Article 2-
Understanding the Causes and
Treatments for Hair Loss
Anyone who has experienced a
disease like alopecia can tell you that it is the
emotional pain that hurts the most of all. Losing
one’s hair is like losing a part of your identity.
Every time you take a shower a little piece of you
goes down the drain. Your mind goes into a defensive
mode and you want to stop the loss of hair any way
you can. Suddenly, your life is dominated by
constant thoughts of how to deal with your thinning
mane. You turn to science and medicine in hopes of a
cure…but their official answer goes something like
this: nobody can stop the hair from falling out
faster than it is growing back. They can tell you
what the stars in a distant galaxy are made of but
they can’t find a cure for hair loss. The cold
reality of the situation is that there really is no
cure for this problem. There are only ways to treat
the symptoms of the disease and cover up the problem
to make it look like there is no problem.
Some treatments of alopecia
(baldness) are better than others. It all depends on
how much money you are able to spend and how far you
are willing to go with your commitment to battling
your disease. Some men accept their fate and walk
around bald and proud, while others take on the
fight to reverse their fateful condition with a
vigor and passion that would make you think their
life depended on it. In the old days you just walked
around bald unless you wanted to wear a wig or hat
all the time. Now there are a few more choices to
treat conditions and diseases of the hair and scalp.
If you happen to be one of
those people who chooses to take advantage of the
latest treatments available for hair loss, then your
first step should be a trip to a dermatologist. A
dermatologist deals with diseases and conditions of
the hair and skin and they will be able to steer you
in the right direction for treatment. They will do a
thorough evaluation in an effort to find the
specific cause of your hair loss. There are a lot of
different factors that determine the causes of
thinning hair such as diet, medications, family
history, hair care habits and menopause to name a
few. A dermatologist will ask you a series of
questions, examine your scalp and take a few hair
samples to put under a microscope for further
analysis. They may also perform a blood test and a
scalp biopsy if they feel it is necessary for an
accurate diagnosis.
The most common cause of hair
loss is a certain gene you can inherit from your
mother or your father. In this case the disease is
literally in your DNA and there is not much you can
do about it. If you have a parent, grandparent, aunt
or uncle that has/had a problem with baldness then
you are definitely at risk of having a problem too.
The good news is that you can be ready to attack the
problem right away if you know that your family has
a baldness gene. Also, the mental anguish will be
less if you prepare yourself psychologically ahead
of time.
Hereditary balding can happen
to women as well as men, but it is much less common.
The official name of this disease is androgenetic
alopecia and it can also afflict young women in
their teenage years. This disease usually does not
result in complete baldness with women. As is the
case with men, there is no cure for women’s
baldness. However, there are some very good
treatments available these days and women are much
better off regarding alopecia then they were just
twenty years ago.
Another thing that causes
baldness is poor hair care. Constant bleaching,
dying, shampooing, straightening, combing and
brushing can do damage to hair and follicles which
leads to an excessive amount of hair falling out. A
relentless use of pony tails and braids can also
cause this to happen due to the constant pulling.
Once you have received your
diagnosis from your dermatologist you will be ready
to take advantage of the treatments that are
available for hair loss. Minoxidil is a
lotion that is used on the scalp. Both men and women
can use this lotion and both have seen positive
results. Propecia, or finasteride is a
pill that men can take several times a day to block
the hormone that causes alopecia (with most males).
There have been some very positive results with men
who have used Propecia and it is the most
widely used treatment. Both of these products can be
purchased at any brick and mortar pharmacy store or
at an online pharmacy. You can buy Minoxidil
over the counter and Propecia can be purchased with
a prescription. Propecia can also be purchased
safely and securely online at an online pharmacy.
This way you can have your hair loss product
delivered right to your door
which saves you the embarrassing trip to the local
pharmacy where you run the risk of experiencing an
awkward moment in public.
Getting a hair transplant is
another option that is available for anyone seeking
treatment for their thinning hair condition. This is
definitely the more expensive and most ambitious
choice. You have to be very serious about looking
good to take on this option, for it requires actual
surgery where they cut a strip of your scalp from
the back of your neck at the bottom of the hairline.
The idea is that you have an overabundance of hair
on the back of your head so that area is not going
to miss it if you cut a little strip away. The
donors strip is then harvested of its follicles. The
follicles are then surgically implanted on the bald
areas of the scalp so that you will have your own
actual hair growing in that area again. After
surgery is performed it then takes a few months
before you see any positive results.
If you are going to go the
Propecia route but you are embarrassed to order it
in public then online pharmacies are a great
alternative. Just make sure that you purchase FDA
approved drugs at a US licensed pharmacy.
There are plenty of reputable online pharmacies that
are safe for buying prescription drugs online.
Human beings can put enough
information to fill a large library on a computer
chip the size of a pinhead but they still have not
discovered a cure for hair loss. Losing your hair
may be inevitable, but there are ways to get some of
them back. It may be in your DNA that your hair will
start to thin, but fret not. There are a lot more
choices these days for treatment than your poor
ancestors had only a couple of decades ago. Science
and medicine can help you out if you are willing to
apply a lotion to your scalp, take a pill a couple
times a day or go under the knife. US licensed
pharmacies that sell FDA approved drugs
like Propecia can be found online if you want to
order in privacy. You can be on your way to a thick
head of hair again…depending on your bank account
and your level of commitment.
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Copyright 2007. Michael P. Connelly
