Main causes and types of hair loss in women
Types and causes of hair loss
- Information on women alopecia- What is Women Alopecia areata - Alopecia areata in women
The term alopecia is confusing to most Women. The mystery around it never stops and the frustration with it continues. To define different types of Alopecia, it is important to understand the different phases of hair growth and hair life. This will als...
- Endocrine disorders and hair loss in women - Lupus, Thyroid Problems, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
Endocrine disorders and hair loss in women Lupus SLE (also known as lupus) is a serious systemic condition categorized as an autoimmune disorder that may affect many organ systems, including the skin, joints, and internal organs. An autoimmune di...
- Female Pattern Hair Loss (Androgenetic Alopecia) information - What is FPHL ?
Female Pattern Hair Loss makes up about the bulk of hair loss cases observed in females, It impacts 20 to 50, percent of women by age' fifty, based on the study by American Academy of Dermatology, Feminine pattern baldness is recognized as genetic, eve...
- Patchy Alopecia in women and other cases
Unlike alopecia areata, this patchy alopecia occurs with scarring on the scalp. It can be congenital (present at birth); result from trauma, including burns, frostbite, injury, and radiation; or result from infection or inflammation. It may be associat...
- Nonendocrine Disorders causing hair loss in women
Nonendocrine disorders may also have hair loss as a symptom: liver disease, inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease, syphilis, liver and kidney failure, candida (yeast infection), and certain cancers such as Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia....
- Inflammatory Alopecia in women
Pseudopelade Also known as alopecia cicatrisata, this is a rare condition that primarily affects women and sometimes children. Pseudopelade is an inflammation of the upper portion of the hair follicle, while alopecia areata's inflammation occurs pri...
- Hair Pulling and Other Types of Hair Loss - Trichtotilloillania, Cicatricial alopecias, Seborrheic Dermatitis
Besides disturbances of the hair-growth cycle, different kinds of hair loss can be brought on by injury, stress to the scalp or numerous fungal infections. A few of these issues are incredibly rare. Nevertheless, these types of hair loss must be on you...
- Drugs Induced Alopecia - Prescription Drugs That Induce Hair Loss - Is my Medication Causing my Hair Loss?
While an underlying disease may trigger hair loss, many medications, both prescription and nonprescription, are implicated in the condition. Drug-induced alopecia usually involves pharmaceutical alteration of the cycling process, the phases of hair gro...
- Diffuse Alopecia in Women - Telogen Effluvium and Anagen Effluvium
Telogen Effluvium When your body goes through something traumatic, like childbirth, malnutrition, a severe infection, major surgery, or extreme stress, many of the 90 percent of your hairs that are currently in the growing (anagen) phase or catagen...
Hair loss in women can be temporary or long lasting. Temporary hair loss can be easy to fix when its cause is identified and dealt with or difficult when it is not immediately clear what the cause is. Hair loss that could have been merely temporary may become long lasting as a result of an incorrect diagnosis. The potential for such misdiagnoses is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of hair loss for women. The information here will help you identify the cause of your hair loss and ideally lead you and your doctors to the right treatments for your particular kind of hair loss sooner rather than later.
If hair loss could be traced to one cause, treating and curing it would be easy. Unfortunately, that is not the case. An underlying health problem, fungal Infections, genetic propensities, or a myriad of other things could all be contributing to your hair loss.
Is Something Wrong with Me? Hair Loss can be a symptom of Disease
Hair loss may be a symptom of a disease and not an end diagnosis in itself. In terms of your overall health, ruling out an underlying condition that may be causing your hair loss is important. This is where self-diagnosis can, at best, lead you down the wrong path and waste precious time and money; at worst, it can endanger your health.
Diagnostic tests are required to determine if your hair loss is caused or triggered by an ongoing disease process. Sometimes, even after a disease such as hypothyroidism is treated, hair loss may continue. Nonetheless, stabilizing the disorder is important before proper treatment of your hair loss can begin.
Endocrine disorders
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), hyper/hypothyroidism, and polycystic ovary syndrome (peaS) are among the diseases that may be associated with thinning hair.
Some thoughts on proper diagnosis of hair loss
o “Women can have lots of different hair problems; women don’t all suffer from the same problem. I see women who’ve had hair loss from hair processing, including chemical treatments, coloring, and perms. Then there’s that group of women who have chronic shedding problems from other causes. And there’s the group who have female pattern hair loss, just as men have male pattern hair loss. There’s also a smaller group of women who have scarring on their scalps from years of chemical processing. Not all dermatologists recognize the causes of women’s hair loss, and they just throw them into one category and that’s why the patients get such jumbled up treatment. Of course, it would be so much easier if the women found the right doctor to treat them from the very beginning. So women have a rougher time with diagnosing and treating hair loss because it’s not like men’s hair loss where 80 percent to 90 percent have the same cause – androgenetic alopecia, also called pattern baldness, in this case male.”
o “Stress is a contributing factor when you have a hair loss problem. Stress changes the immune system and that adversely affects the hair follicle.”
o “Doctors need to spend at least an hour with each patient when working on a diagnosis. Unfortunately, doctors don’t or can’t take that kind of time anymore-they get their patients in and out in five minutes-and they don’t take the time to talk about what may be causing the problem and how to approach treatment. Remember, each patient is unique. I had a patient the other day who had just seen a colleague of mine, one who is one of the experts at a major university, and the doctor just walked in and told the patient, ‘This is what you have: and then was out of there in five minutes. She didn’t spend any time with the patient and talk to her. And the patient didn’t have the condition the doctor thought she had. This is very frustrating. There’s not one diagnosis, one straight kitchen book formula, for everybody.”
o “If you are getting a biopsy it certainly is not helpful if a general pathologist reads it. The biopsy has to be specially done to gain some insight into your particular scalp problem. The traditional way is to cut the biopsies vertically, but 110W we’re recognizing that horizontally is a much better approach. The general pathologist or dermatologist can’t read it though. It has to be specially read by one of the few in the country who know how to do that.”
o “Patients face a big problem when they go to a general practitioner or dermatologist who isn’t adequately trained in hair. High androgen/male hormone index birth control pills can start the ball rolling on hair loss, yet the average gynecologist who prescribes this is not in tune to the hair effects caused by oral contraceptives because their only concern is from the waist down!”
o “One of the biggest problems with diagnosing female pattern hair loss- androgenetic alopecia is that it overlaps tremendously with chronic telogen effluvium.”
o “There is so much misinformation out there, and a patient’s ability to get to the right sources is the main problem.”
