Excessive scalp hair loss is a tough challenge against a woman's self-image and standing in business and society. Although we usually think of balding as a matter of men, women actually make forty percent of people in North America suffer excessive hair loss. Many women lose a significant scalp hair have polycystic ovary syndrome. Safe, effective, natural therapies that treat hormonal imbalances associated with PCOS also will restore your hair for optimal health. I am pleased to offer these tools is needed to help you restore your hair and your health.
Women lose their hair rapidly losing ground in the world today. At work and in personal life of a woman's appearance has a lot to do with the financial and social success. Men also may choose not to go bald. But since this bald known to be caused by high levels of testosterone, balding man can be credited with an extra virility. Nothing like a happy story for bald women. The emergence of scalp hair thinning translated a significant loss of personal power for women.
The medical community generally treat female hair loss as a minor health problem. Most doctors have little inclination to address the emotional distress you feel. In many cases doctors treat bald as if "only" matter of pride, they may not recognize the hair loss as a red flag that points to a serious metabolic condition, including PCOS.
Psychological pain of hair loss and its impact on our understanding of empowerment as devastating as the disfiguring disease. If you are a bald woman, hair loss is a life-changing condition with major consequences for your health. Get your hands on the wheel and drove himself to the solution for hair loss is the first step toward reviving a sense of personal strength and power. If hair loss is part of PCOS, the effort you made to restore your physical health will also renew the growth of scalp hair.
You need expert help to correctly diagnose the cause of your hair loss. Hair loss can be just as likely to be permanent if you have a delayed or incorrect diagnosis. Diagnosis is probably the most frustrating aspects of hair loss for women. The information I present here will help you identify the causes of hair loss and ideally bring you and your physician for proper care for your type of hair loss, sooner rather than later.
Alopecia is the medical term for excessive or abnormal hair loss. There are different types of alopecia. What all have in common hair loss, whether it be male or female, is that it is always a symptom of something else that's gone wrong. Your hair will stay in your head in place if the hormonal imbalance, illness, or some other condition is not the case. These conditions may be as simple as having a gene that makes you susceptible to male pattern baldness or female. Or maybe as complex as a whole host of diseases. Hair loss may be a symptom of short-term events such as stress, pregnancy, or side effects of certain drugs. In this situation, the hair grows back when the event has passed. Substances, including hormones and drugs can cause changes in the pattern of hair growth. When this happens, growth and shedding occur at the same time. Once the cause is treated, the hair back to their random pattern of growth and shedding, and stop balding.
Alopecia: Common Problems
Today more women than ever are experiencing hair loss - and the cause is usually quite different that what causes balding in men. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, about 30 million U.S. women experience some degree of scalp hair loss distressing. The most common causes of hair loss in woman's scalp can include:
Mineral or vitamin deficiency - zinc, manganese, iron, vitamin B6, biotin
Essential fatty acid deficiency of low-calorie diet or eating disorders
Protein deficiency, as is common with vegetarian diet
Anemia from low iron diet, poor digestion or excessive blood loss
Eating disorders, like anorexia, bulimia, and even diet 'yo-yo', as well as physical exercise is excessive or compulsive
Drug toxicity, for example anesthesia with surgery or chemotherapy for cancer
Many prescription drugs have hair loss as an effect of 'sides' potential, including bromocriptine, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, amphetamines, anti-cholesterol agent
Severe infections, either viral or bacterial
Severe stress, either extreme event of a sudden or sustained, long-term challenges
Each of the hypothalamus or pituitary disorders
Every heart, thyroid gland, adrenal gland or ovary disorders, including PCOS
Any imbalance of sex steroids such as low progesterone, estrogen dominance, excessive testosterone or insulin
Start or stop any hormone therapy, including birth control pills, menopausal hormone replacement treatment or thyroid hormone replacement
Every natural event that causes major hormonal changes, such as child birth, breastfeeding and weaning or menopause
Perms, hair color, bleach, improper brushing / combing, pulling hair
Autoimmune diseases like lupus or multiple sclerosis
Allergies to foods, drugs, environmental chemicals or topical medications
Hepatitis B last shot. If you have Hepatitis B vaccine because of this hair loss began, there may be a connection. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (278:117-8, 1997) connecting the Hep B vaccine to an increased incidence of alopecia in women.
How does an individual woman to find out why he was losing too much hair? To understand it, it's important to understand how hair grows.
Hair grows in cycles
Scalp hair grows about one half inch per month. An individual strand of hair will grow for two to six years. Finally, each hair "rests" for a while, and then fell. Soon after, the follicles will start growing a new strand. A healthy scalp will allow about 100 hairs fall out of cycling every day.
In people with a genetic predisposition to hair loss, and for women with PCOS, a hormone called androgen encourage this process. Androgens including testosterone, androsteinedione, and dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Men create and use a relatively large amount of androgen. Right, a smaller amount of androgen is essential for women's health as well.
In those who are genetically susceptible, testosterone activate the enzyme produced in the hair cells, which then causes it to be converted into more potent androgen DHT. DHT then binds with receptors deep within the hair follicle. Finally, DHT accumulated so much that the follicles begin to shrink. It can not reliably produce new hair. Some follicles are permanently stop producing new hair. The end result is a significant hair loss. The medical term for this condition is androgenic alopecia. Convert testosterone to DHT with the aid of Type II 5-alpha reductase enzyme, which was held in the oil glands of the hair follicle. Actually, it's not the amount of circulating testosterone is the problem but the amount of DHT your scalp and clog follicles to shrink, making it impossible for healthy hair to survive.
The process of testosterone converting to DHT, which then damage the hair follicle, which occurs in both men and women. Usually the woman has a fraction of the amount of testosterone that makes men. It seems that for women with hair loss, testosterone levels are actually not so important as the change in the amount of testosterone they have. A shift in hormone levels triggered by lifestyle or other factors, would cause DHT-triggered hair loss in women. Even when blood levels of the hormone remains in what doctors consider "normal", they can become high enough to cause problems for the individual woman. Levels may not rise at all and still be a problem if you are very sensitive to even normal levels of chemicals, including hormones.
Because we operate through a hormonal feedback system that is balanced, with the signals transmitted through the blood between the brain and body tissues, androgens do not need to be raised to trigger the problem. If the so-called female hormones, (which is also very important for men's health) is the reason for the shift in relation to androgen, the resulting imbalance can also cause problems, including hair loss.
Hormones are always changing. Testosterone levels in men fell by 10 percent every decade after age thirty. Female hormone levels change with each menstrual cycle, or due to lack of regular menstruation, pregnancy and menopause. Eating disorders, excessive exercise, drugs and environmental toxins can also affect hormone levels.
Keys To Successful Treatment
Head of hair thinning treatment should be based on changing your habits may have higher androgen support. Diet and exercise are the keys to maintaining optimal hormone balance. In fact, for women with PCOS, research-certainly no more effective than drug therapy proper diet and regular exercise. First, you get basic health habits in order; later, specific targeted therapies have the best chance to be effective for you.
Women with PCOS may also have an excess of coarse dark hair on their face and body. The only way to overcome the coarse, dark hair that grows from follicles that have been altered by androgen excess, is to destroy the follicle with a laser or similar treatment. Once the follicle has changed the type of hair it produces, it will not change back. It is important to tame the conversion of androgen excess and prevent additional follicles, before investing in therapies for hair follicles permanently damaging the face or body.
What Causes Hair Scalp Women Lose Too Much?
For a long time physicians believed that androgenic alopecia is the leading cause of balding in men and women. Now we know that the processes that lead to excessive hair loss in women is different. This is called female pattern hair loss.
Significant differences between male and female pattern balding is where hair loss occurs. Female pattern hair loss tends to occur as an overall thinning of the scalp in all fields, including the sides and back. Men lose hair from certain points, such as temples, crown, a bald patch on the back of the head. Male hormones and women and also the receptor sites of enzymes in various regions of the scalp, causing a different pattern of gender-related loss of hair loss.
The second major difference is that balding in men is usually caused by human genetics and age, but for women, balding can occur at any age.
Lifestyle choices, Disease and Medical Treatment Causes of Hair Loss
Most women with hair loss have several features of their event lifestyle, diet and related health that contribute. Fluctuations in sex hormone responsible for hair loss that most women, including those with PCOS, recent pregnancy, menopause, hormone replacement therapy or birth control side effects of drugs. Chemotherapy for cancer, anti-coagulant drug, iron deficiency anemia, autoimmune diseases can cause hair loss. Any disease of the gland to produce hormones, including thyroid, adrenal and pituitary glands can lead to bald women. It's important for all women to learn the true cause of hair loss before certain treatments.
Complex hormonal changes that accompany polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) often results in loss of scalp hair. Sometimes hair loss is the first sign that a woman suffering from a metabolic disorder that also causes problems with acne hair growth, facial and body, irregular menstrual cycles and infertility. PCOS is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Thyroid disorders, anemia, chronic illness or use of certain medications, especially any form of hormone replacement therapy or contraceptive prescriptions, should be considered as possible causes of hair loss in women. Autoimmune disorders will produce somewhat different, often less dramatic hair loss known as alopecia areata - an inflammatory condition in which the hair out in clumps or patches.
Any decline in estrogen levels, as occurs after pregnancy, menopause, or when changing your hormone therapy including the use of birth control pills, will lead to the so-called estrogenic alopecia. In contrast to testosterone, estrogen helps head hair grow faster and remain in the head again, resulting in thicker hair. This is the reason for female hair gets fuller during pregnancy when estrogen levels are high enough, then the warehouse a few weeks after birth.
For women who do not have a fertility-related changes in hormones, estrogen deficiency of scalp hair loss usually starts around the menopause. Form of female hair loss can be the first sign of approaching menopause. Sometimes alopecia will not begin until several months or even years after menstruation has ended. Not all women get a real alopecia after menopause but most have little thinning.
It's not unusual to have a lot of factors involved in women's hair loss. Many women with PCOS have a thyroid problem, usually hypothyroidism (low thyroid function). Hypothyroidism not only contribute to weight problems, also can contribute to thinning hair. Some women with PCOS have too high levels of both testosterone and under active thyroid.
If your hair is thinning, you may have heavy metals such as lead, mercury or cadmium in your network. This toxic residue saturated our environment. If you live near what is, or ever any industrial or mining areas, or living with someone who works in a polluting industry, you may be contaminated. If you ever smoked tobacco, you have a lot of cadmium in your body.
The majority of women with androgenic alopecia have diffuse thinning on all areas of the scalp. Some women may have a combination of two types of patterns. Androgenic alopecia is caused by various factors associated with hormone action, including PCOS, contraception, pregnancy, and menopause. Any blood sugar and insulin imbalances will cause androgen excess. Women with insulin resistance, chronic over-eating of refined carbohydrate foods, will see more impact of androgen. PCOS is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Chronic stress can change the spending levels of the adrenal glands produce androgens women as well. This is often a source of problems such as infertility, acne and hair thinning in the lean, athletic women with PCOS. Heredity may play a role in androgenic alopecia.
Every major event such as childbirth or breastfeeding, malnutrition of a change in your diet, severe infection, major surgery, or extreme stress, can suddenly shifted away from the 90 percent or more of your hair is in resting phase or phase to grow shedding phase. You will see a shift in the rate of hair loss 6 weeks to three months after the stressful event. This is called telogen effluvium. It is possible to lose a big bunch of hair each day with a full-blown telogen effluvium. Usually this type of hair loss is reversible, if the main stress is avoided. For some women however, telogen effluvium is a mysterious chronic disorder and may persist for months or years, without ever really identify all the factors triggering.
Anagen effluvium occurs when cells of hair follicles are so damaged they can not recover or reproduce. This is usually due to the toxicity of chemotherapy for cancer. Chemotherapy is intended to destroy rapidly dividing cancer cells. Hair follicles in phase (anagen) is growing, because it is vulnerable. Anagen effluvium mean hair shaft narrows as a result of damage to the follicle. Silent on the narrowing of the shaft and causing hair loss.
Traction alopecia is the destruction of the hair styles that pull on the hair from time to time (braiding, cornrows, ponytails, extensions). If this condition is detected early enough, you can change your style of practice to be gentle on the follicles, and your hair will grow back.
Hormonal contraception is the main cause of hair loss and other symptoms distressing to the woman. Because birth control pills first came into use in 1960, oral contraceptives, injections, implants, skin patches and vaginal rings have become the most commonly prescribed form of birth control.
Unfortunately, many young women who were given hormonal contraceptives even when they are not sexually active, as the 'treatment' for irregular menstruation or acne. This is a mistake. This is not a treatment that addresses the underlying cause period problems or acne. Hormonal contraceptives would greatly complicate the balance of female hormones and can cause health problems, including significant hair loss and acne worse.
All contraceptive drugs using synthetic hormones to suppress ovulation. These drugs cause your ovaries to stop working, they are in such a state of 'sleep'. Instead of having the results of your natural cycle of a signal between the body and dance your brain, your network will be subject to the synthetic hormones in quantities much larger than your body normally makes. There are long and short term consequences of many of ovarian suppression. Most women experience side effects of contraceptive drugs, including hair loss either during or several weeks or months after stopping the drug.
An article appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (278:117-8, 1997) that connects the Hepatitis B vaccine for the increased incidence of balding in women.
Diagnostic testing
To successfully treat hair loss, it is important to understand why your hair follicles are not healthy. There are diagnostic tests that can help identify the underlying biochemistry that contributed to your excess hair loss. However, many women with significant chemical imbalances associated with hair loss they will find that the test results are within the range of "normal". That's because in many cases hair loss is a health disorder phase is the initial phase of an illness that will eventually be fully developed. Lifestyle and diet habits that eventually lead to type 2 diabetes and heart disease will also cause thinning of scalp hair and facial hair coarsening in young women. It is usually many years before the same women who have undergone diagnostic tests that reveal they have diabetes or coronary artery disease. Lots of women have undiagnosed PCOS.
Selective sensitivity is a fundamental problem
Another reason why diagnostic tests may be confusing is because of something called 'selective sensitivity' or 'selective resistance. Apparently some of the body cells more sensitive than others with the same amount of hormones. The main complicating factor for some women is that while the muscle and fat may be insulin resistant, not organ cell types. Pituitary gland, ovary, adrenal and a woman that insulin resistance induced by insulin levels higher than desired, leading to high testosterone for example. High levels of androgens in turn increases the risk for heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers.
Although these difficulties may be, it is important to do our best to determine what is and is not the primary cause of persistent symptoms such as excessive hair loss. Diagnostic tests that may help identify the source of imbalance in your metabolism are:
Hair pull test is a simple diagnostic test in which doctors draw a small amount of hair lighter (about 100 at the same time) to determine whether there is excessive loss. Normal ranges from zero to three hairs per pull.
Hormone levels: Dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, androstenedione, prolactin, sex hormone binding globulin, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. It is ideal for samples for FSH and LH on days 19 to 21 of your menstrual cycle, when the days can be identified.
Fasting blood glucose and insulin as well as cholesterol and triglycerides
A complete blood count plus serum iron, ferritin and total iron binding capacity
Thyroid stimulating hormone plus thyroid panel functions including uptake% T3, T4, and T3
VDRL to screen for syphilis
A scalp biopsy should be performed before selecting a transplant surgeon
Densitometry, the magnification, use the check shrinking of the hair shaft.
Conventional Medical Treatment For Hair Loss
You may be interested in operating a drug therapy to overcome the profound suffering from excessive hair loss. This is just human nature to expect a simple pill or procedure that will permanently free us from our problems. Unfortunately, the drug never really give a simple solution. Once you ingest chemicals, was delivered throughout your body, it affects your whole body. We can not control the drug so that they only have the effect we want, there are always side effects are more or less problematic. Using drug therapy means trading one problem for some others. Sometimes this is exactly the right thing to do. At other times it was a personal disaster. Most drugs will act on all the networks you have side effects dangers of further damage to your health. Topical treatments applied directly to the scalp using the lowest dose, and is the choice of the least dangerous drugs.
You will enjoy the best results when you begin treatment as soon as possible after the hair loss begins. Stop the adverse effects of androgen means you can prevent further hair loss. And you can support the regrowth of dormant follicles are still healthy. Depending on how the agent you choose to work, stopping the treatment will cause hair loss continues, unless you have also made other changes in your lifestyle that make androgens in levels of healthy and not harmful to you.
Below you will find a list of treatments currently being used to treat hair loss in women. Some of these drugs has not been approved by the FDA for certain applications, but they have all been approved for other applications and used "off label" to treat hair loss. Currently 2% topical minoxidil is the only FDA approved treatment for female pattern hair loss.
The effectiveness of these agents and methods will vary from woman to woman, but many women have found that using this treatment has made a positive difference in the character of their hair and their positive self-esteem. As always, treatments have the best chance of being effective if they are tailored to the cause of hair loss and hair growth trigger.
Estrogen and progesterone hormone replacement therapy (HRT), usually prescribed for menopausal women for whatever reason, probably the most common form of systemic treatment for androgenic alopecia in women.
Oral contraceptives will reduce ovarian androgen production, and thus can be used to treat female androgenic alopecia. There is a big reason to avoid using both synthetic hormone treatments or bio-identical to your hair loss. Some birth control pills actually contribute to hair loss with a trigger or increase it once it's triggered by something else. Every woman may have a selective sensitivity to the hormone combination-the so-called low-androgen effect formula for one woman may be the effect of high androgen for others.
I no longer recommend the use of birth control pills or other hormone-based contraceptive for young women. Decades of evidence suggests there is little known, and may not have known health risks associated with using ANY of the reproductive hormones, either prescription or over-the-counter forms. It is clear that the benefits of hormonal contraception is accompanied by significant risks, including making it more likely that a woman will experience hormonal imbalance that causes a long list of negative effects. Hormone replacement puts you at risk for:
Depression or mood disorders; decreased libido
Migraine and headache
Breast lumps, tenderness and enlargement
Vaginal bleeding between periods
High blood pressure (hypertension)
High Cholesterol
Blood clots in the legs, perceived as: pain in the calf, leg cramps, leg or foot swelling
Blood clots in the lungs, feeling as: shortness of breath, sharp chest pain; coughing up blood
Heart attack, feeling as: chest pain or heavy
Sudden loss of vision or vision changes, which could be a sign of a blood clot in the eye
Cerebral vascular accident (stroke): impaired vision or speech; weakness or numbness in the limbs; severe headache
Liver damage, seen as: yellow eyes or skin; dark urine, abdominal pain
Allergic reactions: rash; hives, itching, swelling, difficulty breathing or swallowing
Pimple
Bloating, nausea and vomiting
Changes in your eyes that makes it more difficult to wear contact lenses
If you choose prescription hormone for any reason, you should be sure to use only low-androgen content method. If you have a strong tendency for genetic hair loss, insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease or cancer of the female organs in your family I highly recommend the use of other non-hormonal forms of birth control.
Below is a list of birth control pills androgen index ranging from lowest to highest:
Desogen, Ortho-CEPT, Ortho-Cyclen, Ortho Tri-Cyclen, Micronor, Nor-Q D, Ovcon-35, Brevicon / Modicon, Ortho Norvum 7/7/7, Ortho Novum 10-11, Tri-Norinyl, Norinyl and Ortho 1/35, Demulen 1/35, Triphasil / Tri-Levien, Nordette, Lo / Ovral, Ovrette, Ovral, Loestrin1/20, Loestrin 01.05.30.
The following hormonal contraception has the potential to cause hair loss or make it worse:
Progestin implants, such as Norplant, are small rods implanted surgically beneath the skin. Rods release a continuous dose of progestin to prevent ovarian function.
Progestin injections, such as Depo-Provera, are given into the muscles of the upper arm or buttock.
Skin patch (Ortho Evra) is inserted into your shoulder, buttocks, or other location. It releases progestin and estrogen continuously to prevent your ovaries from producing a normal cycle.
Vaginal ring (NuvaRing) is a flexible ring that is inserted into the vagina. This method releases the lowest amount of progestin and estrogen.
Topical minoxidil 2% treatment - minoxidil appears to be more effective for women than men, to enhance the growth of scalp hair. Manufacturers of minoxidil recommend women use minoxidil 2%. There is a solution of 5% are available that have been tested and declared safe enough for him. Because minoxidil makers have not invested in the cost of getting FDA approval for promoting 5% minoxidil for use by women, should be prescribed and used under medical supervision. Small clinical trials on minoxidil 5% for women showed that a solution of 5% is actually more effective in both maintaining and regrowing hair than 2% solution.
Spironolactone (Aldactone) is a potassium-sparing diuretics used to treat high blood pressure and swelling. Spironolactone slows androgen production in the adrenal glands and ovaries. This prevents DHT from binding to receptors in hair follicles.
Cimetidine (Tagamet) is a histamine blocker, is approved to treat gastrointestinal ulcers. This prevents the stomach from producing digestive enzymes. Cimetidine has also been shown to block DHT from binding to hair follicle receptor sites.
Cyproterone acetate is used to reduce sexual aggression in men. Cyproterone acetate block DHT in the hair follicle receptors. It has significant toxicity and long-term side effects and are not available in the United States.
Ketoconazole is a prescription topical treatment. It is mainly used as an antimicrobial for the treatment of skin fungus. This suppresses the production of androgens by the adrenal glands, testes and ovaries. Nizoral shampoo contains ketoconazole 2%. There are versions of over-the-counter medications available. It has a 1% active ingredient and not as effective as prescription strength.
Finasteride is a drug that inhibits the enzyme 5-alpha reductase, an enzyme that disable DHT. It is sold as Proscar to treat enlarged prostate in men. Sold as Propecia was approved by the FDA for bald men. Women do not have to accept it if they are pregnant or might become pregnant because the risk of feminizing effects on male fetuses.
Surgical Implants
Because hair restoration surgery is an option for most of the bald man, a woman may want to consider it. However, this type of hair loss most women suffer from hair transplant a bad idea.
Many women who have this type of hair loss that makes them good candidates for a surgical solution. Most men lose hair in a clear area, such as receding forehead or classic round dots at the top of the skull. Little clumps or plugs of hair are removed from the area in which the stable and healthy follicles, and these were transplanted to other areas of the head. Women more often experience overall thinning throughout the scalp, including the sides and back. Most women have some reliable stable donor sites. Offered to transplant hair from the donor site is not medically stable unethical and women should not let their suffering on bald to get in the way of cool-eyed look at the reasons behind the choice of treatment offered.
Are there women are good candidates for hair transplantation? Yes, some. Fraction, 2% to 5% of women will have this type of hair loss that will benefit from this type of procedure. They are:
Women who suffer from hair loss due to non-hormonal causes, such as traction alopecia.
Women who have scarring of the scalp of some kind of injury or surgery to improve cosmetic and hair loss around the incision or injury site.
Women who have a healthy donor sites and stable along with the bald in different patterns, such as a receding hairline or thinning at the top of the head.
Natural Remedies for Hair Loss Women
Safe, effective natural therapies that are available to help you restore the health of the scalp and promote hair growth. Like all natural therapies, to be maximally effective, it is important to work with you as an individual. Some drugs will be more useful to you than others, depending on the status of your unique, personal health physically, mentally and emotionally. It is always important to spend your health care dollars as well. I offer consulting services to help you choose and make best use of available options for treatment. Please visit your local ND to find out how to profit from personal consultations. You will receive a recommendation for a specific natural therapy, which is designed for your unique health status, to help you recover your health, your scalp and hair to it's full beauty and the most fun.
