated drinks, and carbonated sodas as these weaken and block hair growth potential.
3. Regularly brushing and massaging scalp relaxes hair and stimulates hair follicles.
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