Androgenetic Hair Loss in Women

Ms.X is a middle aged lady, who had very good hair as a teenager. She even won Miss Beautiful Hair during her college days. After marriage she has put on some weight, though she cannot be called obese. Of late she has noticed that her scalp is becoming visible in the front. She has started noticing few hair strands in the bathtub as well. The length of her hair (which used to attract so much attention during younger days) has significantly reduced. She has noticed the same pattern in her mother as well, but she feels her mother started loosing hair much later in her life and it is OK for her to lose some now. She tried all the shampoos and hair loss solutions available in the market with little improvement. Her stress level has increased and it has started interfering with her day to day life. If you think I can substitute X with your name then please read on, otherwise search my 'Feather in the cap' series of articles for your story.

Your body in small amounts also produces the same hormone that made your husband bald. If your hair decides to react to it, your hair will start thinning especially over the top. But you will not develop complete hair loss like men and you will always have some hair left to cover up the scalp. But I know it is unlikely to be of any consolation to you. The lifespan of your hair will reduce and hence the length.

Though your hair can decide to become lean and mean with normal hormone levels, it is important to rule out any reason for increase in the hormones. If hormones are indeed abnormal it is good news because, controlling your hormones will make your hair thicker and longer again. A hormonal problem is more likely if you are overweight or too stressed. Hormonal imbalance will also make your cycles irregular along with increase in facial hair and acne. So if you have any of these, a visit to your gynecologist will be more useful than the best hair-grow gel you bought yesterday. Exercise, weight reduction and proper stress management can improve subtle hormonal imbalance that your gynecologist cannot detect by a blood test or an ultrasound.

Everybody will have an opinion about what is good or what is bad for this type of hair loss. Recommendations range from putting peanut butter to using mineral water for head bath. Many will vouch that they got good results with these remedies. Hormonal hair loss is naturally cyclical with periodic spontaneous improvements and people tend to find spurious association with the remedy they were using just before a period of improvement. The rule of the thumb is that the thin hair is vulnerable to everything including traction, strong shampoo, vigorous massage and dandruff. Hence be as gentle as possible with your hair. That will preserve as much hair as possible till a high tech remedy becomes available or till you are no longer concerned about hair loss any more.

In short, Androgenetic Alopecia in women does not improve much with routine hair loss treatments, but life style modifications might help in some cases.