subject: Some Common Causes Of Hair Loss [print this page] Normal life of hair may vary from 2 to 6 years. During this age hair grows approximately 1 centimeter (near about half inch) every month. Approximately 90% of hairs on your scalp keep growing at any given time. And the rest, i.e. the remaining 10% are in resting phase then. These inactive hair stay stuck up to 2-3 months at their place, and then leaves the scalp forever; giving way to new ones. This is the normal cycle and the reason why every one of us loses some of the hair every day. But, in some exceptional cases, this cycle speeds up and some people start losing more hair on daily basis than normal. This situation is called hair-loss. It can affect anyone of men, women, or children of any age.
There are several reasons responsible for hair loss. For example a person who might have gone through a long treatment for any disease or has undergone a surgery may experience excessive hair loss after 3-4 months of the treatment. Also, there are hormones, such as androgens and estrogens, imbalance of which might cause excessive hair loss in men and women of any age. Once hormones are restored to their normal level, hair fall may stop.
Hair loss might be experienced by women after 3 months of their pregnancy. This also results from the hormonal imbalance. It happens because during the months of pregnancy many hormones develop to a high level causing hair stay on the scalp longer than their normal age. Hence after pregnancy, when level of these hormones recedes to normalcy, all these hairs fall too. The hair cycle also resumes normalcy here on.
Besides, there are some specific medicines which may cause excessive hair loss during the treatment phase. However, this type of hair loss stops as soon as you stop taking those medicines. Some common medicines in this category are those taken as blood thinner, for gout, and those taken in chemotherapy to cure cancer. Tablets taken for Vitamin A (in case of excessive dose) may also cause hair loss. Similarly birth control pills and antidepressants also cause hair loss to some extent.
These are not all the reasons in facts. For example there are certain types of infections which might make it happen. For example fungal infection on scalp may even cause excessive hair fall in children. The good thing, though, is it can be treated easily with antifungal medicines. There can be some other severe diseases such as lupus and diabetes which might be a reason behind hair loss. In many cases hair loss takes place at initial stage of any major disease. Therefore, if anyone facing excessive hair loss, should see a doctor to find out its possible reason so that any major health problem, if any, can be diagnosed in timely manner and get cured before it develops into an incurable disease. And yes, heredity is also a reason which has no cure so far. There are alternate solutions available though.
