Baldness and hair loss in men is very common and almost taken for granted, even if some men do feel self conscious about it and search for a way how to prevent hair loss, however receding or thinning hair does occur in women too, and can be extremely damaging to the self esteem as first of all it is not very common and secondly a woman’s hair is a large part of how a woman likes to present herself to the world.
As a female, if your hair does start to have bald patches in it you should just quickly check a couple of things before coming to the overall conclusion that your hair is actually thinning. You should take time out and think about lifestyle really, are you stressed or is your diet poor? What about your hairstyle have you been wearing a style that pulls on your hair or getting lots of colors done?Now these things may seem trivial, but they can have a huge influence on what is happening with your scalp.
Now of course non of these things may be happening in your life, and you are actually losing more hair than any of the above would warrant, well if that is the case there is a strong possibility it could be a hormonal issue, as changes in hormones can hugely effect the growth of your hair.
Following are some of the common things that can happen to a woman to adjust hormones and interfere with the hair growth.
The first thing to consider is if you are going through the menopause. If you are then there is a high probability that your hormone production is slowing down. Women who are post menopausal and also have bald patches is probably higher than you would imagine, in fact it can occur in up to 2/3rds of the women in that group. The most common way of treating this slow down is with HRT and following is a little explanation of the hormones which slow down, and why it can cause hair loss:-
Basically, before menopause a women will produce both estrogen and testosterone hormones. But the estrogen will not allow testosterone to be converted and move around the body as it acts in a way like a barrier. When the menopause starts, the production of estrogen diminishes and this can allow testosterone to have a bit more of a free reign. This in turn can turn into DHT which is a high amount of testosterone and if there are areas of the scalp sensitive to this then this can lead to hair loss.
If a woman is unfortunate enough to have to undergo a hysterectomy, then this too can be a bit like going through the menopause as again there is really little or no estrogen being produced, and this too is going to lead to a higher probability of hair loss.
The third thing that can really mess around with a woman’s hormones and change the structure of their hair is pregnancy. As you will have already guessed, being pregnant causes huge changes within the body and hormones can pretty much run amok. It is extremely common during pregnancy for hair to just seemingly take on a life of its own. It can go thinner and fall out, it can become thicker, curly hair can straighten and straight hair can go curly. This is down to the massive hormone changes which take place within a woman when they are pregnant, and for some women after having a child, their hair is never the same again.
These just cover some of the hormonal changes, however if you feel that none of this is applicable to you then, remember to have a little think about stress, hairstyle and food as well. In particular if you feel as if your diet is letting you down then you may want to consider taking some vitamins for good hair growth.