How to Control Hair Fall

Hair is an essential part of human skin, these provide protection to our skin, eyes, and scalp mainly. In humans, the protective function of hair is limited because humans started using clothes and other protective mechanisms, eventually, due to the evolution process, the hair on the human body became limited.

Apart from just protection, the hair also provides beautification to our body. Hair also represents our health and youth. So if we start losing our hair, it becomes a concerning topic of our life.

To understand the hair loss problem, we need to understand the basic structure and functioning of hair. The hair grows from a bag-like structure in the skin known as the hair follicle. The root of the hair is a bulb-like structure that contains live cells that keep on growing and keep pushing the older cells toward the surface of the skin. 

The hair we see outside the skin is made up of dead cells filled with a hardened protein called keratin. 

On average, healthy hair grows at a rate of 6 inches per year. 

There are about 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh hair on human head and we keep losing around 50 to 100 of them every day. So if you see some hair falling every day, that might be natural. 

All of the hair do not grow at once, there are three phases of hair growth. Anagen, Telogen, and Catagen. 

• Anagen is the growing phase of a hair, around 90% of the scalp hair is in the growth phase at a given time. 
• Telogen is a resting phase that lasts for about 2 to 3 months. In this phase, the hair do not grow. At the end of this phase the hair eventually falls off and new hair is grown in its place. 
• Catagen is the transitional phase when new hair grows in place of the fallen ones. 

These phases of the hair life cycle depend on a variety of factors such as age, illness, nutritional status, and a variety of other factors. Hair growth slows down with age.

There are many problems associated with hair such as premature graying, roughness, dandruff, thin hair, and hair fall. We will discuss about hair falling in this blog.     

In medical language, hair loss is termed as alopecia. There are many types of alopecia found in medical studies. Some of them are  

• Involutional alopecia: This type of alopecia occurs with age, the hair
  
  tends to lose its strength and become thin, short, and less in number. 
• Androgenic alopecia: This is also called genetic hair loss, it can affect both genders. In males, typically hair loss is characterized by decreasing hairline from the forehead. It can begin in the teenage to early twenties in men. In females, this type of alopecia appears in around the 40s. They don't have male-type baldness, but their hair becomes thin and scarce.   
• Alopecia areata: In this condition, some hair loss patches might form suddenly on the scalp. this might also cause complete baldness, but this condition is reversible and hair starts growing back within a few years. 
• Alopecia Universalis: In this condition, entire body hair starts to fall out. Even the eyelashes, eyebrows and pubic hair might fall. 
• Scarring alopecia: In this condition, the hair loses its natural ability to grow back. This generally is a result of inflammatory skin conditions such as cellulitis, folliculitis, lupus, lichen planus, etc. Apart from this, these might also occur due to the use of harsh chemicals, hot combs, tight pulling, and binding, etc.

FACTORS AFFECTING HAIR LOSS:  

• Genetic Factors: Genetic factors also play a role in baldness. It can come from both parents.  
• Hormones, such as abnormal levels of androgen (male hormones normally produced by both men and women)
• Stress: Stress causes hormonal and nutritional disturbance which in turn leads to hair loss.
• Illness: Certain diseases such as diabetes also affect nutritional and hormonal disturbance causing hair loss. 
• Pregnancy: In certain cases, hair loss has been found to be associated with pregnancy. This type of hair loss is temporary in nature. 
• Fungal infections: Certain fungal infections such as ringworm also can cause temporary baldness that is reversible once the infection is treated. 
• Thyroid: Thyroid hormonal disturbance also causes thinning of hair. 
• Drugs: Chemotherapy drugs are well known to cause hair loss, but apart from that many blood pressure medicines and birth control pills can cause hair loss. 
• Chemical and cosmetic procedures: Chemicals used in cosmetics such as shampoos, bleach, perming, dyeing, etc, also make the hair thin and weak. Some other procedures such as hot curlers, hot presses, hot hair dryers, etc., also cause the weakening of hair.  
• Diet: Nutrition is an important factor for keeping the body healthy, similarly for hair growth a good diet is essential. People on strict dietary schedules or with compromised nutrition have been found to suffer from hair loss. A balanced diet rich in protein should be taken along with other oils such as cow ghee, mustard oil, or olive oil. 

What Are the Treatments for Hair Loss?

Treatment of hair loss can be categorized into three categories.

1. Cosmetic

2. Medicinal

3. Surgical

1. Cosmetic treatments include hair weaving, hair patches, wigs, and tattoos to simulate lost eyelashes and eyebrows. These are cosmetic accessories and can be worn temporarily or permanently for beautification purposes.

2. Medicinal Treatments: Many medicines have been invented for baldness, but none of them have been found to be effective enough to regain the scalp full of hair. Some underlying causes of hair fall can be cured with the help of medicines which in turn might help to stop the hair fall. 

• Certain drugs such as minoxidil stop hair loss by reversing the shrinking of the hair follicles. It is applied to the skin. This is effective at a young age at the early stages of hair fall. This drug can be used by both men and women, but it is not effective if male pattern baldness has already happened. It can stop hair fall by providing thickness to hair.  It comes as foam or lotion and needs to be applied to the scalp. In some countries, these are available as over-the-counter medicine, which means no prescription is required to purchase them. 
• Finasteride is another commonly prescribed medicine for hair loss. This drug was originally produced for prostate problems in males. It blocks some male hormones to reach the skin that are responsible for hair loss. This medicine is available in pill form and is to be taken once daily to thrice a week. This medicine should not be taken without medical advice from your physician, because it has side effects also.
• Spironolactone is also used for male pattern baldness and works on the similar principle of blocking hormones. It should also not be taken without a prescription. 
• Apart from these, corticosteroids, Drithocreme, Diphencyprone, and Janus Kinase Inhibitors,* are some of the drugs you might hear for treating different types of hair loss. 

*The names of these drugs are given here for the purpose of information only, we do not recommend any of these drugs to be taken without medical advice from a qualified physician.* 

  

3. Surgical Treatments: The most common surgical treatment is hair transplantation. You would have heard about it from advertisements, etc.  In this process, the active hair follicles are taken from one area of skin and are relocated to the desired area. This requires hundreds of skin plugs to be replanted and might take multiple sessions of treatment. In one session, only 10 to 50 plugs can be transplanted.

The transplanted hair might not grow, but the follicle can produce new hair within several months. 

Another newer version of hair transplant is called follicular unit transplantation (FUT) which can transplant one to four hair follicles very close to each other which gives a more natural look to the transplanted hair. Another procedure called follicular unit extraction (FUE) involves transplanting hair from the nape of the neck to be used for eyebrows. 

Hair transplantation is a complicated procedure and involves risks of infection, failure of the procedure,  swelling of the scalp and skin, etc. Please discuss the entire procedure and its complications before undergoing this procedure.

Lasers. Some newer treatments using lasers are also gaining popularity. This procedure involves a laser comb device that can stimulate new hair growth, but the authentic results are not available yet. 

HAIR LOSS PREVENTION: It is commonly asked if we can prevent hair loss, and what are the ways of doing so. 

You can use methods and products to strengthen the hair and keep them clean to help them grow naturally and prevent damaging them. 

• Avoid putting heavy stress on your hair, such as hair dryers, hot curlers, harsh chemical dyes, hair straightening products, and chemicals such as bleaches, etc. All these procedures cause unnecessary damage to our hair making them thin and brittle. 
• Use natural products: As long as possible keep the natural color of your hair, don't dye them with harsh chemicals. Particularly if you are not having any white graying hair. For dyeing also, you can use natural henna mixed with natural oils, some people use indigo powder mixed with henna to dye their hair, which is also good if you are not allergic to these substances. 
• Take a nutritious diet: you should take a protein-rich diet along with natural fibers and vitamins to help your liver and skin function properly. Your liver filters out thousands of toxins from your body and your skin also have to remove toxins through sweat. If you eat an unhealthy diet or chemicals in your diet, your skin might have to face the wrath of it, which in turn will affect the hair also. 
• Do not use harsh brushing on your hair, always use gentle brushing, combs with wide teeth are good for it. Use strokes of comb from scalp to full length of hair to evenly distribute the natural oil of hair. 
• Do not use tight braids to style your hair. Tight braids will pull out the hair from the roots or might loosen their roots. Try to avoid hairstyling with tight braids. 
• Do not brush on wet hair, wet hair is more liable to damage and root up as compared to dry ones, so avoid brushing when your hair is wet. 
• Use the correct shampoo for your hair type: You can easily find variants of shampoo for different skin and hair types. For dry and damaged hair, use a mild shampoo with conditioners. For oily hair different variants of shampoos are available. 
• Keep your scalp clean, particularly in humid weather. If you are living in an area where you face humid weather, it becomes an essential practice to keep your skin clean to prevent small microbes enter into the roots of your hair. Moist weather can give rise to a number of pathogens that attack hair follicles thus making your hair fall easily. 
• Use light natural oils such as coconut, and almond oil at least once a week to massage the skull and roots of the hair. Always massage with light hands, do not rub harshly. You can apply oil overnight or at least for 3-4 hours to get it effectively absorbed. 

I hope this article would have answered most of your questions regarding hair loss and balding. If you still have any questions or suggestions, please put them in the comments, our team would be happy to answer those. 

We will meet in our next blog with some other new information. 

Till then, Stay Beautiful.