It’s said that hair loss is a widespread concern for individuals of all ages. It’s estimated that 50% of both sexes will experience hair loss at some point in their waking lives.
Hair loss can be caused by various factors—from genetics to lifestyle choices to age—making it difficult to predict who’ll have this condition and when they might experience it.
Luckily, this post will discuss the most common causes of hair loss and the risk factors that increase your chances of experiencing it. It’ll also cover how you can treat hair loss if it does occur. Check out the sections enumerated below.
Causes And Risk Factors
There are many reasons behind hair loss. It comes with risk factors as well. If you want to find out more, read on.
- Stress
Stress can be a significant cause of hair loss. It’s estimated that up to 90% of people who suffer from hair loss suffer from stress-related hair loss.
Hair growth depends on many factors, including genetic predisposition and hormonal balance. Yet when you’re under stress, your body produces cortisol, a hormone that stimulates the production of another hormone called DHT (dihydrotestosterone).
DHT attaches itself to hair follicles and shrinks them until they stop producing new hairs. This process is called miniaturization, one of the main causes of male pattern baldness. Consider using Dushi products and others if you’re experiencing hair loss issues.
- Hereditary
Several different factors can cause hair loss. In some cases, it may result from an underlying medical condition or an injury to the scalp. However, in many other cases, it’s inherited from your parents or grandparents.
Heredity plays an important role when it comes to hair loss. If one or both parents have thinning hair, then there’s a good chance that you’ll too. This is because genes determine how much hair you have and how fast it grows after being cut or damaged by chemicals or stressors such as pregnancy and childbirth.
- Medications
Medications are a common cause of hair loss. Some medications, like chemotherapy drugs, are known to cause hair loss in all people who take them. Other medications may cause hair loss only in some patients.
Examples of drugs that may cause hair loss include:
- Anticonvulsants (anti-seizure medications);
- Antidepressants (especially tricyclic antidepressants);
- Some antihypertensive medicines (high blood pressure medicines);
- Hormone therapy medications for breast cancer treatment; and the like.
Talk with your doctor immediately if you have been taking medications and notice new or increased hair shedding. You may need to adjust your medication dosage or switch to another drug entirely.
Hair Loss Treatment
If you’re a victim of hair loss, you don’t need to worry because it’s treatable. and there are treatment regimens out there you can try out. Listed below are some of them.
- Laser Therapy
One of the treatments for hair loss is laser therapy. Laser therapy is a method that uses a controlled laser beam to stimulate the hair follicles and make them produce new hair. It’s a non-surgical hair restoration method that has been used for several years.
Laser therapy works by stimulating the scalp to produce more blood circulation in it. This increased blood circulation helps nourish the follicles and produce new hair. Further, it stimulates the follicles to release growth hormones which are needed for hair growth.
- Medications
Another treatment for hair loss is by taking medications. In particular, minoxidil is an effective treatment that has been used to treat hereditary hair loss (androgenetic alopecia).
Minoxidil may be used as a topical solution that can be applied directly to the scalp. It’s also available as a pill that you take orally. The drug has been shown to increase hair growth in both men and women who suffer from alopecia areata (AA). This type of alopecia causes patchy bald spots on your scalp. The cause of AA is unknown, yet it’s thought that it may be due to an immune system response against the body’s cells (autoimmune reaction).
- Hair Transplant
A hair transplant is performed by a surgeon who removes tiny plugs of skin and implants them into balding areas. The plugs contain healthy hair follicles that produce new hair. This procedure is also known as hair restoration or hair replacement surgery.
The transplanted hairs fall out after a few weeks, but new hair starts growing from the transplanted follicles. Hair transplantation may be an option for men and women with bald spots or thinning hair due to male or female pattern baldness, scarring alopecia, alopecia areata, chemotherapy treatment, and others.
Hair transplantation is a surgical procedure that takes about 4-6 hours, depending on how many grafts you get done at once. It’s important to note that this procedure only works on people with sufficient donor supply in their scalp area. If you don’t have enough donor supply in your scalp area, the grafts won’t take hold properly and will look unnatural.
Final Thoughts
It’s important to remember that hair loss has many different causes, and each has unique treatment options. If you think you might be experiencing hair loss, you must see a doctor as soon as possible to get an accurate diagnosis and start the appropriate treatment.
