Category: Female Hair Loss

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Chronic Thyroiditis and Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Dear Dr William Rassman,

I’m a woman and I’m 30 years old. I’ve been losing my hair for 13 months, 150 hairs per day and a lot of them when I wash my hair. They have informed me that I have the telogen effluvium and a miniaturization of my hair. I have no problem with my health and hormones. Only a problem (Hashimoto thyroid), but the TSH is normal. What can I do for that? Can I expect that with the time, the hair loss will be stopped? Have I a risk to become bald? I have a lot of hairs, and 10 years ago I have had the same problem and the hair loss had been stopped 2 years later.

Thanks for your help.

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The connection between Chronic thyroiditis (Hashimoto’s disease) and hair loss has been known for some time. Clearly, your thyroid needs to be under good management, then pulling back and looking at the hair loss under the guidance of a good dermatologist would probably be the best way to command what is going on with your hair. I doubt that you will go bald, and you probably will find that control of the hair loss will be like your last episode years earlier. Women almost never go bald, but they can push thinning at times. If it had reversed before, then you might safely assume that it will reverse to some degree again. The focus, as you so rightly concluded, is to stop/contain the hair loss. Like a chicken and an egg scenario, what came first? Chronic thyroiditis may have layered on top of the female balding genetics in your family line.

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Healthier Hair – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

My six year old daughter, had kidney reflux and a UPJ obstruction at birth, both have been surgically corrected. Her hair is shoulder length and has been for three years. I trim it regulary and it remains extremely dry and barely grows. Her hair does come out fairly easy when brushed or pulled (by her brothers). She really wants her hair to grow and I would love to know how I can make it more healthy and have peace of mind that nothing is medically wrong. I would appreciate your time and assistance. Thank you

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Hair loss can be caused by stress (physical and emotional), malnutrition, and multiple surgeries. Brittle hair can be treated with more gentle handling as brisk brushing can pull out or break the fragile hairs. Make sure that your daughter’s diet allows her to get all the nutrients that she needs. It is normal to lose around 100 hairs per day. The length of her hair indicates (assuming that hair grows 1/2 inch per month) that her hair cycle may be as short as 2 years (assuming 12 inch length of her hair) and each hair that falls out gets replaced by another one that starts to grow from ‘scratch’. Everyone has their own hair cycle, which usually ranges from 2 – 6 years. I would expect that as she gets older, the cycle length will change (probably get longer which may mean that the hair will grow out longer as well).

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Straighteners Causing Hair Loss? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi, I wonder if you could help me, I am 28 years old and I have always had slight thinning in the temple areas of my scalp. I have always been able to hide this with a fringe etc but since I have been using hair straightners I can’t put my hair up in a pony tail as you can see the thinning more and I have started to receed. Could this be because of using straightners that it has become worse or could there be an underlying cause. Both my parents have full head of hair and hair thinning doesn’t run in the family.

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Without seeing a photo of you it is tough to tell, but given your age and the circumstances you describe, I suspect you have some degree of traction alopecia, which is hair loss caused by pulling at the root. This is commonly caused by tight braiding, ponytails, etc., and as you can imagine it is more common in women. Any mechanism that pulls excessively at the hair may cause this (even clip-on or glue-in hair pieces) and over time if the hair continues to be pulled, it can become permanent. You also mentioned that you have begun straightening your hair. Sometimes, the chemicals in hair treatments can damage the hair and cause loss. In addition to that, though, when you straightened your hair, the problem worsened since straight hair covers less area than curly or wavy hair does. Pulling your hair back into a ponytail not only pulls at the hair at the temples, it would also expose the areas that already have loss making it look worse. Without examining you I cannot tell how much of your hair loss is due to chemicals or to traction, but loss at the temples is a hallmark of traction alopecia all by itself. Neither of these is genetic by the way.

What I would suggest is that you stop using any styling that would cause excessive pulling (i.e. traction) on your hair and also stop using straighteners for at least 6 months to give the hair a chance to grow back. If your hair does not grow back in a year, you may be a candidate for hair transplant in those areas.

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Female Hair Loss in Temples – Balding Blog

I have thinning hair at my temples. I am in the Army and have to wear my hair up everyday while at work. My hairstylist says that my hair will grow back once I stop putting it up. However, I will be in the Army for the next 10 years and am thinking about hairloss treatments for my temple area? Any suggestions?

If your hair dresser is correct and you have traction alopecia (hair loss from traction), then you can expect little relief. Whatever is causing the hair loss must be addressed by stopping the pulling. There are other conditions, such as triangular alopecia, where people lose hair in the temples from genetic causes. This is part of the differential diagnosis that you needs to have made. See a good doctor and discuss these two conditions with him/her.




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Balding Forum - Hair Loss Discussion

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Hair Loss InformationPrednisone Stopped My Hair Loss? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I am 38 (female) and have had thinning hair for a while. I was prescribed Prednisone for a different problem (poison oak) and went through the treatment process. I noticed while on the drug for awhile that my hair stopped falling out. Have you ever heard of this? It seems that every other time prednisone is mentioned, it causes hair to fall out rather than stopping it. I’m wondering if a low level dosage is ever prescribed as a treatment for hair loss. Once I finished the prednisone, my hair started falling out again.

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There are many causes of hair loss other than classic genetic female hair loss (alopecia areata, various autoimmune processes, etc..) that might be helped with steroids, while the genetic process might be harmed by these same drugs. You need to have a good working diagnosis made by a competent dermatologist to ascertain what you have. Steroids can be dangerous when used long term, so be sure you are properly managed by a good doctor.

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Hair Loss InformationBirth Control Pills Causing Hair Loss? – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hi! I’m 21 years old and female. In feb 2004 I started taking birth control pills, and 3 months after starting them, i started losing hair. Then after 7 months of using them i stopped, because my hair was falling out in clumps. No I have been off more than a year and i still dont see any improvement. Doctors have made bloodtests, and they were OK! Hair loss is diffuse all over and they have a little white tip at the end. In my family no one has hair problems, not even my two grandfathers or my father! Is it normal to lose hair for such a long time ? i truly believe i am going to bald soon :(
Thank you for your time!

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Please see my previous post about Depo-Provera which answers the question about birth control pills and hair loss. Unfortunately, some women with hormone changes can precipitate female genetic hair loss and once it has started, it may not be reversed ‘if it was to be in her cards’. About 30% of women over 50 are affected by this genetic process. Although we can reasonably accept hair loss as normal in men, women have a unique type of suffering because it is another ‘attack’ on their feminity in a society that is heavily hair conscious and weighted to beauty and youth. When a young women get genetic hair loss prematurely (I fully realize that it is always premature for a woman of any age), then it is the worst type of insult that flaunts aging very painfully. What the male and female genetic hair loss is, is the ‘miniaturization’ of the hair (the thin hair that becomes even thinner as the process advances), but the location of this miniaturization is different in women than in men. Men have it develop in patterns (front to back) while women generally have it all over the head: front, top, back and sides. Some women will retain the frontal 1/2 inch of hair as healthy, even with the process of miniaturization everywhere else.

When you discussed that your tests are completely normal, I would raise the issues of Thyroid and pituitary function, as well as the absence of circulating angrogens, amongst other causes. Some doctors talk about chronic effluviums or the presence of diffuse alopecia areata (you need to have a dermatologist evaluate this).

Minoxidil does work on some women, often better than men. Some men have a diffuse patterned hair loss like women (about 1-2% of men) but some of these men are helped by Propecia (about half) while that drug has not been determined to be safe for women and even when experimentally given to women by a handful of doctors, few if any benefits were observed.

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Hair Loss InformationFemale Genetic Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Hello,

I am a 25 year old woman and I have been losing my hair since the age of 12. All of the women in my family have been affected, but I am the first to lose it as such a young age and actually have it the worst. I am generally bald in the front and have thin hair everywhere else, but it’s not bald. I currently am using a weave, but I’ve noticed that is has actually become worse and I’d really like to lose the weave and have a natural hair line. Is New Hair catered for men only, and if not, can I be helped?

Desperate in Brooklyn

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First of all, you should see a good doctor who knows about hair loss in women. Since you are in New York, I would recommend you set up an appointment with Dr. Robert Bernstein at (201) 585-1115. He has offices in Manhattan and New Jersey and can address your unique problem. It sounds like you do have genetic female hair loss, but first let’s get an expert to determine it. You must have a full check-up to determine if you have any metabolic diseases as well. For more questions and answers about female hair loss, please click here for previous blog entries.

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Hair Loss InformationKidney Stone Medication and Hair Loss – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

I had saline breast implants in June of 2004. Six weeks later, I went through a terribly stressful period (unrelated to the surgery). Four months later, I began to lose my head hair AND the hair on my legs stopped growing. I went to a dermatologist and was told I had Telogen Effluvium and it would resolve itself in a few months. It has been over a year since the initial loss began and still I am losing the hair on my head in greater volumes (still a diffuse spread though). The leg hair began to regrow four months ago. I do take Urocit-K for kidney stone prevention and I had 3 surgeries this year for stones. Is that the reason? Will my hair ever get back to normal? And, could the implants be responsible for the hair loss? Thank you.

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Dr. Moldwin is Assistant Professor of Urology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and is Director of The Interstitial Cystitis Center at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY. He is actively involved in IC research and is a member of the ICA’s Medical Advisory Board. During the December 1998 meeting at the Southeast Florida ICA Support Group, Dr. Moldwin addressed a similar question to yours. He stated: “Most of the side effects that patients encounter occur about 3% of the time. One problem people often worry about is hair loss. It is not a generalized hair loss. It tends to be in spots. Keep in mind that everybody has some daily hair loss. It’s probably a wise idea to monitor your ‘normal’ hair loss on your hairbrush for about a week prior to starting Elmiron. Significant increases in hair loss beyond your ‘baseline’ might be due to the medication. I think that in the past many people had stopped their Elmiron needlessly since they looked at their hairbrush for the first time 2-3 weeks into therapy. They saw hair in their brush (which was, of course normal hair loss) and immediately related this finding to their medication. By the way, in the unlikely event that hair loss occurs, it’s recovered with stopping the medication.”

I think that he said what you needed to hear. You should have your scalp hair examined by a competent hair specialist to determine the degree of miniaturization that is present through the various areas. This is an important baseline to establish for long term planning purposes.

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Spironolactones and Hair Loss in Women – Hair Loss Information – Balding Blog

Are you familiar with using spironoclactone topically for hairloss???? one DR. said it might be the closet thing to cure we have. IT is antiandrogen , which stops DHT at the point on scalp with attacking the follice. I would like to know if you think it worth trying in a lotion on the scalp??? Please respond With you professional opinion. THANKS

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Yes, I am familiar with Spironolactones use for hair loss. They have been around for some time. Medline states “Spironolactone, a ‘water pill,’ is used to treat high blood pressure and fluid retention caused by various conditions, including heart disease. It causes the kidneys to eliminate unneeded water and salt from the body into the urine. Spironolactone is also used to treat certain patients with hyperaldosteronism and in certain patients with low potassium levels.”

This is a potent medication and has had some reported impact on fascial hair in women. There are some doctors who use this in conjunction with other medications including Minoxidil, which is an anti-hypertensive medication. Although side effects from spironolactone are not common, they can occur and include: upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, frequent urination, dizziness, headache, enlarged or painful breasts, irregular menstrual periods, drowsiness, muscle weakness or cramps, rapid, excessive weight loss, fatigue, slow or irregular heartbeat, sore throat, unusual bruising or bleeding, yellowing of the skin or eyes, skin rash, vomiting blood, fever, and confusion. I do not believe that this is a viable treatment for hair loss as there is no objective evidence that it works in female hair loss, but it is used by some doctors to treat women with hair loss.