Alopecia (baldness) is a pathological hair loss and a serious psychological problem for a person. After all, hair has always been considered a symbol of vitality and energy. Many peoples had a custom to shave off their hair as a sign of grief, and Catholic monks, as a sign of renunciation of worldly temptations, cut a circle on their heads – tonsure.
In our time, hair has almost lost its mystical role, but has remained a powerful sexual stimulus. Long lush hair, which is becoming more and more common, attracts the attention of men no less than a beautiful figure. For women, the appearance of a man traditionally does not play such a big role, so she almost does not care about the condition of his hair. However, the fear of baldness torments men much more than the fear of losing a job. It is believed that only the fear of impotence overtakes him in terms of the strength of emotions.
The reasons why a person begins to lose hair against the background of complete health can be divided into two main groups: external and internal. Internal causes include hormonal fluctuations and metabolic disorders, autoimmune processes, genetic predisposition, external causes include a mental state (stress), infection, physical trauma (damage to the skin), exposure to toxic substances, etc. Often there is a combination of several factors that leads to hair loss.
A person loses 50 to 150 hairs a day. Many diseases that lead to hair loss cause baldness due to disruption of the normal life cycle of the hair follicle. The most common form of hair loss is androgenetic alopecia, which occurs in both men and women. Approximately 95 percent of all balding people have this form.
The next largest is alopecia areata (less than 4 percent). All other types of alopecia combined account for less than 1 percent.
The connection between androgenetic alopecia and the level of male hormones in the blood has been noticed for a long time – it is not for nothing that they talk about the hypersexuality of bald men. However, here we are talking about the individual sensitivity of the hair follicles of each individual person to the presence of androgens (male sex hormones) in the blood. Moreover, the follicles that are more sensitive to androgens are scattered over the entire plane of the head in women, and in men they are located on the top of the head and at the border of hair growth, which explains the characteristic shape of male baldness and the absence of it in women.
Alopecia areata can occur in men, women, and babies. It traditionally begins with the appearance of several circles on the head, devoid of hair, but sometimes other areas, such as eyebrows and beards, are also affected. Bald spots can move over time, or they can even grow over. The nature of this type of baldness has not yet been clarified, however, much suggests that this is an autoimmune disease, i.e. the cells of our own immune system interfere with the growth of our own hair. And this confirms the idea of the hereditary nature of alopecia areata. Similar symptoms are observed in secondary syphilis, dermatophytosis, discoid lupus erythematosus, traumatic alopecia and trichotillomania.
With sudden severe stress, hair growth can slow down, resulting in more noticeable hair loss. Stress forces most of the follicles to enter a resting phase, and a few months later, as a result of stressful events, all “resting” follicles shed hair at about the same time, and we, accordingly, sadly observe increased hair loss. Before baldness in this case is still far away, but the hair is noticeably thinning.
In some cases, one should not confuse the cause with the effect. For example, estrogens (female sex hormones) lengthen the life cycle of hair and prevent hair growth in women on the chin, etc. During pregnancy, when a woman’s body is literally flooded with estrogens, the life cycle of the hair lengthens, which increases the number of hairs. However, after childbirth, when estrogen levels drop, hair begins to fall out, which naturally causes powerful anxiety. In addition to the above, massive hair loss is a side effect of chemotherapy for cancer patients.
The amazing faith of people in miraculous products for baldness has led to the emergence of a huge number of all kinds of products that are at best purely cosmetic and at least do no harm. In fact, the true purpose of all these shampoos with bioadditives, creams, conditioners is to hide hair loss, for example, by increasing the volume of hair. However, it was shown that since the health of the hair is quite dependent on the mental balance of a person, then against the background of self-hypnosis, a pronounced positive effect from the use of such cosmetics is quite possible. In fact, there are special products for baldness, but you should choose them for yourself and use them only after consulting a cosmetologist. Moreover, it will be necessary to first discover the true cause of active hair loss.
To mask the early stages of alopecia, you can use shampoos, hair styling products that increase volume and increase pomp, as well as perm. Also, to mask hair loss, hair extensions are used, which are glued to the remaining hair or directly to the scalp with special glue, or ordinary wigs. Hair transplantation is one of the surgical treatments for baldness. The transplantation method is considered the most promising, when from areas not subject to baldness, that is, where follicles that do not respond to androgens are located, tissue sections with hair (from 1 to 8) are transferred to the area of baldness.