Treating Hair Loss
Hair loss could affect your whole body or just your scalp. It could the outcome of medications, medical conditions, hormonal changes, or heredity. Everyone – children, women, and men – could experience this illness.
Typically, baldness refers to excessive loss of hair from the scalp. The most popular cause of this is genetic loss of hair with age. Several individuals to let the baldness run its progression unhidden and untreated. Some might cover it up with scarves, hats, makeup, or hairstyles. However, others still select one of the available treatments to restore growth and avoid further hair loss.
Diagnosis
The doctor would probably provide you a physical examination and ask about your family history and medical history before making a diagnosis. The doctor might also conduct tests like:
- Blood Test
This might help reveal medical conditions linked to hair loss, such as thyroid illness.
- Pull Test
The doctor pulls gently few dozen hairs to see how much hair would be removed. This helps recognize the shedding process stage.
- Scalp Biopsy
The doctor gets samples from several hairs plucked from your scalp or from your skin to examine the roots of the hair. This could help identify whether an infection is present.
- Light Microscopy
The doctor utilizes a unique instrument to examine trimmed hairs at the base. This helps determine potential disorders of the shaft of the hair.
Medication
Treatment for that illness would be needed if the hair loss is caused by a disease that’s underlying. This might include drugs to suppress your immune system or reduce inflammation. The doctor might recommend you to stop taking the drugs for at least 3 months if a particular drug is causing the hair loss.
Here are several medications that are approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration):
- Rogaine (Minoxidil)
Rogaine is a foam or liquid that you apply to your hair 2 times a day to grow hair and to avoid further loss of hair. It might be utilized by women and men. Several individuals experience a slower rate of hair loss, hair regrowth, or both with this treatment. The effect peaks after using it within 16 weeks and you must keep rubbing it to keep the benefits.
- Propecia (Finasteride)
This drug is only available to males. It is daily taken in the form of pill. A lot of men taking this drug experience some new hair growth, and slowing hair loss. You must keep taking the pill to keep the benefits.
Surgery
Only the top of the scalp is affected by the most popular type of permanent hair loss. Hair restoration or hair transplant surgery could make the most of the left hair on your scalp.
The surgeon eliminates small plugs of skin that contains several hairs from the sides or back of the scalp. The surgeon then puts the plugs into the bald parts of the scalp. You might be asked to take a hair loss drug after and before the operation to enhance the results that you want.