Female hair loss

Hair loss in women appears more diverse than male hair loss, but it's just as treatable with an effective hair loss treatment programme. There's a female equivalent to male pattern baldness, female pattern hair loss (androgenic alopecia), which is the most common condition and presents as thinning hair over the whole of the top of the scalp. It has exactly the same cause as the male version: a genetic sensitivity to testosterone (and yes, women produce testosterone too albeit in much smaller amounts).

Treating female hair loss often requires a more holistic approach. The cause can often be stress related or down to hormone changes.

For instance, telogen effluvium is the loss of hair sometimes up to three months after a severe stressful event such as childbirth, pregnancy termination, or therapy. Other causes are hormonal such as changes to birth control pills and diet drugs. Since severe stress tends to be temporary, the condition often clears itself but when it doesn't, the underlying cause needs to be dealt with.

Diffuse hair loss, which is exactly what it says, also requires a more holistic approach to ensure the diet is good, stress is being handled well, and to check for thyroid, haemoglobin and hormonal problems.

The sudden loss of patches of hair, alopecia areata, has an uncertain cause that may be linked to the autoimmune system and may also be triggered by stress. It's common, perhaps one in a thousand women will experience it at some point. It's quite likely to cure itself, but it's also possible it could grow to affect the whole scalp as happened to TV presenter Gail Porter.

A final common condition is traction alopecia caused by long term pulling at the hair roots, as might happen with certain hair styles such as braiding.

Treating female hair loss requires first of all, a correct diagnosis, and then an appreciation of all the factors that have contributed to the condition. A treatment programme can then be developed to address all aspects which, along with professional monitoring, is most likely to be effective at stopping hair loss and encouraging regrowth. It's the mix of treatments and the monitoring that is effective .. one single drug working alone won't be anything like as effective as a professionally developed, custom treatment programme.

Having said that, one element of most effective treatments is an FDA approved drug Minoxidil which works by improving circulation to the scalp. In controlled clinical studies of women aged 18-45, 2 out of 3 women with moderate degrees of hereditary hair loss reported re-growth after using 2% minoxidil. The results take around 4 months to show and the condition improves to around 8 months. Minoxidil is more effective for women than for men.

On prescription, Minoxidil may be supplied in a stronger form and combined with Medroxyprogesterone (MPG) or Azelaic Acid (AA), both of which help to inhibit the effects of testosterone on hair follicles. Anyone taking prescription medicines should be monitored regularly.

Other possible treatments include an FDA cleared HairMax LaserComb, in-clinic therapies such as infra-red light therapy and the use of specially developed shampoos and conditioners.

Minoxidil tablets were first used to treat high blood pressure. As a side effect, some patients experienced hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth) which prompted research into its use as a hair loss remedy. Further research showed that applying a Minoxidil solution to the scalp can help treat hair loss.

"How does Minoxidil help reduce hair loss?"

No-one knows, is the short answer, and the interesting thing is .. other circulation stimulants don't have the same effect. There's just something unique about Minoxidil.

"What strength Minoxidil do I need?"

Good question, success will partly depend on matching your condition with the best strength of Minoxidil. Belgravia trichologists provide a mild 4% lotion, a stronger 5% lotion, or an extra-strength 12.5% cream, which is what we use to treat very stubborn patches of thinning hair and baldness.

There are 'booster' compounds we can add to Minoxidil to make it even more effective, such as Medroxyprogesterone (MPG).

"What is Medroxyprogesterone?"

Inherited baldness is caused by follicles being sensitive to a derivative of testosterone, a sex hormone naturally produced by men and women. Medroxyprogesterone (MPG) helps to stop that derivative interfering with hair follicles.

The combination is more effective but it becomes a prescription-only treatment (that's why The Belgravia Centre has its own pharmacy). We add MPG to our lower-concentration Minoxidil treatments.

"What is Azelaic Acid?"

Azelaic Acid (AA) has a similar effect, again it interferes with the process by which testosterone affects hair follicles to cause inherited baldness. We exclusively add this to our 12.5% Minoxidil cream and again, it's only available on prescription.

"Are there any side effects from using Minoxidil?"

At the Belgravia Centre, we've treated tens of thousands of men and women and we estimate less than one in one hundred (1%) people experienced side effects from Minoxidil. Those ranged from mild facial hair growth, headaches, rashes and palpitations. All were mild and needed no medical treatment. They either diminished in a short time during use of Minoxidil, or shortly after stopping use of Minoxidil.

This, however, is one reason some drugs in some concentrations are only available on prescription, so that clients can be monitored by a professional trichologist and a course of treatment can be adapted as required. The Belgravia centre stores scalp photographs so that progress can be objectively measured.

"And Propecia?"

Sorry, Propecia is not approved for women. But by way of compensation, Minoxidil is more effective for you.

In a nutshell, the most effective hair loss treatment involves not just Minoxidil, but a combination of drugs and treatments together with regular monitoring by a professional trichologist to ensure the course of treatment is safe and achieves the best possible result.

Hair follicles in different parts of the body have different length lifecycles. At the end of each cycle the hair from the follicle falls out.

Hair grows about 0.4mm per day, so head hair with a lifecycle of up to 7 years might grow to about a metre, while eyebrow follicles have a lifecycle of about 7 months so they don't grow as long.

Everything a professional trichologist (a hair specialist) does should be based in science. You wouldn't expect to get alternative therapy from your dentist or optician, and it's the same with a trichologist.

The problem here is that science hasn't reached the point where it's proved a 'cure' for Alopecia Areata. So what can we do?

Well Minoxidil is a proven hair loss treatment, proven by science and approved by the FDA and a high strength application of that with an Azelaic Acid booster appears often, in the many cases we've treated at London's Belgravia Centre, to bring back hair growth within three months.

Yes, the bald patch might have grown back of its own accord. But we see hair regrowth after treatment happen a lot, even on bald patches that have been around for months.

So, it's certainly not something we can claim as a cure. But it does seem to help those with Alopecia Areata.

We all want a natural solution to our hair loss problems. If we can find a gentle herb, a soothing shampoo that will work with our body and help it to cure itself of our hair loss, that's what we want.

It's a fairy tale. Marketers know that's what we want, and they sell mixtures of rain forest tree essences and so on, all natural sounding stuff, with high claims for their efficacy.

Watch this video to see one of them ...

The interesting thing about this report is that he appears to have devised a herbal product so that it sold (everyone wants a natural solution), but secretly added Minoxidil because that's what actually works.

Curiously the product is still on sale, but now looks much more pharmaceutical.

At the Belgravia Centre, we only offer solutions that have been proven to work. Actually we set out to offer effective treatments at an affordable price to as many people as we can.

Probably not. This is another example. There are such a lot of possible treatments out there. The point is: there's no scientific proof any of them work. Sure, you might get examples where they worked on this person or that, and some might be prepared to talk about it, but that's not proof it works. It's persuasive, but it's not proof.

All the while you try these things, your hair's getting thinner.

So our strategy is this. Try what's proven to work first. If that's not satisfactory for you, feel free to try something else. But the longer you leave it to try what's proven, the less effective it will be.

The biggest message about female hair loss is that it's often treatable, but there's no magic single solution. Effectively treating female hair loss requires the skilled use of a mixture of treatments and therapies that work together to bring about improvement.