Dealing With Hair Loss

In at least 50% of cases, the cause of hair loss in women is due to androgenic alopecia, or female pattern baldness.

Female Hair Loss in Brief

Female hair loss is a genetic condition inherited from either parent. Women who experience female hair loss have hair follicles that have a proclivity for genetic subterfuge, and these makes them quite prone to the effects of the testosterone byproduct dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which would result in the hair follicle replacing normal texture hair with colorless hair that is both thinner and shorter. Over time, these diminutive hair follicles would die after they have atrophied, and what is once the illusion of a thinning scalp actually becomes a thinning scalp due to balding, or what is generally termed as permanent hair loss. There is no peach-fuzz hair in balding areas, and the scalp appears tight and shiny.

Baldness is an unalterable condition. There is simply no way to replace a hair follicle that atrophied. In a sense, this is comparable to losing any other part of the human body, and of course we are not like worms who can grow themselves back independently even if cut into two and thus cannot reproduce our body parts; the same applies to hair follicles, which cannot be replaced by means of any female hair loss product.

Causes of Female Pattern Hair Loss

Women, just like men, inherit the gene for thinning hair from either parent. For women, their ovaries and adrenal glands are capable of producing testosterone. It is indeed true that testosterone is transmogrified into the byproduct DHT in a woman's body, but due to a woman's progesterone and estrogen defenses, it cannot, on its own, cause female hair loss. DHT, as mentioned above in brief, can ingratiate itself with hair follicles, but as long as the body is able to produce enough progesterone and estrogen, they can reduce the body's preternatural ability to produce DHT. Any condition that can cause a decreased production of estrogen and progesterone or overproduction of DHT can cause thinning hair in genetically predisposed women. Hair loss can start with women any time after puberty, but usually this occurs with women experiencing menopause. This is because a woman's natural defense against thinning hair is broken down due to the natural drop of female hormone production that is part and parcel of menopause.

If hair loss occurs in pre-menopausal women, this might be an after-effect of hormonal imbalance; as such, anybody suffering from such a condition must seek treatment from their trusted health care professional and the appropriate medication.

For post-menopausal women, there is a method called hormone replacement theory that restores hormonal levels back to normal and precludes the process of balding. In cases where hormonal replacement therapy is not recommended, the only other available medical option is Rogaine 2%. Take note that Rogaine is able to activate the growth of hair follicles, yet is unable to prevent the production of DHT which eventually results in the atrophy of hair follicles.