Category: Health: Diseases and Conditions

What is hair loss?

To lose hair, you must first have some on your head and therefore it is important to understand the growth of hair before you start defining hair loss. Human hair growth is made up of cycles; and for starters, it grows at a rate of about 1cm per month. After growing consistently for about five months, it gets to a resting phase. It is at this phase that some of the old hair starts falling away and new ones start to grow to replace what is gone. So at any one time, your hair is either resting, or growing.

Being a normal process for men and women and even children to lose hair, this process however becomes worrisome when you lose more hair than you replace. This is referred to as excessive hair loss.

Causes of excessive hair loss

Illness and surgery

In most cases after one has undergone a major illness or surgery, one may find oneself losing hair in excess. This might be caused by a number of factors ranging from the stress experience as a result of the illness, to the drugs that one had been taking. The good news is that this kind of hair loss is temporary and after full recovery, hair starts to grow back.

Hormonal imbalance

This is especially common in women who have given birth where, after three months, they start noticing a recession of the hair. This is caused by the fact that during pregnancy, the hormones that keep hair intact are in high quantities in the body due to the pregnancy. Thus, they prevent even the hair that is supposed to fall out from falling out. When hormonal levels drop after giving birth, the intact hair falls away fast and a new cycle of growth starts all over again.

Hair styles

If you are in the habit of wearing your hair in a tight pony tail, it may cause some of the hair to come out. The bad thing about this is that if you do not stop pulling your hair tight into a pony tail, it might cause scarring of the scalp and therefore it will never grow back.

Natural/common hair loss

This is very common in men and it is referred to as baldness. Hair starts falling out in patterns where it might start at the front hair line and keep receding backwards in time. It can also start falling out from the center and spread all round. This type of hair loss is permanent. Baldness is an inherited trait and most men who experience it got it from somebody in their family. Symptoms of hair loss start early enough where, as children, less hair will be lost; but in latter days, they will lose it in excess.

Infections

This refers mostly to fungal infections of the scalp that might cause one to lose hair and lose it fast. In most cases, this happens in children and it is treatable. Hair will grow back.