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The Causes of Hair Loss in Women

As a woman, your hair and hair style have an enormous impact on your self-image and how others perceive you. If you suddenly find yourself facing this, it can deeply affect your self-confidence. However, it might surprise you that you’re not alone – 40% of those suffering from this are women.

This occurs for several reasons:

Hair Growth Cycle

Understanding how hair grows will make it easier to identify what causes hair loss. It is cyclical and has three stages:

1. Anagen is the growth stage and lasts from two to eight years. 90 percent of your hair should be in the anagen stage at any given time.

2. Catagen is the stage in which the follicle begins to shrink which lasts for 2-3 weeks. On a healthy scalp 1-2 percent of the follicles are in this cycle.

3. Telogen is the stage in which hair growth takes a rest and lasts 2-4 months and about 10-15 percent of your follicles are at this stage.

How Hair Loss Occurs

Everyone loses 50 to 100 hairs a day naturally as part of their growth cycle. In the case of abnormal hair loss your loss is more dramatic, e.g. it can come out in clumps as you brush, shampoo or style. When follicles begin to fall into the telogen stage but do not start the cycle again, this results in hair loss. In the case where follicles begin to shrink hair strands become thinner until the follicle actually disappears completely. If this continues more and more you will lose your hair.

The Pattern of Hair Loss in Women

As a woman, your hair tends to appear as thinning, taking place across the head with more concentration at the crown. It can be quite gradual and rarely forms a receding hairline. However if you see it falling out in clumps it can be quite alarming and may be cause for a visit to your doctor.

Discovering the Cause of Your Hair Loss

A visit to your doctor will probably result in two common tests to address hair loss to identify the cause. Thyroid and hormone issues are the most common medical causes in women and will discontinue once they’ve been addressed. Other common causes in women include:

• Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

• Alopecia Areata (Female Pattern Baldness)

• Extreme stress

• Menopause and aging

• Medication

Counteracting Hair Loss in Women

These causes may be more challenging to combat and you will want to find treatments to help counteract the progression. You will require a hair growth product that will stimulate your follicle and stop production of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a hormone that inhibits hair follicles from producing hair. DHT eventually shrinks your hair follicles completely.

Over 30 million women suffer from hair loss and it is very rare that full baldness will occur. It is good to know hair treatments do exist to help bring back a fuller head of hair.

Gayle M McLeod

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