Month: October 2008

Hey doc, well this isnt really a question, but a comment on an observation i made. I’ve read your posts on how smoking may cause hair loss,which kind of intrigued me a little. I recently started smoking again after 8 months of quitting, and the hair on my left hand got introduced to a lot of smoke about 5-6 times daily. Today,after a week of smoking, I’ve noticed that the hairs on my left hand fingers and back of my hand have either shortened, or have disappeared. What makes me believe that smoking has caused it, is that the hair on my right hand fingers are just as they used to be. It doesn’t seem to be a possibility that the cigarette smoke ‘burnt’ my hair off because if that was the case the the back of my hand wouldn’t have lost hair, and smoke from a cigarette isn’t hot enough to be able to do that anyways.

I know the mechanism behind your statement on smoking and hair loss is related to the blood flow, but there may be another way on how smoking damages hair. It’s a toxic emission and has caused the hair to die off. Something I would now try to keep my head hair away from, and it’s now made me think of qutting again! I know that body hair is different from head hair, but who knows, and I’m not willing to risk my already dying head hair!

I don’t have much to add to your comments, so I’ll just say that your statement alone expresses the unknowns and your observations stand on their own. Smoking is harmful in many ways.

This is my second time deployed to iraq, and my last time over here I started experiencing this problem with my head. It was only one spot, and then eventually after all the puss was released it went bald. Now my second time over here and it has come back with vengance. There are now three spots on my head, and the one just seems to be spreading more and more each week. Please help me because the doctors over here dont know anything.

Pus? It sound like an infection. I would see a doctor and take care of the infection. Tell the doctors that you may have folliculitis and need a culture of one of the “boils” to determine the diagnosis. Sometimes hair loss can be permanent from scarring after an infection, but if you take care of the infection early enough permanent hair loss can be prevented. If the hair loss is permanent, you can always have a small hair transplant procedure to cover up the scar. It generally takes over a year to assess if the hair will grow back.

I was wondering if you could tell me if rust or the water pipes in my building could be causing some hair loss? My landlord snaked one of my drains and there was tons of organge disgusting water coming up. I have experienced unknown hair loss over the last few months and all of my blood work is normal. Iam trying to get to the cause of this. The building I live in is old. Any idea if this could be a cause?

One of the major causes of discolored water like you describe is rusty water pipes, but I doubt that it’s drainage that you are putting on your head. I do not know of hair loss side effects for this type of water, but it does produce stains on your sink/tub that are similar to hard water, which is loaded with minerals. If you have hard water, you will see that the shampoo you use does not create suds well. Yet, even hard water will not impact your hair as long as you treat it gently.

I am assuming that you are a male and if that is the case, you should get your hair mapped out for miniaturization to find out if you have genetic hair loss and stop worrying about your rusty pipes being the cause of your thinning hair. At the very least, I’d let the water run until it clear water comes out, because if you’re showering in rust, that’s not very hygienic and your landlord should take care of that for you.