Hair Loss In Women, Hair loss does not only happen to men. While most think of men when hair loss comes to mind, females can suffer from It just as frequently. It is normal for women to lose between 50 to 100 hairs a day. Images of pillows and combs full of clusters of hair come to mind.
Hair loss in women is a particularly touchy subject to discuss due to how important looks and the hair’s looks are for them. But it’s bound to happen at some point of a woman’s life and, therefore, is important to know about it. Yet, when discussing hair loss in women, it is imperative to make a distinction between genetic and circumstantial causes.
Circumstantial Hair Loss In Women
Both men and women can see a significant increase in how much hair falls from their head and how fast it does due to their treatment of it. Women, however, are more likely to experience this owing to the fact that, culturally speaking, they style their hair much more than men do.
It comes as no surprise; women simply have so much more of it. While styling the hair is totally a habit for most women, overdoing, it ends up doing more harm than good. And not only that, but due to the nature of the hormonal cycle women go through, some situations specific to them can trigger hair loss as well. Here are some of the most common reasons why circumstantial hair loss in women happens.
Too Much Heat
Applying heat to the hair is one of the staples of modern hairstyling, it simply opens the door to so many styling options. It also will lead your hair to fall if done constantly. Blow drying your hair after a shower will get rid of all the humidity of it, sure. All of it, even a certain natural level of it needs to thrive.
Getting rid of all the humidity of it will leave it brittle and frail for a while after blow-drying. This is a perfect state for it to break along the shaft of the hair and fall off. It is now until a while after the blow-drying your hair that it will recover nimbleness from humidity in the environment. Thus, if you absolutely need to blow dry your hair, wait a couple of hours to stylish it in any way after finishing. Or, even better, do away with blow-drying your hair completely and let it dry on its own after a shower since its less traumatic for it that way.
Beside blow-drying, heat styling is another practice that, if abused, will wreak havoc on your hair. Again, the application of heat removes natural humidity from your hair. Worse, heat styling does this more aggressively since more heat goes directly to the hair strands. While the hair might look great after it, the traumatic experience weakens it. Repeated heat styling sessions one after the other will leave it especially frail and ready for breaking. Either hairstyle sparsely (one or two times a week tops) or drop the practice completely.
Hair Dying and Hair Bleaching
Another hairstyling practice favoured by most women that is actually risky. When dying hair, the protective layer of the shaft of the hair, the cuticle, is lifted in order to apply the colour. Heat application does that, but the process is traumatic to the hair. It will remain very frail for a while after and, thus, prone to breaking.
Hair bleaching, meanwhile, is even more aggressive since it requires chemicals that remove colouration after lifting the cuticle. That chemical dry the hair to extreme levels and are, thus, even worse than heat. If you like colouring your hair, try semi-permanent dyes since those are less aggressive.
Tight Hairstyles
Hairstyles that put stress on your hair by pulling from it constantly trigger a condition known as ‘Traction Alopecia’. Braids, ponytails, cornrows, and similar hairstyles put untold amounts of stress on the hair follicle from which the hair grows. Wearing them continuously might damage it permanently, and no more hair will grow from there. That’s why you should avoid such hairstyles.
Intense Physical And Psychological Stress
Sudden physical stress, such as surgery, or continuous psychological stress, trigger a condition known as ‘alopecia areata’. This causes the victim to develop a tiny bald spot around the head no larger than a coin. Bald spots can appear close to one another and form an even bigger bald spot, however. They will continue to appear until the underlying condition that triggered it.
Childbirth
The body releases massive amounts of hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone in the body when pregnant. This makes for a radical change on your traditional hormonal balance, and your hair takes notice of those. After childbirth, the hormonal level will drop dramatically back into their normal levels.
The sudden change triggers the condition ‘telogen effluvium’, in which hair shedding will happen after childbirth. Most of it happens three or four months after delivery and, while it can appear rather dramatic, is not permanent. In the sixth to the eighth month after delivery, you should start growing it back. Some measure of noticeable hair loss can happen during the pregnancy as well.
A Final Word About Circumstantial Hair Loss in Women
The good news about circumstantial hair loss in women is that most of them are not permanent. The loss from traction alopecia happens due to tight hairstyles, most of their hair loss is actually hair shedding. However, hair shedding is not permanent; the hair follicle will grow hair again once you manage the causes of the shedding.
Genetic Hair Loss In Women
‘Androgenetic Alopecia’ is the technical name of baldness, and its manifestation in women it’s different from that in men. In women, thinning of the hair happens on the crown of the head, at the place where the hair parts.
It is thus, much difficult to notice it during its earlier stages in comparison to men. If people on both sides of your family had noticeable hair loss there past middle age, you might as well. Genes inherited from either parent can make you susceptible to a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). This hormone is a derivative from testosterone, the main male sex hormone, which both sexes have. DHT initially helps regulate body growth processes, including hair growth. But, upon reaching middle age, that changes.
If you have the genes for it, DHT will start to bind with a hormonal receptor inside your hair follicles. The binding causes a reaction from the hair follicles, which forces them to start shrinking. The shrinking continues over time until the hair follicle ceases to grow any hair whatsoever, thus, causing baldness.
The reason why baldness doesn’t tend to be as noticeable for women compared to men is that women have much less testosterone. Thus, much less DHT that forms from it. Yet, regardless of that past middle age, hair loss becomes more and more noticeable. The advent of menopause even helps this, since it reduces the levels of hormones oestrogen and progesterone permanently. And just so happen that those two female hormones aid enormously in the hair growth process.
Losing them guarantees that, in addition to the hair you lost, the growth of the rest of the hair goes much slower. Genetic hair loss in women is permanent. Once hair is gone due to it, it’s gone for good. That is, unless, you undergo a hair transplant.
Fixing Genetic Hair Loss In Women With a Hair Transplant
A hair transplant is a surgical procedure which extracts hair follicles from the back of your own head and puts it into the balding area.
Why the back of your head? Because hair coming from them will not ever thin. Hair from that area has thinning-resistant properties and will grow uninterrupted for a lifetime there or wherever transplanted. This is because the hair retains the genetic memory from where it originally grew from even when moved elsewhere.
Transplanting healthy hair follicles that do grow where there are shrunken ones that don’t grow is anymore what makes a hair transplant the ultimate solution to hair loss in women as well as in men. Contact us, one of the best hair transplant clinics worldwide, to know more about the single best hair restoring procedure.
FAQ
Does hair loss happen to women?
Yes, it does. It may happen due to various reasons.
Can you treat women hair loss?
Yes, we can. Our doctors are experts in treating any kind of hair loss.
Do women need to shave their hair for hair transplant?
No, they don’t. We offer unshaven hair transplant options for those who do not want to shave their hair. Regardless of the gender of our guests, we can provide them with this technique.