Many people from all walks of life struggle with types of Alopecia or as it is more commonly known Hair Loss, Balding we are here today to introduce you to the many aspects of Alopecia that most people don’t know even exist.
Here are a few types of Alopecia:
- Diffuse Alopecia
- Friction Alopecia
- Traction Alopecia
- Alopecia Areata
- Alopecia Totalis
- Alopecia Universalis
These types of Alopecia are sometimes incorrectly diagnosed and very seldom resolved by the medical options available today. Most options are drug-related with far-reaching side effects. These side effects outweigh the benefits of natural hair growth.
What you have to understand is that if you are not correctly diagnosed from the beginning, your hair loss journey may be a long one without any real results or positive outcomes.
We would suggest visiting one of the HairOptions branches and booking your FREE assessment to get to the bottom of why you are losing your hair.
In some cases, one may have no other option but to go the medical intervention route.
The below explanations are a basic introduction to Alopecia and all its forms.
Diffuse Alopecia:
The lack of clearly denuded areas of the scalp in recognizable patterns indicates diffuse hair loss. Many different types of stress may drive the anagen hair follicles prematurely into the telogen phase, resulting in increased shedding of hairs. This is most common in women. The pattern, “Telogen Effluvium”, is the response of the hair follicle to altered physiological states such as pregnancy, severe illness or injury, emotional stress, and metabolic derangements. Particularly those that disturb the normal balance of amino acids and proteins necessary for normal growth.
Many avenues need to be explored before embarking on the treatment of this type of hair loss. In most cases, diffuse hair loss represents a temporary interference with normal hair growth. When stress has caused Telogen Effluvium, re-growth normally occurs within a few months and will not be hastened by any treatment, other than the maintenance of good health.
Other causes of diffuse hair loss could be caused by iron deficiency anaemia, a condition particularly likely to occur in women and is sometimes not easily detected.
Friction Alopecia:
The friction types of alopecia suggests that something has rubbed the hair away, for example, a hat is worn regularly or the rubbing of the towel vigorously across the top of the scalp. The belief that this stimulates blood flow is a bad misconception. The rubbing of the scalp causes tremendous friction helping to weaken the growth and eventually stunt the growth altogether.
Traction Alopecia
Traction means pulling and there are many ways in which this may affect hair growth.
- Some plaited hairstyles pulled too hard against the hair follicle can result in temporary hair loss. In more serious cases, the hair follicle becomes permanently damaged. This can be caused by mothers who tie their little girls’ hair too tightly. This is also caused by today’s fashionably styled braided hairstyles that particularly occur in the black population on both men and women.
- Another cause is hot combs, hair straighteners and blow-drying with tremendous heat. The hair is pulled out or breaks off at the roots.
- The habitual pulling of hair can be likened to nail-biting. The person plucks out the hair and this becomes an obsessive behaviour disorder known as Trichotillomania. Counselling is needed to get to the bottom of the behaviour and then learn to re-direct the attention away from the compulsion to pull. This type of behaviour can be mimicked when an adult in the family does it.
Alopecia Areata:
This means baldness in isolated areas. This can be congenital, premature or senile. Alopecia areata starts as patchy baldness, which is usually temporary. Although quite common, Alopecia Areata represents a serious type of baldness. The cause of Alopecia Areata is unknown although it can be autoimmune-related. Shock and anxiety are common precipitating factors, as we know trauma can cause the shutdown of the immune system.
Alopecia Totalis:
This is when all scalp hair has been lost and sometimes the pubis-type hair (eyebrows, eyelashes, beard underarm hairs etc.). This is usually when Alopecia Areata progresses and the patches join and eventually all the hair is lost. This is in many cases due to the helplessness and anxiety caused by the non-response of prescribed medication.
Alopecia Universalis:
This is when all scalp and body hair is lost. This is caused by the immune system breaking down. This can be caused by severe trauma. Mental and physical abuse, molestation, severe shock or illness and other causes which distress the body into a state of shock.
Anagen Alopecia:
The Anagen Types of Alopecia means baldness from birth and we have never attempted to treat this condition.
Anagen Effluvium:
Anagen is the hair’s growing stage. Effluvium means that the growth phase has been arrested and the hair has stopped growing. This is usually used to describe a serious hair loss problem, where thousands of hairs are lost each day. This can be caused by the breakdown of the nutrition in the scalp or general body health, such as a severe shock, or high temperature.
Chemically Induced Alopecia:
Hair chemical treatments used in hairdressing salons can be very detrimental to both hair and scalp. The use of relaxers and perms, with chemical treatments, exceeding a pH of 9.8 requires a barrier-protecting base. Without scalp protection, the scalp can suffer severe burns, which can lead to weeping eczema and hair loss.
Drug-Induced Baldness:
Hair loss can be a side effect of many drugs, including the contraceptive pill, malaria tablets, drugs used to control thyroids and acne, hormonal drugs and some antibiotics. The most feared are chemotherapy drugs.
Post-Partrum Alopecia
Pregnancy produces widespread changes in the body’s physiology. The hair is affected by all women to a slight degree. Hair loss will occur around the third or fourth month after the birth and will go into a diffuse stage for several months. The ratio of hair loss can be as much as 35% at that stage and is very alarming. The hair loss slows down gradually over a long period.
Female Pattern Alopecia (Baldness)
Genetics appears to be a significant factor in developing female pattern baldness, which means it runs in families. Women can inherit the gene for pattern baldness from either parent. Female pattern baldness tends to be more common as a woman ages and reaches midlife, although it can begin earlier. It often develops after menopause, so hormonal changes may also be a contributing factor