Hair Loss Treatment

Most Common Types of Hair Loss

There are a number of ways that people lose their hair. Hereditary thinning is the most common, but not all hair loss is genetic. Some people have medical issues that can cause their hair to fall out, like thyroid disease, iron deficiency, hormonal imbalances, and more. Here are the most common types of hair loss:

Involutional Alopecia
With this condition, hair naturally thins as you age. This causes hair follicles to go into a resting phase while the remaining hair becomes shorter and there are fewer of them.

Androgenic Alopecia
This is a generic condition that can impact both men and women. In men, this is often referred to as “male pattern baldness”. Balding can start as early as their teens. Usually, with men, this will start with a receding hairline and gradually thin around the crow of the head and front of the scalp. “Female pattern baldness” usually happens around the age of 40. Most women start losing hair across their entire scalp and see it happening around the crown of the head.

Alopecia Areata
This condition usually happens suddenly and is most often seen in children and adolescents. This could involve patchy hair loss, total baldness (alopecia totalis), or complete body hair loss (alopecia universalis). In most cases, the hair will grow back in a few years.

Trichotillomania
You may have heard this called “the hair-pulling disorder.” This is a self- inflicted condition most often diagnosed in children. With this psychological condition, children repeatedly pull out their own hair.

Telogen Effluvium
This is usually a temporary condition that occurs due to changes in the growth cycle of hair. It happens when a large number of hairs go into the resting phase at the same time, and excessive shedding and thinning happens.

Scarring Alopecia
Inflammatory skin problems cause permanent hair loss conditions. This happens when folliculitis, acne, or another skin condition causes scar tissue that destroys hair follicles and doesn’t allow hair to regrow.

Traction Alopecia
This is a gradual hair loss that is caused by constant pulling or tension on the hair. When this happens, inflammation and scarring occur, preventing the hair from growing in the future.

Causes for Hair Loss

It’s completely normal to brush your hair or run your fingers through it and see hair fall out. We actually shed about 100 hair each day. But if you’re losing hair faster than your body can produce new hair to replace it, there could be several of reasons why it’s happening.

Heredity
This is the most common form of hair loss. This happens with aging.

Illness
Pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, and thyroid problems are a few of the conditions that can cause permanent or temporary hair loss. Some medications used to treat illnesses like heart problems, cancer, arthritis, and high blood pressure can also cause hair to fall out.

Stress
A physical or emotional shock can cause hair to fall out temporarily.

Hairstyling and treatments
Excessive hairstyling where your hair is pulled back tight in styles like pigtails, cornrows, and cornrows can cause hair to fall out. Hot oil treatments and perms can also lead to hair loss. If scarring happens then, the hair loss could be permanent.