On average, people lose about 10% of their hair during a resting phase. Then after about three months, resting hair falls out and new hair begins to grow. The phase of new growing hair typically lasts anywhere from two to six years with hair growing about one-half to one-inch per month. The interesting thing is that as much as 90% of hair on your head is growing at any given time.
Shedding hair is a normal process. In fact, on a normal day, you would lose about 100 hairs although more if you were actually going through significant hair loss. Now, hair loss is usually associated with men but women can also go through hair loss. The cause of excessive hair loss could be a number of things. For starters, if you have undergone major surgery or illness, you might lose more hair for the following three months than you normally do because of stress.
Another common cause of excessive hair loss is due to hormonal changes within the body. This in itself could be from several things such as having a baby, dealing with an under or overly active thyroid, having estrogen or androgens out of balance, and so on. Then, certain types of drugs can also cause hair loss. In this case, once the medication is stopped, the excessive hair loss usually stops as well. The most common culprits include blood thinners, chemotherapy, excessive vitamin A, antidepressants, gout medication, and birth control pills.
Then, if you have a fungal infection of the scalp, you might also find your hair falling out more than usual. Finally, underlying disease can also be a challenge. For instance, if you are living with something such as diabetes, lupus, or another autoimmune disease, excessive hair loss is common. Remember, by taking the right medication to treat the problem, hair growth generally returns to normal.
Although some types of hair loss are genetic, you can also do a few things to help slow down or stop the process. For starters, avoid wearing your hair in cornrows, ponytails, or hot rollers, which tend to pull and stretch hair to the point of breakage. In addition, if hair follicles should become inflamed, excessive hair loss may occur. In this case, having your hair permed, colored, or treated with hot oil could be damaging. The key here is to only, have a professional work on your hair, using professional and safe products.
If the hair loss is extreme and you have tried everything you know from eating healthy to using good hair care products but nothing is working, you might visit with your doctor. First, he or she will look at what is going on with your body to see if medication, infection, or illness could be the problem. If not, blood work may be performed to look further at a possible cause. In some cases, your doctor may prescribe certain medication such as hormones for an imbalance or antibiotics for an infection. Other than that, you will find a number of excellent products now on the market that can help maintain the current amount of hair and in some cases, help with regrowth.