Alopecia - Commonly Called Hair Loss

The medical term for hair loss is alopecia. Alopecia can be partial, or what is usually referred to as balding, or complete, leaving your head with no hair whatsoever. Whatever you call the condition, you should gather all the facts you can about your hair loss before you act. There is some information you need to know about hair loss so that you can better decide among the possible treatment options. Your chances of stopping your hair loss are much better when you know your options early on.

You may begin to lose hair gradually, or in clumps; all over or just in some parts of the body. It is important to know what category your hair loss falls into, so that you can treat it appropriately. There is so much information about hair loss that focusing on your particular situation can help you deal with it. On the average, the typical healthy person loses about a hundred hairs daily, from a total of about one hundred thousand scalp hairs. Hair on the head grows about an inch a year, and any given hair lasts around four and a half years before it falls out. About half a year later, a new hair grows to take its place, unless genetic hair loss has entered the picture; this is when not enough new hairs are being produced to take the place of hairs that are shed naturally. In addition, excessive loss of hair may also be a factor.

Whether you are male or female makes no different to hair loss. Normally, growing older causes the same amount of lost hair both in men and in women. The same thing goes for hair thinning. However, it is true that men have more of an issue with inherited pattern baldness. By the age of thirty, 25 percent of men will have begun balding, and by the age of sixty over 65% will have developed balding patterns or be totally bald. Male pattern baldness usually consists of a receding hair line along with hair thinning in the crown area. Testosterone is the main culprit behind this common condition. For this reason, any man who has low testosterone for any genetic or medical reason probably does not have to worry about male pattern baldness at all.

Many etiologies of hair loss exist. Thus, it is of paramount importance to evaluate all available information on possible causes of hair loss instead of assuming that one's hair loss is hereditary. While baldness is usually the consequence of aging, inheritance or testosterone, myriad other factors exist that should not be ignored. These include hormonal variations, severe illness, medications, too much shampooing or blow drying, stress-whether psychological or physical, nervous habits, burns and even parasites such as ringworm.