Hair Loss In Women
Causes of Hair loss in Women
In women more often than in men, hair loss may be due to conditions other than androgenetic alopecia.
Some of the most common of these causes are:
Alopecia areata— a possibly autoimmune disorder that causes patchy hair loss in women that can range from diffuse thinning to extensive areas of baldness with “islands” of retained hair. Medical examination is necessary to establish a diagnosis.
Trichotillomania— compulsive hair pulling. Hair loss due to trichotillomania is typically patchy, as compulsive hair pullers tend to concentrate the pulling in selected areas. Hair loss in women due to this cause cannot be treated effectively until the psychological or emotional reasons for trichotillomania are effectively addressed. Therefore, hair transplantation would not be an appropriate treatment option.
Scarring alopecia— hair loss due to scarring of the scalp area. Scarring alopecia typically involves the top of the scalp and occurs predominantly in women. The condition frequently occurs in African-American women and is believed to be associated with persistent tight braiding of scalp hair. A form of scarring alopecia also may occur in post-menopausal women, associated with inflammation of hair follicles and subsequent scarring. We also refer to this as traction alopecia, a slow chronic pull on the hair root that eventually kills the root system causing balding.
Telogen effluvium— A common type of hair loss caused when a large percentage of scalp hairs are shifted into “shedding” phase. The causes of telogen effluvium in a woman may be hormonal, nutritional, drug-associated, or stress-associated. Loose-anagen syndrome—a condition occurring primarily in fair-haired persons in which scalp hair sits loosely in hair follicles and is easily extracted by combing or pulling. The condition may appear in childhood, and may improve as the person ages.
Triangular alopecia— loss of hair in the temporal areas that sometimes begins for a woman in childhood. Hair loss may be complete, or a few fine, thin-diameter hairs may remain. The cause of triangular alopecia is not known, but the condition can be treated medically or surgically.
Postpartum Alopecia—Another common form of hair loss, postpartum alopecia is caused by hormonal changes during the course of a pregnancy. The changes cause an alteration in the growth pattern of the hair follicles. There is usually very little sign of these changes during the pregnancy itself, but rather a sudden and very excessive loss of hair from three to nine months after the birth of the child. While this is often very traumatic for the new mother suffering from the hair loss, the hair’s growth cycle typically returns to normal within a year after the end of the pregnancy. Therefore, hair transplantation is not a necessary treatment option.
Hypopituitarism and Thyroid Disorders—Female hair loss can be the result of a hormonal change or imbalance. There has been a report describing a young women with hypopituitarism who presented with clinical and histological features of female pattern baldness in the absence of detectable levels of circulating androgens (testosterone and other male hormones) showing this pattern of hair loss is not androgen dependent. Hair transplantation is usually not an initial treatment option in these instances.
Accident or Surgery Related—Women who have had facelifts or other procedures in the scalp that have left scars or, as in the case of brow lifts, has left the hairline too high. In general, these types of hair loss respond well to transplants.
If you are a woman with thinning or lost scalp hair, your first necessary step is to have the condition correctly diagnosed by a hair restoration physician specialist.
