A short time after my 42nd birthday, I began to notice that every time I put the brush to my head, there was rather more hair coming back than I was used to seeing. It wasn't that it was coming off in bunches; I just noticed that there were more strands in the brush each morning, and more of them clogging the shower drain than before. After I tried a few over-the-counter remedies for hair loss, I got in touch with my general practitioner, who referred me to a trichologist, a doctor who specializes in diseases that affect the hair. But my blood tests came back fine, so she didn't really have much to say about it - except that I could reasonably expect a certain amount of hair loss, I being a woman in her 40s. I came back home with an exotic shampoo, some hair tonic, and vitamins.
Men can lose their hair easily, and not see what the fuss is about. Male pattern baldness affects the entire peer group. I never knew this was normal; but the American Academy of Dermatology says that half as many women as men in America suffer from hereditary hair loss. And there are many more women who see their hair thin out through menopause or health difficulties. Unlike the situation men face, remedies for hair loss among women aren't worth the cardboard cartons they come packaged in.
Americans last year, spent close to $200 million on all manner of hair loss remedies; a good portion spent that money on products advertised on infomercials, and colorful backstreet salons. However expensive the salon though, money spent on hair loss remedies is rarely well rewarded. So what is it that you can do about it? Well, there are quite a few medicines that live in your medicine cabinet, that could easily be responsible for a good deal of the problem. Antidepressants for example, are recognized to cause a degree of hair thinning - even if it isn't really understood why exactly this should be so.
Hair abundance, it is well understood now, has everything to do with the hormone balance in your body. Any man battling a receding hairline would be happy to tell you how you could blame it all on his raging testosterone. Pregnancy is known to come with some hair loss, and so is menopause. Steroid-based medicines that women take for any number of infections, could easily boost their steroid levels, and cause a little more hair fall than usual. Women today are prescribed libido enhancing drugs to battle their menopausal fall in sex drive; those drugs have steroids too. Beta blockers, acne medications, can all cause a certain amount of short-term hair fall.
So if all you find in the stores are quack cures, what kind of remedies for hair loss exist that might be of some use? Inexplicable hair loss often points to male pattern baldness in women. And for this, treatment by Rogaine (Minoxidil) does yield results even in women. The FDA reveals that in tests done, 80% of all women who use this product, respond very well, if they are patient enough to use it for a year. Finasteride tablets, another staple in the treatment of male pattern baldness is not approved for use in women, and can cause birth defects if you get pregnant in the time that you use it. But it does work. In theory, stimulating the hair follicles with light, is known to be able to promote a little hair growth in men. The FDA has approved of the Laser Comb to do just this; but it does cost hundreds of dollars, and no one has said that it works in women.
It is surprising that in this day and age, something as apparently simple as hair loss, has no serious science combating it. But as it stands, there is less science than snake oil abroad now, and sadly, remedies for hair loss in women, are no more than gimmicks and flashes in the pan for the most part.
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