Reasons For Thinning Hair
Anyone, man, woman or child, can experience the onset of excessive balding. What may start as a few extra hairs left in the brush can escalate to handfuls of hair being left on the pillow overnight. While a lot of hair shedding is common, the sudden onset of accelerated balding may be extremely distressing.
Men and women Pattern Hair loss
The leading cause of balding in men is male pattern baldness (MPB) which can be hereditary. The gene for MPB interacts with a hormone called DHT, which can be normally associated with desirable masculine traits like muscle growth and deep voice and causes it to over-stimulate hair roots. The follicles eventually lose their ability to maintain hair growth and the end result is premature hair loss from the crown plus a receding hairline.
Female pattern baldness is also affected by hormones and genes. It’s characterised by a thinning of the hair all over the scalp but unlike MPB the hairline and crown aren’t main areas of loss and unlike men, women very rarely experience total baldness through female pattern baldness.
Telogen Effluvium
It is recognized that chemotherapy patients often lose their hair but other types of stress can trigger a similar type of diffuse shedding including pregnancy, surgery, poor diet or some otc and prescription medications.
Human head hair is normally in a predominantly growing phase called anagen, with only 10-15% of hairs being in resting phase or telogen. Telogen effluvium occurs when something triggers a greater percentage of head hair to go into telogen at the same time.
Telogen effluvium can be short term, long term or chronic depending on the trigger.
Traction Alopecia
Tight ponytails, cornrows and excessive hairstyling can trigger permanent damage to the hair roots and root. Although permanent damage can be performed, refraining from constantly pulling hair back into tight styles and stressing the root will permit new hair growth to return in many instances.
Auto-immune and Inflammatory Diseases
There are various autoimmune diseases that directly or indirectly trigger hair thinning. One is Discoid Lupus Erythematosus, a chronic skin condition that affects the neck, face and scalp. Lupus lesions on the scalp infect and damage hair roots and can cause permanent balding.
Lichen planopilaris (also known as follicular Lichen Planus) is a skin disease that also affects the scalp causing redness, itching and inflammation and scarring of deep tissues leading to permanent balding.
Alopecia Areata (AA) is an autoimmune disease that can affect the hair follicles all around the body. On the scalp it causes patchy hair loss. People spanning various ages can be cultivated AA although it has a greater occurrence in the 15 to 30 age group.
Fungal and Bacterial Infection
There are some fungal infections that target the scalp. One is ringworm, which is an infectious fungal infection, much like athlete’s foot. It may appear anywhere on the body but if present on the scalp will cause patchy hair loss.
Piedra is another fungus that can weaken the hair shaft and trigger patchy balding and Folliculitis is an inflammation of the follicles that will, when severe, cause permanent damage to the follicle. It can be attributable to a bacterial or fungal infection and leads to patchy hair loss.
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