Personal hair loss experience
I first started losing my hair in my early 20’s. I noticed that it started to get thin in the top front and someone once pointed out that I was getting a bald spot in the back of my head. I was shocked when I looked in the mirror at the barber and saw my scalp in a small round circle. But at the time I thought there was nothing I could do about it.
Then I read an article in the Readers Digest about a new hair growth product and how it came to be. The story was that the company had a request from one of their researchers about a new blood pressure medicine that was having an undesirable side effect. The blood pressure medicine grew hair and the researcher wanted to find out how to make it stop. The medication apparently encouraged the circulation in the tiny blood vessels around the roots of hairs ( along with improving circulation elsewhere ) that caused the hairs to revive and start growing again.
The company made some minor changes to the blood pressure medicine to be able to market a hair growth product. I have been using it for years now and I still have most of my hair. My brother ( who does not use the product ) is completely bald. Hair loss is not an easy problem to resolve, but it can be fought.
In: About Hair Loss, Hair Loss Prevention · Tagged with: About Hair Loss, hair loss cause, hair loss experience, Hair Loss Prevention, hair loss tips
What Causes Hair Loss in Teens and Adults?
Both men and women can suffer from hair loss, including teenagers. Many factors contribute to abnormal hair loss including nutritional deficiency, hormone imbalance, stress, or diseases. The most common cause of early hair loss is adrogenetic alopecia, meaning baldness.
Scientists do not yet know why and what causes adrogenetic alopecia. Men and women both produce androgenic hormones which include Dihydrotestosterone, androsteinedione, and testosterone (DHT). People do not go bald overnight. It is a rather gradual process that can be slow and fast.
For more information visit: Provillus
In: About Hair Loss, Hair Loss Women · Tagged with: About Hair Loss, Cause of Hair Loss in Teens and Adults, hair loss cause
Hair Loss Prevention For Women
By Gwen Heathrow
A lot of women would wonder if hair loss prevention is possible. Some who prefer to keep a positive outlook may tend to believe any claim that says it is achievable. The truth though is that, stopping balding in females is not as easy as it seems.
From the very beginning, it is important to realize that only some causes can be prevented effectively. Thinning hair in females can be caused by such factors as illness and stress. Hence, making sure that you are in top health and able to cope well with life’s challenges can help prevent these causal factors. It’s also possible to end up with some bald patches due to tight styling. In this case, you simply have to make sure to opt for looser styles.
Sometimes, it may be a good idea to see a doctor if you notice anything unusual happening to your scalp. If your condition is due to an underlying medical condition, having yourself treated properly is the best way to make sure that what you have lost can grow back.
The main cause of hair loss in most women is harder to prevent. This is because it is hormonal in nature. The hormone DHT attacks and shrinks hair follicles. The problem is made worse by drops in estrogen levels typically observed among females who have just given birth or who are on the way to menopause.
Mothers can at least expect to have their strands return to the normal cycle of growth and shedding 3 to 12 months after giving birth. It is a different story for those who are experiencing menopausal symptoms. Estrogen levels may fluctuate for many years until one enters menopause.
Depending on your general health and age, your doctor may be able to recommend hormone therapy during the onset of your menopausal symptoms. This may help arrest thinning locks. This however is not a treatment solution that can be advised for all women.
Hair loss prevention is a tricky subject. No one however, can stop you from using any preventive measures. What is important is that you stay wary of information that seems too good to be true.
To learn more about the causes of hair loss in women, visit http://femalehairlossreport.com/, the brief and concise guide to everything you need to know about hair loss in women.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
In: Hair Loss Prevention, Hair Loss Women · Tagged with: Hair Loss Prevention
Laser Hair Therapy Effective For Hair Loss
By Ray Treadwell
Laser hair therapy is a relatively new development in the treatment of hair loss for men and women. Lasers have played a huge part in medical procedures for decades, but the cool, low light lasers that are now used in laser hair therapy have only been around for about ten years in Europe. Only in the past few years have they been approved by the FDA to be used in America. Naturally, there is skepticism about any new product, but the studies and facts about laser hair therapy should assure anyone that laser hair therapy is here to stay as a great, non-invasive option in hair restoration and treating hair loss.
First, to understand why laser hair therapy works, it’s important to understand the reasons behind hair loss in the first place. Age, genetics and hormones play significant roles in both male and female pattern hair loss. An overabundance of a hormone called DHT (dihydrotestosterone) that is triggered both by age and genetics can begin to weaken hair on a follicular level, targeting the roots. When DHT enters the picture, the root becomes malnourished, starved of essential nutrients that keep hair growing and regrowing. All of us shed hair. There is a natural cycle to hair shedding and regrowth. But when DHT becomes a problem, the hair that sheds regrows weaklier. Hair becomes thinner and less vigorous. Eventually, the follicle will quit altogether and the root will finally die. That hair, once gone, is gone for good. Gather up a receding hairline full of such follicles and suddenly, you’re going bald.
Topical solutions such as Rogaine can put the DHT back in balance by inhibiting it. Such products stop hair loss, but do little to reinvigorate the hair that’s left. And if you ever stop using Rogaine your hair will simply fall out. So what’s the answer?
FDA -approved laser hair therapy does what topical solutions cannot. Low-level laser light is applied to the scalp for thirty-minute sessions, during which the patient feels nothing. This is because the changes are going on at a molecular level. Light from the laser hair therapy penetrates the tissue down to the roots and, bathing the root hair in stimulating light. This encourages a better blood flow around the hair root, which, in turn, nourishes the follicle root. Your hair is like a plant that has been stuck in the basement without sunlight, which results in stunted growth. The plant will wither and eventually die. But when exposed to sunlight again, it begins to grow and thrive. This is what the renewed blood supply does for the follicle. Laser hair therapy brings nourishment and oxygen back to the follicle and it begins to grow in a normal, healthy way again.
Laser hair therapy works equally well with both men and women. Because it’s a non-invasive therapy and painless, treatments are done in quick, easy visits to hair replacement clinics that offer laser hair therapy. Hand-held laser brushes, recently approved by the FDA, are portable laser units that can be purchased for home use. These laser brushes are not as powerful as the low-light lasers used in the hair clinics, but have the advantage of easy use whenever and wherever a clients prefers and have shown proven results in up to 90% satisfaction rate.
One of the great advantages of laser hair therapy is the fact that it’s all-natural. There are no hair systems, no glues, no adhesives and no surgery involved. For those not willing or ready to take that next leap into surgical hair restoration or commit to wearing a hair system, laser hair therapy may be the answer to premature hair loss.
Forty-year old Lydia Tomeleson began finding an alarming amount of hair every day in her shower drain. She was devastated when she noticed her thinning hair. Her mother had lost much of her hair around the crown of her head and Lydia dreaded the same fate. When she began seeing the white of her scalp through her hair, she visited her doctor and found that she was pre-menopausal. Hormones had conspired to thin out her hair. Her doctor explained that hormones (DHT in particular) had begun to weaken her hair follicles, which was why they were excessively shedding and not regrowing with the normal cycle. He recommended stimulating the blood supply of her scalp by using laser hair therapy. She went to a hair loss treatment clinic that offered laser hair therapy and underwent treatment. It took three months to see a real difference with laser hair therapy, but in 8 months, her hair had begun to grow back, even healthier than it had been for years. Lydia stopped checking her self-esteem at her door and began to feel like herself again, regaining the confidence she had lost.
If your hair is thinning and you want a more natural approach to hair replacement, talk to a hair loss treatment specialist about laser hair therapy. It can restore both your hair and your self-esteem.
Ray Treadwell is a freelance journalist with specialized knowledge of the Hair Loss industry with an emphasis on Laser Hair Loss Therapy Contact Ray at laserhairloss@gmail.com for more information. Laser Hair Loss Treatment.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
In: Hair Loss Treatment · Tagged with: Laser Hair Therapy
The Main Causes Of Hair Loss In Women
by: Richard Mitchell
When you think of hair loss it’s natural to assume that it’s a condition that predominantly affects men. Some experts however suggest that as many as one in four women will experience hair loss at some time in their lives. So why don’t we see and hear more about it? Perhaps the answer has something to do with one or more of the following:
- Women are better at disguising hair loss.
- Women’s hair loss is generally less extensive in terms of severity.
- Women’s hair loss tends to be spread evenly over the head rather than concentrated in one or two spots.
So why do women lose hair – are the causes very different to those that result in male baldness? There are probably three common reasons for hair loss in women:
- Female pattern baldness – believe it or not, most women affected by hair loss lose it for the same reasons as men. They suffer from androgenetic alopecia which is a reaction to male hormones in the body, specifically the conversion of testosterone into the hair-unfriendly DHT. In the case of women, pattern baldness may start later and the effects may be less extreme due to the influence of female hormones, but the condition is nonetheless the same as that found in male pattern baldness.
- Telogen effluvium – this is regarded as the second most common cause of women’s hair loss and this is unsurprising given the nature of the condition. Telogen effluvium is characterized by a general thinning of the hair and is usually brought about as a result of some traumatic event causing sufficient stress to interfere with the normal hair growth cycle. Given that pregnancy is a prime example of the type of event that can shock the hair growth cycle then perhaps the high incidence of telogen effluvium amongst women is only to be expected.
- Alopecia areata – this is the third most common hair loss condition to affect women. It is characterized by patchy areas of hair loss on the head or it can be more widespread over the body. It is thought to be caused by deficiencies in the immune system but much is still not known about the condition. In many cases the hair regrows spontaneously after a variable period of time, but in a minority of cases the problem may be more severe and longstanding.
If you experience any form of hair loss arrange to visit your physician to discuss the treatments that may be suitable for your particular condition.
About The Author
Richard Mitchell is the creator of the www.myhairlossadvisor.com website that provides information and guidance to those suffering from premature hair loss.
richard@myhairlossadvisor.com
In: Hair Loss Women · Tagged with: Hair Loss Women
Hair Loss, Regrowth and Propecia
Four years ago I would go out to a night club and wear one of my favorite shirts and nicely pressed slacks and I would be told that I looked forty years old. It was very hard to take as I had just turned 36. I would go on to hear this kind of talk a lot around this time.
I moved to a new area and when I would go out, I would always get funny looks and reactions. I’ve always been an independent person so I didn’t mind going out to a local establishment alone but I was always friendly and had some kind of magnetism that seemed to always attract people.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m just an average looking guy. I am tall and have always stayed in good shape and have always had a friendly and good sense of humor. Because I’m a bigger guy, people seem to make friends with me as I may make them feel comfortable. This is how it had always been since I was twenty years old. However, it wasn’t happening anymore. Inside I was still the same sarcastic, humorous and friendly person but on the outside I must have appeared to look like a loner or a psycho-serial killer.
I have never went out of my way to make new friends. However, occasionally when you would just come across people I was getting negative reactions. I knew that there was nothing at all different about me except for one thing. I was still big and had a good body, I was still tan, I still had nice, clean white teeth. I still wore brand new expensive shirts. The only thing that had changed was my hair. It was thinning and looked miniaturized and it was very apparent.
I knew that this was my only draw back but I really didn’t know what to do about it. I always made a good living and the thought of hair transplants was totally out of the question. I thought about just shaving it as it seemed “that look” was becoming more common. But I could just never come to do it as I always had this thought in my mind that there was a solution.
I bought a bottle of Propecia and for some reason I kept it in my medicine cabinet for about 6 months. I think that I was scared to take it. Everything that I had read seemed to imply that there were too many side effects. At the time, I hadn’t began to do any real research.
So I just hung in there and decided to start scouring the internet and do as much research as possible. I went to the discussion forums and I started to listen to a radio talk show about hair loss. The more that I researched, I started to realize that I must take the Propecia right away or my hair is going to start looking worse.
Even though I was still a little nervous I finally made a decision and I just went for it. I went to a Dermatologist and requested a prescription and he agreed that my hair was miniaturized and he felt that I would be a perfect candidate for Propecia. I had read in these forums that others were experimenting with this “big three” regimen and when I decided to get the prescription for the propecia, I would also start on the other two products as well. My plan was to give myself one full year of taking the three products and I would pray that the routine would work. After ninety days I was starting to see progress. As each month went by I would tell myself that I’m at 15% and now I’m at 20% and so on. Now that I look back, I see that I was being way too conservative. When I thought that I was at 50% of the way there and on the road to recovery, I was probably really only at 20%. I still had another 80% of improvement to go. As some people would say, I hadn’t even “scratched the surface”
After almost three years of this regimen I must say that I am very happy and that my results are definitely better then expected. I was a guy who had obvious hair loss to anybody that knew me or not. Now I’m a guy that still has a little frontal recession and still a little thinning in the crown and for the most part has a significant amount of hair.
I went out to a local establishment recently and a 27 year old guy talked to me for about an hour and he told me that he was 27 and that I’m “what 32,33?” I said try 39. He said “really, wow you actually look about 32 and you seem like a 32 year old” Of course the first thing that comes to your mind is that he was just trying to be nice and just complementing me. But I really believe that he was sincere as I have been getting a lot of this kind of treatment for the past year.
I can go out now and I have that magnetism again where people want to know me or talk to me instead of looking at me like I’m some crazy man. I still wear the nice shirts, I still work out and my body still looks as good as it did when I was 36, my teeth are still nice and white and I still look tan. The only thing that is different is my hair. It doesn’t look thin and miniaturized anymore. It looks like a normal full head of hair.
I truly believe that the way your hair looks tells a lot about a person’s age. The hair is the frame for your face and I must say I know that my hair looks 10 times better today then it did back when I was 36. You would think that since I have androgenic alopecia that my hair would look thinner and worse each year.
Actually the reverse has happened for me and time is actually on my side instead of against me because I have reversed the progression of my hair loss. Instead of having a higher level of DHT in my scalp miniaturizing my existing hair follicles, I take finasteride, better known as Propecia. Finasteride has been proven to block Type II 5 alpha reductace, the enzhyme that converts testosterone to DHT.
Although Propecia is the main player of The Big Three, there are still two other products that I feel must be taken. The three products taken together seem to work in a synergistic manner. Propecia does its thing, minoxidil has its role and nizoral also plays a key part. However, one plus one plus one equals four as far as the overall effect of the treatments. Nizoral makes Minoxidil more effective and Mixoxidil works better when taking propecia.
I have been taking the Big Three now for almost three years and I must say the regimen has really changed my life.
About The Author
Mark Brassia is a consumer advocate who has been researching the hair loss industry for about four years. He handles many calls and emails from consumers who have been ripped off by scams and bad hair loss products. He is a hair loss sufferer himself and has spent thousands of dollars on many products that din not work and he has good advice if you are dealing with hair androgenic alopecia. The web site is http://www.ReGrowNow.com and it is set up to educate the hair loss sufferer with real facts, articles and information.
In: Hair Loss Prevention · Tagged with: Regrowth
What Causes alopecia areata and hair loss?
In alopecia areata, immune system cells called white blood cells attack the rapidly growing cells in the hair follicles that make the hair. The affected hair follicles become small and drastically slow down hair production. Fortunately, the stem cells that continually supply the follicle with new cells do not seem to be targeted. So the follicle always has the potential to regrow hair.
Scientists do not know exactly why the hair follicles undergo these changes, but they suspect that a combination of genes may predispose some people to the disease. In those who are genetically predisposed, some type of trigger–perhaps a virus or something in the person’s environment–brings on the attack against the hair follicles.
Source: National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal
and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
In: About Hair Loss · Tagged with: hair loss cause
Alopecia areata can lead to hair loss on the scalp
Alopecia areata is considered an autoimmune disease, in which the immune system, which is designed to protect the body from foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria, mistakenly attacks the hair follicles, the tiny cup-shaped structures from which hairs grow. This can lead to hair loss on the scalp and elsewhere.
In most cases, hair falls out in small, round patches about the size of a quarter. In many cases, the disease does not extend beyond a few bare patches. In some people, hair loss is more extensive. Although uncommon, the disease can progress to cause total loss of hair on the head (referred to as alopecia areata totalis) or complete loss of hair on the head, face, and body (alopecia areata universalis).
Source: the National Institutes of Health
In: About Hair Loss, Hair Loss Women · Tagged with: hair loss cause
Can I dye and relax my hair at the same time?
* You are more likely to damage your hair if you use both hair dye and a relaxer.
* If you do color your relaxed hair, some hairdressers say you should use a semi-permanent dye. They say it will cause less damage than a permanent dye.
* Refer to product directions and talk to your hairdresser because different relaxers have different directions. Some should not be used when you have dye in your hair.
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
In: Hair Loss Prevention · Tagged with: hair relaxers
How often should I relax my hair?
* Straightening too often can damage your hair. You might want to ask your hairdresser for advice, because different products on the market have different directions. According to some hairdressers, every six to eight weeks is common, but this depends on the product.
* It also depends on your hair, such as how fast your hair grows.
In: Hair Loss Prevention · Tagged with: hair relaxers