I’m going to be talking about Age Related Pattern Hair Loss. Plus, all about some of the most common causes for hair loss. I know it’s something that a lot of you cope with or are struggling
with right now. It’s really frustrating and emotionally devastating to be losing your hair. So hopefully in my new post,
I’ll clarify some of the most common reasons for hair loss. Reason number one, unfortunately is your genetics
I think this surprises a lot of women we always think about male pattern hair loss or male pattern baldness as being.
something not has a genetic component to it but women can go through this as well and it definitely does have a genetic
Understanding why Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss occurs
component into it by the presentation of pattern hair loss in women is a little bit different than in man it tends to be
focused more on the top of the head whereas in men it’s more of a receding hairline but it’s the same type of hair.
loss and there is a genetic component it’s called androgenetic alopecia but yeah and women it tends to focus on the
crown and presents as a widening of the midline part typically and this can occur around menopause for many but even.
earlier in life so it’s related to kind of changes in hormones and probably to a certain extent the hair follicle seems
to be maybe a little bit sensitive to androgen hormones in the body and that’s what that’s what kicks this off and
causes us four people treatments for androgenetic alopecia include things like Rogaine and some oral medications.
now I have posts and articles all about androgenetic alopecia alopecia so check those out there’s also a low-level laser therapy
that is incredibly useful so I’ve got posts on that as well yeah androgenic alopecia is probably one of the most.
common reasons for hair loss in adults another reason though women is going to be a childbirth and
here’s here’s why it goes along with that and why that happens the hairs on your head are all in different stages of
the of a of the hair growth cycle the majority of the hairs in your head are in the stage of the cycle where they’re,
growing and they spend the majority of their life time in that stage then they go into a resting stage and then they’re
Whats the biggest factors in Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss?
shed and what is called telogen but what’s interesting is that when we’re during pregnancy we have an increase in.
estrogen hormones and estrogen shifts many of the hairs into that growing stage so you get more hairs in the
growing stage than you normally that you normally have and therefore when you’re pregnant you may notice wow my hair is a
lot thicker it’s growing it’s a lot longer it’s a lot denser but guess what after you deliver or you know actually I
have your baby all of a sudden those hormones go back to you baseline so all that hair that was recruited into the
growing stage of the hair cycle now undergoes the remainder of the hair cycle and then it sheds and that is what
is called a telogen effluvium so many women after delivery will experience share shedding to a certain extent but
for some women it it goes on for a long time it can be incredibly distressing there is a lot of person-to-person
variability and the degree of that but that will normalize with time and so long as there are no other there are
How can avoid the worst problems
hormonal changes going on or some of the other reasons for hair loss which I’ll talk about in a moment but at its root
that is what is referred to as a telogen effluvium pregnancy is a unique situation for
telogen effluvium but there are some other reasons for telogen effluvium that I’ll talk about in a moment
similar to pregnancy though another common reason for hair shedding is starting stopping or changing your birth
control pills birth control pills usually have some combination of estrogen and progesterone although there
are some birth control pills and methods that are progesterone only and regardless when you start these
medications and/or stop or change to different different types it definitely can play a role and know where those
hairs on your head are are hanging out in the hair cycle and you definitely account experience a telogen effluvium
around starting and stopping birth control pills and this can go on typically starts about three months
When will it stop
after the change so you may not realize that that’s what’s going on and I you know a common situation for
women is they they deliver that a woman may be pregnant delivers a baby and then goes through the the telogen effluvium
related to postpartum and then she tries to get then she’s going to go on a birth control pill or a birth control method
maybe she’ll be on one method that’s more compatible with breastfeeding then she’ll stop that and change you to what
she used before so that’s a lot of starting and stopping different birth control pills and not same time period
so those are different different kind of factors that are gonna contribute to you the telogen effluvium pregnancy and
birth control pills is obviously unique to women but another common reason for hair loss is medications in general you
know I always mention birth control pills but there are a ton of other medications that can cause hair loss a
blood pressure medicine that people take called propranolol can definitely do this and a lot of people take that
medication for for situational anxiety performance anxiety because it has kind of a calming effect to it it’s a beta
blocker and that medication can kick off a telogen effluvium systemic steroids can impact the hair cycle and cause hair
shedding when you start and stop them they can interfere with the the progression of the hairs from the
resting stage back into the growing stage and by systemic steroids I mean prednisone antidepressants also can
contribute to UT Legion effluvium or cost hyo-jin effluvium a skin retinoids oral retinoids like accutane can cause a
telogen effluvium I get a lot of questions on my accutane post does this cause hair loss it certainly can cause a
telogen effluvium I get a lot of questions
telogen effluvium but you should know that that type of hair loss is not permanent so it’s not
causing permanent balding once you’re done with the accutane or the oral retinoid the hair will eventually go
back to you go back to normal and then certain medications for seizures like carbamazepine phenytoin and valproic
acid also can cause hair loss and many people are on these medications for things other than seizures specifically
migraine headaches a lot of people take anti-seizure medicines for their migraines and of course obviously in
terms of medications chemotherapy certainly is associated with hair loss starting chemotherapy is associated with
the type of hair loss called anagen effluvium
a little different from telogen effluvium and that it actually
affects the majority of hairs on your head that are all in that growing stage but chemotherapy and going through
chemotherapy itself is very stressful as well so that’s a stress on your body and can be associated with thinning of the
hair for a long time after after your hair begins to regrow can be much thinner for for quite a while
outside of medications another reason for hair loss is a nutritional deficiency this is not as common but it
certainly can occur one nutritional deficiency related that is associated with hair loss is iron deficiency anemia
there can be many different reasons for an iron deficiency
anemia and it requires a comprehensive workup most
people just assume that it has to do with your diet but sometimes it might be that you are losing blood from somewhere
so their same a more comprehensive workup that is typically typically initiated to investigate an iron
deficiency anemia but yes hair loss can be associated with doubt for sure another deficiency is vitamin D
deficiency has been associated with hair loss as well vitamin D deficiency is very common nowadays we’re not entirely
sure as to why we don’t think it has anything to do with wearing sunscreen we actually have very good studies showing
that sunscreen does not seem to interfere with vitamin D levels so anyways vitamin D
deficiency certainly can can contribute or be associated with hair loss and then zinc deficiency is another potential
source of vitamin deficiency that has been associated with hair loss so that’s something not you know with any kind of
hair loss I should have mentioned this at the beginning it’s very important to see your health care provider first
before jumping to conclusions about the cause of your hair loss and you know perhaps they can refer you to a
dermatologist for an appropriate workup of evaluation of your hair loss to determine the cause I should have said
that in the beginning but yeah don’t just self diagnosed in other words now I
getting back to telogen effluvium
talked about it in terms of pregnancy and starting stopping birth control pills as well as with other medications
but there are a variety of other things that can cause a telogen effluvium basically any severe stress whether it
be emotional or physical so some people will develop a telogen effluvium if they go through a particularly stressful time
at work it’s not uncommon to you have hair shedding three months after the fact having an illness can affect the
hair cycle and be associated with telogen effluvium specifically having a fever you know you may be sick with the
flu and have a fever of three months later you have hair shedding on it’s not uncommon but any kind of severe illness
can be associated with telogen effluvium it puts a stress on your body that affects the hair cycle not only illness
and fever but also surgery if you have a surgery that is actually very taxing on your body and viewed as a stress during
surgery the last thing that your body is going to be prioritizing is growing hair so it’s not uncommon at all to
experience a telogen effluvium three months post off any form of crash dieting rapid weight loss of course can
trigger telogen effluvium if you participate in endurance sports and you train for something like a
marathon don’t be surprised if three months after the race you develop the because when you’re running a marathon
the last thing that your body is going to be prioritizing is growing hair
so it’s not unusual at all to experience a
teal Looby I’m after training for something really intense like that and being aware
that not only do you have the event of the the marathon itself I’m using that as an example but you also are doing
some intensive training leading up to that so you may have shedding for quite some time after after the race diseases
of the endocrine system certainly can be associated with children effluvium probably most common is hypothyroidism
having low thyroid hormone certainly will cause a t lesion effluvium another common reason for hair loss is actually
dandruff or psoriasis in the scalp these are conditions inflammatory skin conditions that affect the scalp and
cause a lot of inflammation scaling and that inflammation in the scalp can cause hair breakage and also can affect to a
certain extent the hair growing cycle and lead to lead to hair hair loss however so once
loss it’s not permanent
those diseases are under control then there is the opportunity for the hair to regrow and things that are used
to treat dandruff and also psoriasis in the scalp include over-the-counter or anti dandruff shampoos that have
ketoconazole in them like Nizoral shampoo or a zinc pyrithione or selenium sulfide these all can help and then
there of course prescription medications that may be offered to treat these diseases another very common cause of
Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss problems
hair loss is an autoimmune hair loss called alopecia areata this is a very strange disease but very common and
strange in the sense that for whatever reason all of a sudden your immune system decides hey let’s attack the hair
follicles and this presents with a sudden onset loss of hair either much often a patch of hair in the scalp just
lead to a frank bald patch really really alarming for patients really unsettling very traumatic to go through and why
this happens are not entirely sure but it is pretty common and the good news
in most cases the hair grows back
with out any treatment there are treatments that can be offered that will increase the rate at which that the hair regrows
things like steroid injections into the spots and prescription medications but that is not
Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss
a permanent form of hair loss either usually there are some more widespread types of alopecia areata less common the
effect the individual for life and they have to go on systemic medications for those diseases so for that disease so
you know there’s some variants without alopecia areata the autoimmune hair loss but the most common presenting type
usually is not permanent and resolves another very common source of hair loss is related to your hair styling
practices something called traction alopecia meaning if you wear your hair in really tight braids or really tight
cornrows you wear your hair pulled up on the top of your head and a tight ponytail that can actually pull on the
hair and and cause obviously traction that can ultimately scar down the hair follicle and lead to hair loss there it
can’t be permanent but in the early stages if it’s identified and you stopped wearing your hair that way the
hair will regrow first it kind of leads to just breakage and thinning but ultimately it can ongoing stress on that
hair follicle it can lead to a permanent form of hair loss and that typically happens in the temporal scalp area as
you can imagine related to Pine hair back tightly heat styling is a source of hair loss namely because it causes hair
breakage whether it be blood on your hair or using a flatiron
this will damage the hair shops it causes
something called Trico rexis nodosa which is basically the hair shafts become very fragile and brittle in the
center and they kind of make this squishy little node and in the middle of the hair shaft that then breaks and so
that is related to heat styling the hair if you do so you know if you do blow-dry your hair a recommendation would be to
use the lowest heat setting possible and hold the hairdryer at a distance of 15 centimeters from your hair now has
actually shown to be the least damaging you the hair so that is the best practice for hair for blow drying your
hair but Flatiron will damage will cause heat damage on the hair shafts no matter how you use it and then lastly another
cause is processing the hair whether it be straightening it relaxing it or or getting a perm these chemical treatments
on the hair can definitely affect the hair shafts themselves for sure lead them very brittle and susceptible to a
lot of breakage but also depending on the hair processing specifically relaxers if on the if these chemicals
get in contact with the scalp whatsoever they can be very very caustic and can damage the hair follicles and actually
lead to a scarring type of hair loss so hair processing is certainly a cause of brittle hair and hair breakage but also
with time can affect the scalp and lead to inflammation irritation and damage to those hair follicles in your scalp but I
can give you some practical tips that perhaps you can put into place that might help some of these things number
Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss relates to shampooing of the hair
it’s actually a delicate balance between over washing and under washing the hair
or the scalp over washing me and your shampooing too frequently are too often can dry out the
hair shops quite a bit and lead to breakage also can cause dryness in the scalp it’s irritating may cause you to have Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss
scratch your scalp and that can cause hair breakage up close and more hair loss however not shampooing enough can
lead to a buildup of oil and overgrowth at that little yeast called malassezia that lives on everyone’s skin on and
that overgrowth of yeast leads to a lot of inflammation in the scalp and causes dandruff as well as contributes to
certain types of hair loss so it’s a delicate balance and the balance is up to the individual because it’s going to
be guided by your hair time if you have an oily or scalp and oily or hair type you’re going to tolerate most likely
shampooing more but if you have a hair texture that does not withstand frequent shampooing it’s Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss
something that you have to kind of you kind of have to calculate how often you’re able to get away with it that way
you’re balancing cleansing the scalp and removing oil
and build-up from the scalp and the hair shafts but not overdoing at
such that it wreaks havoc on your hair strands and your hair texture the second tip is to make sure that you are using a
conditioner conditioners have things not cut the hair in them and actually reduce static so your hair particularly when
you brush it it deposits negative charges all over the hair and that leads to static that can cause breakage
conditioners actually deposit a positive charge all over your hair that kind of prevents again it reduces that static
conditioners also have things like hydrolyzed proteins in them and silicones that deposit on the porosity
z’ of the hair and strengthen the hair and also give some shine and and luster to your hair but she just need a little
bit and just direct it to the ends of your hair you don’t want to use too much cuz that actually can weigh down the
hair shafts and lead to more breakage so it’s a delicate balance but using conditioner on the ends of your hair
Female Age Related Pattern Hair Loss help
will definitely help and reducing hair breakage just don’t go overboard and then my last tip would be to make sure
that you’re styling your hair very gently I’m not wearing tight ponytails or tight
braids just letting your hair be down gentle hairstyles that don’t put a lot of traction on the scalp ponytails and
things like that you can’t want to get your hair off your face and Senoia no those are my tips and tricks for hair
loss and the most common types of hair loss but again make sure you see your healthcare provider for evaluation and
management really important to nail down a diagnosis as to what is causing your hair loss rather than self diagnosing
but I hope this post was helpful to you guys please leave a comment
