Hair Care – What is Menopause Hair Loss? | Hair Loss With Menopause | Menopause Hair Loss
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Hair Care – What is Menopause Hair Loss? | Hair Loss With Menopause | Menopause Hair Loss
The most common cause of hair loss is low thyroid function, which is common among menopausal women. Other causes include, but are not limited to changes in hormone levels, increased testosterone, increased stress, various medications, scalp/dermatological issues and heredity. Any time sudden hair loss is experienced, one must consider events which took place up to three months prior to the hair loss, as factors affecting hair loss can often take up to three months to have an effect, were you diagnosed with something new in the past few months? Did you start taking medication during the past few months? Did you go through a traumatic experience. Subsequently, any treatments for hair loss should be given at least three months to have noticeable effects.
Aside from menopause, the times when healthy women are most likely to experience sudden hair loss are during pregnancy and during adolescence. This is because these are all times when the body’s hormone balance is changing. The reason why men normally experience more hair loss than women is not simply due to testosterone, but happens because male bodies convert testosterone into a hormone called dihydrotestosterone, which can poison hair follicles.In the female body, testosterone is usually regulated by oestrogen, but during the menopause oestrogen production rates slow down.
The body also starts producing another hormone, 5 alpha reductase, which causes testosterone to develop into dihydrotestosterone. This can lead to thinning of the hair at the front of the scalp and right at the top, as is common in men. However, this rarely produces completely bald patches.Hair loss can also occur during the menopause as a direct consequence of stress caused by mood swings. This means that, if you do start to lose your hair, worrying about it can actually make it worse. Instead, consider the practical things you can do to tackle the problem.
A hormonal imbalance is the most common reason for female hair loss or thinning hair in women. Estrogen is the female hormone women depend on to keep hair growing on their heads. Anything that affects estrogen levels will affect how well your hair grows.Pregnancy and childbirth definitely affect a woman’s hormones, and it’s pretty common for women who have just had a baby to experience a certain amount of hair loss. This problem usually reverses itself within a couple of months as estrogen levels in the body return to pre pregnancy levels.However, estrogen levels drop as a woman gets older. This is a normal occurence, but it can lead to thinning hair in women. Why would lower estrogen levels lead to female hair loss?
According to Lovera Wolf Miller, MD, certified member of the North American Menopause Society, noticeable thinning of scalp hair along with the growth of excessive facial hair occurs in about half of all women by age 50, although it may begin anytime after puberty.Alopecia is actually as common in women as it is in men, but it’s less apparent because it rarely causes balding.The fact that hair loss is a widespread problem that you share with many other women doesn’t make it any easier to handle, notes a 2007 report in Clinical Interventions in Aging. Given the importance of a woman’s hair and complexion to her self image, such appearance issues can cause varying degrees of psychological distress and what the report calls impaired social functioning.
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