As there could be many things causing your hair loss, it is important that the specialist you see spends time with you. The specialist should look at your hair and scalp, take a full medical/lifestyle history, suggest blood tests, help you cope with your condition, and discuss all of your treatment options. Sometimes, the specialist needs to eliminate one factor before moving on to the next. Remember, many different factors may cause your hair to fall out. It is important to find each one so that any treatment you receive will be more effective.

The Specialist Should Look at Your Hair

This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised by how many people have said that a specialist they had seen either didn’t look at their hair at all or only quickly glanced at it. The specialist should look at both your hair and scalp to see the distribution of your hair thinning, which can often indicate why it is falling out. By comparing the partings at different positionsfor instance, the crown area, front area, sides, and backdifferences in hair quantity can be seen and the amount of thinning can be determined. The distribution of hair would indicate the presence of a genetic condition, traction hair loss (also known as hair breakage), among other conditions. The specialist should also do a pull test in different areas of your scalp to see how much hair is coming out.

Also, the specialist may look at the hair under a regular microscope (usually a trichologist will do this) or take a biopsy of the scalp (only a physician is able to do this). loss of body hair

It is important for the specialist to look at the scalp to see whether there is any flaking, itching, redness, acne-like breakouts, or other lesions. Although a lot of scalp conditions don’t cause hair loss and are just cosmetically annoying, some can increase hair shedding or indicate what is causing the hair-loss problem.

You should be asked whether you have any periodic scalp tenderness (called trichodynid). The scalp can be sensitive for many reasons, so it is important for the specialist to ascertain the possible cause.

If you are in doubt about any scalp condition, or if your scalp feels constantly tender for any length of time (such as more than a few days), I suggest you see a specialist.

The Specialist Should Show Empathy

The specialist should be concerned about your condition. You’re worried about losing hair, and this can often lead to anxiety and depression. The last thing you need is to be told that “It’s all in your head” or “You’ve still got plenty of hair, so don’t worry.” The amount of hair that you’ve lost is relative to you, not other patients of the specialist. Also, you want to make sure that every possibility is explored in finding why you are losing your hair. Because hair loss is not a life-threatening illness, many physicians are indifferent. Yet hair loss often affects your quality of life, so it’s important that your concerns are taken seriously. androgenic alopecia

Recent published research has shown that your hair needs a plentiful supply of protein, energy-producing molecules (glucose), and certain vitamins and minerals for optimal growth to occur. As the hair follicle is a nonessential tissue and, therefore, one of the last tissues to receive nutritious substances (or the first to have them reduced), any long-term deficiencies may lead to premature hair loss. Also, hair is one of the fastest-growing tissues in the body (it grows about a half inch each month), so any long-term reduction in certain nutrients to the hair follicle may disturb the hair cycle. Any nutritional disturbance to the hair follicle can cause the growing (anagen) phase of the hair cycle to become shorter, leading to an increase in shedding, and cause the resting (telogen) phase to become longer, slowing regrowth.

Protein deficiency can be a frequent cause for hair loss because insufficient levels of protein will reduce an essential raw material for hair growth. Protein helps the body build the hair fibers, which consist of 80 to 95 percent protein. This is especially relevant for vegetarians or people who eat infrequently during the day.

Eating infrequently or missing meals can adversely affect your hair cycle. If you do this over time, the amount of energy available at your hair growth site may be deficient, causing the hair to fall out prematurely.

The most common nutritionally related hair loss occurs while dieting. Severe weight loss due to dieting can often cause a temporary increase in hair shedding due to metabolic changes in the body. It has been reported that losing an excess of fifteen pounds of weight in a month can be a trigger for hair loss. The loss usually begins two to four months after the onset of the diet; however, the hair tends to regrow to its original fullness another two to six months after the weight has been stabilized.

The good news is that, usually, any short term deficiencies cause only temporary hair loss. Once corrected, hair will regrow normally. However, long-term shortages can occasionally lead to permanent hair loss as well as the acceleration of genetic hair loss, if present.

Heavy metals such as mercury, found in contaminated fish, can cause hair loss. Again, a blood test would generally help find out whether this is relevant to your condition. female hair loss

During the initial evaluation the specialist should ask you a series of questions to help him or her find out what could be causing the loss or thinning. Not all questions you are asked will seem relevant, though often the answer is needed to rule out certain things.

How Long Have You Been Losing Hair?

Often the trigger of hair loss occurs between four and sixteen weeks (an average of three months) previous to you seeing the hair falling out. For instance, if you see a hair falling out in the wash in, say, June, that hair probably stopped growing in March. This is because when the hair goes into the resting (telogen) phase, it usually takes this amount of time for it to move into the falling out (exogen) stage.

Has the Hair Loss Been Continuous?

The answer to this question will indicate whether the cause has been continuously, or only periodically, affecting die hair cycle. Continuous influences could be genetic or a chronic general health condition. Periodic loss could indicate a dietary or stress influence.scaring alopecia

So many health factors can influence your hair cycle. During your evaluation, besides asking about your general health, the hair-loss specialist should also ask you whether you have a family or personal history of a thyroid condition or anemia, two of the most common causes of hair loss next to genetics. Also, you should be asked whether you have had any recent blood tests taken within six to nine months (if you have, take a copy on your initial visit or send a copy at a later date). This will help the specialist know what other tests to suggest.

Other important health influences on your hair cycle include any recent surgery near the time the hair loss started; as anesthesia can disturb the hair cycle, as can the reason why you had the surgery in the first place. A high fever can also be a factor. A temperature greater than 101 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) can cause the hair to shed.

Obviously, numerous other general health factors can be important. For example, lupus (an autoimmune disease), digestive problems, and infections may be relevant to your condition. The most important health influences are often the ones that occurred approximately four to sixteen weeks before you noticed your hair falling out.

To try to determine the possible health factors that could have caused your hair loss, write down any illnesses that you have had, either chronic (over a period of time) or short term. Make a note of when the illnesses started, how long they lasted, and any medications that you took (or are taking) for them. Then work forward three months or so to see whether that was when your hair loss began. If you noticed that your hair began to fall out approximately three months after an illness, that illness might be one of the causes of your hair loss. natural hair loss remedies

Taking certain medicines can cause hair loss in some people while the same medicine may not cause hair loss in others. Stopping a certain medicine can also cause hair loss in some, but not in others. In addition, certain medications can cause hair fall the first time they are taken, but not subsequent times (once the body adjusts to the medicine, the hair loss stops), or they don’t cause hair loss the first time but do subsequent times (possibly due to the medicine accumulating in your system).

Sound complicated?

It is difficult to categorically say that one particular medicine causes hair loss and another doesn’t, as medicines can react differently in different people.

So what particular groups of medications have been reported to cause hair loss?

The most common ones are:

Chemotherapy medications. These can cause temporary hair loss by stopping the hair growth almost immediately (called anagen effluvium). They can also produce changes in hair texture, hair type, and pigmentation.
Antidepressants. In particular, lithium-based medicines can temporarily disturb the hair cycle and cause hair loss.
Thyroid medicines. Both an underactive (hypothyroid) and an overactive {hyperthymic!) condition can cause the hair to fall out, as can the initial use of a thyroid medicine. Often, when a person starts taking thyroid medicine, the physician will need to vary the dosage until the correct balance is found. Some people experience hair loss during this process, up until three to six months after the dosage has been stabilized.
Oral contraceptive pill. Either stopping or starting the pill may cause hair cycle disturbances. Oral contraceptives can affect the hormone levels, which often control hair growth.
Other groups of medicines. Other medicines that can cause hair loss include blood pressure medications (blood thinners and beta blockers); cholesterol medicines; medications for ulcers, gout, arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease; and anticonvulsants (for epilepsy).
Vitamins and supplements. Some of these can cause hair loss such as taking too much vitamin A (in excess of 25,000 IU per day) and taking excessive quantities of “natural” testosterone boosters. stress hair loss

Once you find out why you are losing hair, you need to decide on what treatments to use, if any. If you look on the Internet, you’ll find a host of different products promising to regrow your hair. Which one should you use? A lot of products are expensive versions of saw palmetto (an herb which helps to block the conversion of testosterone to DHT) or minoxidil (Rogaine), both of which you could probably get cheaper elsewhere.

It is important to realize that there is no 100 percent guarantee with any treatment; as no single treatment is available that will regrow everyone’s hair. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if anyone offers a 100 percent guarantee, you should be extremely skeptical. This doesn’t mean that there is no hope as there are many causes of hair loss. Depending on why your hair is falling out, there are many treatments that can improve your condition and regrow your hair. Sometimes you may need to change treatments or use more than one treatment to find the best combination for you. This is why it’s important to find out what’s causing your hair loss first.

So what treatments should you use? The answer largely depends on what is causing your hair loss. Generic treatments, which you can purchase at many beauty salons and pharmacists, are formulated to help everyone with hair loss. They may temporarily help the symptoms of your hair loss, but if you don’t identify the root of the problem, you will not see long-term improvement. Many treatments will help a proportion of people, but you want to use what will help you specifically. So, after you have ascertained why your hair is falling out, you want to use a treatment regimen that will help all these factors.

Often, therefore, a multifaceted treatment is necessary to get the best results. The more treatments that you use that are orientated to your problems, the better the chance of improvement. saw palmetto hair loss