What to Do About Your Thinning Hair? Is their hair coming out in clumps when you brush or comb your hair? Do you find shedding hair on your clothes and just about everything your head comes across?
Maybe you’ve taken a look in the mirror and noticed your hair seems to be thinner certain areas? While you may have assumed that thinning hair was something only men or the elderly deal with, the reality is that women suffer from hair thinning and hair loss as well.
Unfortunately, when a woman experiences hair thinning or hair loss, it impacts her emotionally as hair often tied to a woman’s self-esteem and her idea of beauty.
The good news is that there are plenty of solutions from hair care products you can purchase in the store to dermatologic solutions like PRP hair treatments that can dramatically improve the fullness and thickness of your hair.
What to Do About Your Thinning Hair?
In order to determine which solution is best suited for you, however, you must first have a clear understanding of what’s going on. Below is a look at some of the most common causes of thinning hair in women:
Genetics
Genetics can play a significant role in the types of physical and emotional health issues you may develop down the line. If you find that your mother, aunts, grandmothers, or other women in your family have thinning hair, chances are you will too. This is known as hereditary female pattern hair loss.
Hair Styling
If the women in your family have strong, healthy, and thick hair, then perhaps genetics isn’t the issue. Your thinning hair could be the direct result of how you style your hair or the products you use when styling.
For women who regularly color or straighten their hair, the damage from the chemicals and heat can cause your hair to thin or fall out. Wearing your hair in tight braids or ponytails on a regular basis can also cause thinning.
Hormonal Changes After Pregnancy
As if extra weight and body aches weren’t enough, there are some women who experience thinning hair several weeks after giving birth. This is a direct result of your hormones trying to rebalance which causes a significant amount of shedding all at once. The good news, however, is that this is usually temporary and clears up a year or so after giving birth.
Birth Control
There are some brands of birth control pills that can cause the hair to start thinning. This is again, a result of hormonal changes the woman goes through while on the pill. Thinning may be most noticeable when a woman stops taking birth control. Much like the hormonal changes experienced after giving birth, in many instances, the thinning hair will stop after a few months.
Your Diet
What you eat (or don’t eat) can have a significant impact on the health of your hair. If you’re not getting enough positive sources of protein and nutrients like iron, then your hair can begin to thin.
This can happen in women that consume overly processed foods with little nutritional value or those who try crash diets that significantly reduce the consumption of certain key nutrients.
Chronic Stress
Have you recently gone through a traumatic or especially stressful time in your life? Maybe you lost a loved one, recently lost your job, got into an accident, or recently got diagnosed with a medical condition that can alter your life? Whatever the case is if you’re not adequately coping with stress it can lead to hair thinning or loss.
Underlying Medical Issues
There are certain health conditions that can cause hair thinning in women. One health condition is related to your thyroid. Located at the base of your neck, your thyroid help to produce hormones that your body needs.
If an imbalance is present, it can cause issues with your hair. Polycystic ovary syndrome is another issue that can impact your hormones and hair growth. Last, but certainly not least is alopecia areata which is a condition in which the immune system starts to attack hair follicles which can cause patches of missing or thinning hair.
Thinning hair for women especially can be difficult. Your hair is a part of what makes you feel beautiful. So, to look in the mirror and see parts of your scalp or balding patches can be emotionally difficult to deal with.
While you may want to do nothing more than crawl into bed and cry, the key to improving the health of your hair is to work with your doctor or dermatologist to find out the underlying cause and most effective solutions.
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