Archive for the ‘Hair Loss’ Category
November 14th, 2009 | 
Author: Reasons – Health
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.
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Reasons – Medication
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.
Treatment Tips
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.