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So You Are Losing Your Hair Now What?

Is there anything normal about hair loss? How will you know if what you are experiencing is age appropriate hair loss (if there is such a thing) or something you should be concerned about?

To answer your questions, you start on a search for information about hair loss. You are immediately swamped by online Websites trying to sell you hair loss products. If you are lucky, among all the ads and sales pitches you find some honest to goodness hair loss facts.

If your hair is in a normal hair growth cycle, you should see 1 centimeter of hair growth each month during a growth stage. Only approximately 90% of the hair on your scalp is in a growth stage at any one time. This means that the rest of the hair on your scalp, approximately 10% is in a resting stage. The 10% resting hair will then after 2 or 3 months fall out and is replaced by new hair that then grows in the place where the hair just fell out. You have surely noticed hair in your comb or hairbrush over the years, so you know that hair loss is a normal thing to experience at any age. It is not normal however to have excessive hair loss and it is not normal to not have new hair growth replacing the resting hair that has fallen out. Excessive hair loss can occur to men, women, even children.

Excessive hair loss happens for many reasons. Common reasons for hair loss include an illness, hormonal problems such as thyroid disease, or male or female hormones being out of balance, major surgery, and hair loss that occur as a result of intense stress. Hair loss that occurs because of illness or stress is usually temporary in nature.

Excessive hair loss as a result of hormonal problems can be corrected when the hormonal imbalance is corrected. Pregnant women can experience hair loss as a result of the increase in hormones associated with pregnancy that stops hair from falling out after the resting stage so that after the baby is born they all of a sudden notice that all of this "resting hair" that has built up is now falling out. After that, the hair should return to the normal growth, rest; fall out cycle as before the pregnancy.

One other thing you may encounter during your search for information is that certain medications can also be responsible for hair loss. If you are prescribed blood thinners, medication to treat gout, or drugs used in chemotherapy as well as certain birth control pills, and antidepressants prescribed to treat those with depression can also have the side effect of hair loss. You may also find out that certain infections can cause hair loss such as when you contract a fungal infection of the scalp, common in childhood.

Individuals who have cancer, lupus, even diabetes can all experience hair loss during the course of their illness. This is why you should consult your doctor if you notice excessive hair loss because this may be a symptom of a disease. You would want to catch any disease in the early stage so noticing a symptom such as hair loss and reporting it promptly may mean receiving a diagnosis for a disease early, which may benefit your prognosis.