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INFORMATION
FOR WOMEN SUFFERING HAIR LOSS Ludwig classification of female pattern baldness
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INTRODUCTION
Mistakenly
thought to be a strictly male disease, women
actually make up 40%of hair loss sufferers. Hair loss
in women can be absolutely devastating for the sufferer’s self image and
emotional well being, and unfortunately society has forced women to suffer in
silence, as it is considered far more acceptable for men to go through the same
hair loss process. Even more unfortunately, the medical community also treats
the issue of women’s hair loss as if it were non-existent. Since hair loss does
not appear to be life threatening, most physicians pay little attention to
women’s complaints about hair loss and essentially tell their pat
ients that ‘it’s
no big deal’, and that ‘you’ll just have to live with it’. Of course what these
physicians do not seem to realise is that the psychological damage caused by
hair loss and feeling unattractive can be just as devastating as any serious
disease, and in fact, can take an emotional toll that directly affects physical
health.
TYPES
OF FEMALE HAIR LOSS
Hair
loss can be temporary or long lasting. Temporary hair loss can be
easy to fix when its cause is identified and dealt with or difficult when it is
not immediately clear what the cause is. Hair loss that could have been merely
temporary may become long lasting as a result of an incorrect diagnosis.
The
potential for such misdiagnoses is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of hair
loss for women. The information in this section will help you iden
tify the cause of your hair loss.
Alopecia is
the medical term for excessive or abnormal hair loss. There are diffe
rent kinds of alopecia. What all hair loss has in
common, whether in women or men, is that it always is a symptom of something
else that has gone wrong in your body. Your hair will remain on your head where
it belongs if hormone imbalance, disease, or some other condition is not
occurring. That condition may be as simple as having a gene that makes you
susceptible to male or female pattern baldness, or one of the forms of alopecia
areata - or it may be as complex as a whole host of diseases. Fortunately, hair
shedding may also be a symptom of a short-term event such as stress, pregnancy,
and the taking of certain medications. In these situations, hair will grow back
when the event has passed. Substances (including hormones), medications, and
diseases can cause a change in the hair growth and shedding phases and in their
durations. When this happens, synchronous growth and shedding occur.
Once the
cause is dealt with, hairs go back to their normal pattern of growth and
shedding, and your hair loss problem stops.
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FEMALE
PATTERN BALDNESS
Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a derivative of the male hormone testosterone,
is the enemy of hair follicles on your head. Simply put, under certain
conditions DHT wants those follicles dead. This simple action is at the root of
many kinds of hair loss, so this will be addressed first of all. Androgenetic
alopecia, commonly called male or female pattern baldness, was only partially
understood until the last few decades. For many years, scientists thought that
androgenetic alopecia was caused by the predominance of the male sex hormone,
testosterone, which women also have in trace amounts under normal
conditions. While testosterone is at the core of the balding process, DHT is thought to be
the main culprit. Testosterone converts to DHT with the aid of the enzyme Type
II 5-alpha reductase, which is held in a hair follicle’s oil glands.
Scientists
now believe that it is not the amount of circulating testosterone that is the
problem but the level of DHT binding to receptors in scalp follicles. DHT
shrinks hair follicles, making it impossible for healthy hair to survive.
The hormonal process of
testosterone converting to DHT, which then harms hair follicles, happens in
both men and women. Under normal conditions, women have a minute fraction of
the level of testosterone that men have, but even a lower level can cause DHT-
triggered hair loss in women.
When those levels rise, DHT is even more of a
problem. Those levels can rise and still be within what doctors consider ‘normal’
on a blood test, even though they are high enough to cause a problem. The
levels may not rise at all and still be a problem if you have the kind of body
chemistry that is overly sensitive to even regular levels of chemicals,
including hormones. Since hormones operate in the healthiest manner when they
are in a delicate balance, the androgens, as male hormones are called, do not
need to be raised in order to trigger a problem. Their counterpart female hormones, when
lowered, give an edge to these androgens, such as DHT. Such an imbal
ance canalso cause problems, including hair loss.
Hormones
are cyclical. Testosterone levels in some men drop by 10 percent
each decade after thirty. Women’s hormone
levels decline as menopause approaches and drop sharply during menopause and
beyond. The cyclic nature of both our hair and hormones is one reason hair loss
can increase in the short term even when you are experiencing a long-term
slowdown of hair loss (and a long-term increase in hair growth) while on a
treatment that controls hair loss. The majority of women with androgenic
alopecia have diffuse thinning on all areas of the scalp. Men on the other
hand, rarely have diffuse thinning but instead have more distinct patterns of
hair loss. Some women may have a combination of two pattern types.
Androgenic
alopecia in women is due to the action of androgens, male hormones that are
typically present in only small amounts. Hair loss can be caused by a variety
of factors tied to the actions of hormones, including ovarian cysts, the
taking of high androgen index birth control pills, pregnancy, and
menopause. Just like in men the hormone DHT appears to be at least partially to blame for
the miniaturization of hair follicles in women suffering with female pattern
baldness. Heredity plays a major factor in the disease
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