If you’ve been seeing more hairs than usual in your pillow, on your brush or in the drain lately, it’s not all in your head. Most menopausal women can relate to menopausal hair loss. One of the biggest but least discussed changes you’re likely to experience during your transition into menopause.
It often happens so suddenly and can feel upsetting or even scary, making you question yourself in the mirror – when did this begin, and will it stop?
Well, we can confidently tell you this: You’re not alone and it doesn’t have to be your fate.
What Actually Happens to Your Hair During Menopause?
Women will undergo a hormonal revolution during menopause. Estrogen and progesterone-the two hormones that lengthen a hair’s growth cycle-dramatically decrease, and as the male hormone(s) gain comparatively greater dominance, growth is truncated, and hair naturally starts to become thinner, more brittle, and shed more. This pattern of hair loss in women is medically known as female pattern hair loss, or androgenetic alopecia and often presents as thinning on top of the head, a widening hair part or reduced overall volume of hair, but the bald spot, so characteristic of the male experience, is rare.
Why Does Menopause Hair Loss Feel So Sudden?
For lots of women, this change seems to hit like a ton of bricks in the blink of an eye-though the hormonal shifts have likely been building for some time. That’s because suddenly, your drastically low levels of estrogen can suddenly shunt a massive proportion of the body’s hair follicles into a resting (called telogen) state simultaneously. This can cause what’s termed telogen effluvium, where you’ll lose more hair in large chunks than you typically would over the course of a few weeks or months.
While it is possible that shedding will return to a more normal level after your body acclimates to this shift, a lot of women don’t see improvement and continue to lose more hair without help.
Chronic stress, loss of sleep in midlife, an imbalanced thyroid and a lack of necessary nutrients can compound on this condition, accelerating hair loss. If your loss feels extreme or is accompanied by symptoms, a good starting point is getting routine blood work up to screen for anything else.
Effective Treatments That Can Help
The great news is that solutions are available now – tested and proven, not just guess work. Here are a few of the most common:
Minoxidil (Rogaine) – this topical product, the most widely prescribed medication for women with thinning hair, stimulates follicles that are dormant into their growth phase. Expect results to appear between 3 to 4 months after starting treatment, with continued use potentially leading to significant thickening. It’s available as a lotion or foam and as an over-the-counter medication.
PRP (Platelet-Rich Plasma) Therapy – This in-clinic procedure involves extracting a small sample of your blood, processing it to increase the concentration of growth factors and re-injecting this into the thinning areas of your scalp. The platelets then promote regeneration and stimulate new growth, increasing blood supply to the scalp. It is generally well tolerated as your own healing proteins are used and can be very effective in the early to moderate stages of hair loss.
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) – A doctor’s guided HRT can be beneficial for some women by partly replenishing lost levels of the hormone Estrogen which helps protect the scalp from further hair thinning. ButHRT is not suitable for everyone and depends heavily on the health history and conditions.
Hair transplantation – a lifelong answer to progressive hair thinning FUE Hair transplantation works best as an irreversible hair thinning solution when all the methods above failed. One of the most drastic solutions available is that of Follicular Unit Extraction. This minimally invasive technique can give you perfectly natural looking growth with absolutely no scarring. It can be effective for both men and women.
Simple Hair Care Tips That Make a Real Difference
But it’s not all about what you do for your hair beyond menopause; even the way you approach styling on a day to day basis can make a big difference in your battle against thinning. So do things such as: Avoid any hairstyles that are very tight such as a high ponytail, bun, or braids that are constantly pulling on the root of the hair as this can lead to loss of hair over the course of time. Try to comb your hair using a wide tooth comb and always be extra gentle, especially when you’re brushing while wet as this is when hair is most fragile. Change to a mild, sulfate-free shampoo and limit use of styling devices.
Give yourself a gentle scalp massage with the tips of your fingers in circles a couple of times a week to increase circulation to your follicles. Pay attention to what your food choices: Iron, zinc, biotin and protein are required for the hair to grow healthy. The problem is many women, through the change, are missing one or more and simply correcting that problem can result in some pretty incredible changes in only two months.
When Should You Seek Expert Help?
Are You Over experimenting? The time has arrived to put a stop to the on-going experiments of your own; it has been 3–4 months that you have noticed your hair thinning, the thinning is consistently on the increase, or you are starting to lose the sense of your own worth and have the will of doing anything about it, then it’s time to book consultation with our specialist. The shampoos and the supplements picked arbitrarily off the net are highly unlikely to find the root cause of your hair loss and solve the problem for you.
At QHT Clinic, the best hair transplant clinic in Gurgaon, our experts can help you identify the real reason why you’re losing hair. Whether it is hormonal or nutritional deficiencies or even follicular issues, our specialists will work out the ideal hair loss treatment for you. Whether you want to go in for PRP hair treatment or some innovative hair restoration process, QHT Clinic is here for you!
