Hair fall: What’s normal and what’s not

08 November 2019 | By Leigh van den Berg

The average person loses between 50 to 100 strands per day. Let’s look at the causes – and a few treatments – for hair loss.

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If you feel like you’re losing more hair than usual, there are a few things you can do about it - but first, you need to know what’s causing your hair loss.

Why me?

According to hairstylist and salon owner Candice Donadel there are several factors that could trigger hair fall. These include undergoing a period of intense stress, rapid weight loss or a health condition like anemia or a vitamin B12 deficiency.

Fortunately, in the cases of stress and weight loss, the shedding won’t last forever and your hair will eventually thicken up over time. However, if your hair fall is due to a health condition, you’ll need to treat that first which is why it’s important to see a doctor who can help you find the underlying cause of your hair loss.

Tricky testosterone

Another possible cause for hair loss are hormones. Testosterone is known as the “male” hormone, but all women produce it too. If anyone has too much of it, it converts to a more potent form called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that starts to build up in the hair follicles. “DHT essentially strangles your follicles, starving them of nutrients,” says Donadel. This causes your individual strands to thin, fall out and eventually stop growing.

If you’re dealing with DHT-induced thinning, Donadel suggests you use topical products containing high amounts of caffeine. “If you apply caffeine directly to your hair follicles it can block the conversion of testosterone to DHT.”

Time to wake up those hair follicles

Another way to help out thinning hair is to use products that help wake up dormant hair follicles.

At any given time, only a portion of the hair follicles on your head will be in the growing phase while the others are fast asleep. Certain topical ingredients like Stemoxydine and Follicusan can stimulate these sleeping follicles, effectively waking them up and encouraging them to grow. If you have more than the regular number of follicles in the growing phase than you would normally, you get to enjoy a fuller-looking head of hair.

IMAGE CREDIT: shutterstock.com