All posts by miriam

Hair loss can sometimes be downplayed and treated as something of an inevitability as a person grows older, but the truth is that thinning hair can have a profound emotional impact on the sufferer and there are many possible causes.

It is not really vanity to be concerned with the state of your hair as thinning hair can be a symptom of hormonal imbalance, poor nutrition or illness and as such is a visible sign of your health.

Hair is lost all the time, but at certain times, the process may quicken or hair may not regrow. A proportion of our hair is always in the rest phase of its growth cycle, but if too much hair is in the rest phase, this is indicative of a problem.

A lot of products are available that help enhance hair, thickening it, but this does not address the cause of the issue. Many women experiencing hair loss while going through the menopause believe that this is an inevitability, but this is not true. You should not automatically seek out hair thickeners or wigs, because you may be able to improve hair growth and this is a preferable solution.

Hair passes through four phases during its growth cycle. At any one time, different hairs on your head and body are in different phases and it is the balance of these that keeps the volume of your hair pretty much constant.

There is the growth or anagen phase; the transition or catagen phase; the resting or telogen phase; and the returning growth or mesanagen phase. The full cycle can take between two and five years to run through. If follicles are stuck in the telogen phase, hair loss will slowly become apparent, particularly if those hairs affected are all in the same spot.

There can be a number of causes for hair loss and these might be:

• Stress
• A hormonal imbalance
• Genetic predisposition
• A thyroid disorder
• Poor diet
• Cosmetic treatments
• Certain medication

The important thing to remember is that if you are losing hair due to too many follicles being in the resting phase, there is every chance that the condition can be reversed as the follicles themselves are not damaged in any way.

In any hair loss situation, your first step should be to consult your doctor, who may refer you to a dermatologist to diagnose the cause of the condition.

For a lot of women suffering from hair loss or hair thinning, the simplest solution is to cover up the problem area with a hat or a human hair wig. This isn’t a permanent solution, but is it preferable to extensive and potentially expensive hair loss treatment and medication?

The answer is that it is different for everybody, and which option you choose to some extent hinges on how you feel about your hair loss and your new self-image. Some sufferers find their hair loss devastating to their self-esteem and are willing to do whatever it takes to recover their hair. These women take advantage of the latest treatments for female hair loss, and can end up with a successful and permanent solution in place of hair that may never grow back naturally.

Other patients choose to embrace their hair loss, throwing off society’s typical association of hair with beauty and youth and celebrating their own ‘bald is beautiful’ look.

For those less willing to give up on their hair but who aren’t convinced that medical or cosmetic treatments are worth the hassle, the perfect compromise is human hair wigs. The latest wigs are so realistic; other people need never know the hair isn’t your own.

Nowadays, there are thousands of websites offering ‘miracle’ cures and products for everything from weight loss to female hair loss treatment. The reason these fraudulent sites continue to exist is because there will always be people desperate enough to find a solution to a life-altering health problem to fall for the sales spiel.

The truth is, for female hair loss in particular, that spending your hard-earned cash on these ‘miracle’ products and treatments will ultimately lead to crushing disappointment. This is because the overwhelming majority of these products do not work, and the people who make and sell them are making money out of your willingness to believe they do.

Go to specialist clinic or doctor instead

The best way to avoid being ripped off on these internet products is to avoid disreputable or dubious- looking websites altogether. If the product and its low price seems too good to be true, it most likely is.

All this isn’t to say that there aren’t treatments and solutions out there for women suffering from hair loss, but the way to find them is through a registered GP or a specialist hair loss clinic.

According to recent statistics, around 30 million women in the US suffer or have suffered from thinning hair, with a further 1.6 million UK women admitting some degree of female hair loss too.

Hair loss is a common problem, more common than you may think, and sufferers can go through a whole range of psychological traumas because of it. London trichologist Dr Philip Kingsley sheds light on why losing hair can have such a devastating impact of self-esteem, confidence and emotional well-being:

“You don’t need it to keep you either warm or cool, so its primary function is to increase attractiveness.”

In modern times, hair is a sign of beauty. You only need to switch on the TV and see a shampoo advert featuring a glamorous supermodel to see that. If a woman loses her hair, it causes her to reassess everything about her physical appearance, and can make her feel a loss of youth, sexuality and femininity.

This doesn’t have to be the case. The fact that there are many other sufferers of thinning hair out there means that there is a lot of support for female hair loss, in the form of specialist clinics and trichology professionals. These experts can help you find ways of managing your thinning hair – through solutions such as human hair wigs or the intralace hair system – so that daily life becomes easier.

There are a number of methods for managing hair loss and many cases a wig is not the best solution. Even in cases where someone has experienced total hair loss, there are alternatives. For example, the Intralace system.

What are the advantages of the Intralace system?
First of all, the Intralace system offers greater flexibility than a wig. For people suffering only partial hair loss, the Intralace system can be integrated with your natural hair.

It is also the case that, unlike with wigs, you only need one Intralace system. No spare is required because it is possible to attend the hair loss clinic when necessary if anything needs to be done. It lasts for two to three years and offers much greater freedom than a wig. It also offers a natural hairline, which means greater realism.

If you use the Intralace system, you can highlight and colour your hair when you visit the clinic and treat your hair completely as normal. You can do activities and play sports and can even swim with it in place. Maintenance is only required about once every six weeks.