One of the most known causes of hair loss is genetics—you inherit the tendency to lose hair from either or both of your parents. This is termed as male or female pattern hair loss. However, apart from genetics, a number of factors can make your hair to fallout. For instance, there are certain illnesses that cause hair loss in men and women. In order to identify the root cause of your condition, you need to get in touch with a reliable hair care specialist.
Common Illnesses That May Cause Hair Loss
In this era, hair fall has become a nagging problem for most individuals. It affects millions of men and women across the globe. It can be devastating to see clumps of hair on the pillow or in the drain on a daily basis. Hair loss can occur due to various reasons including the faulty lifestyles or an underlying health condition. You will be surprised to find that there are certain illnesses that causes hair loss. Listed below are some of the most common health conditions that attacks your follicles and make your hair fall.
Researchers proved that certain medical conditions are often related to other diseases and conditions. Listed below are some of the ailments that most commonly referred as causes of hair loss or be a condition for which you may be at increased risk. A variety of medical conditions can cause hair loss, including:
Scalp infections
Scalp infections such as ringworm, can invade the hair and skin of your scalp, leading to hair loss. Although, the hair generally grows back after the infection is treated, it still creates a lot of discomfort. The medical term for ringworm is tinea is a common fungal infection of the skin. Ringworm causes a scaly, crusted rash that may appear as round, red patches on the skin. Other symptoms of ringworm include scaling on the scalp or patches of hair loss, itching, and blister-like lesions.
Thyroid problems
Another most common cause of hair loss is thyroid condition. Every strand of hair has its own programmed growth cycle which includes the resting, shedding and regrowing phases. At any given time, most of the hair on your scalp is growing while 10-15% of them are resting. But due to the changes in the body there is a throw off in the cycle that push too many hair into the resting phase resulting in thinning hair, excessive hair loss, or balding.
Lupus
Lupus is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation that usually involves your skin particularly on your scalp and face. Lupus can cause the hair on your scalp to thin out, although a few people lose clumps of hair. There is a possibility of losing hair from the eyelashes, beard, eyebrows and other parts of the body. In most cases, the hair will grow back when the lupus is treated. Lupus can also cause the scalp hair along your hairline to become fragile and breakoff easily, leaving you with a ragged appearance known as lupus hair.
Cancer
Chemotherapy is a form of cancer treatment which make use of anti-cancer drugs to destroy cancer cells. However, unfortunately these drugs also affect the normal and healthy body cells, including the cells of the hair follicles. This causes hair loss, known as alopecia. Unlike cancer cells; however, the normal cells quickly recover, so if you lose your hair due to chemotherapy, no need to worry as you can get your tresses back when your treatment is over.
Stress
Believe it or not, but yes, stress can affect your hair. Hair loss due to stress is quite common. Any kind of physical trauma such as injury, accident, surgery or severe illness can cause hair loss. This can trigger a type of hair loss called telogen effluvium. When you have a really stressful event, it can shock the hair cycle, pushing more hair into the shedding phase. Hair loss due to stress is also common among teenagers which is another cause of concern.
Arthritis
Like chemotherapy, the drugs used for treating Arthritis causes hair loss in men and women. This is because the immune system attacks have an impact on skin, which is where hair follicles are located. However, hair loss as a symptom of the disease isn’t very common. It usually leads to thinning of the hair rather than a shedding of full patches.
Alopecia areata
Alopecia Areata is a common hair loss condition wherein hair loss occurs in the shape of small round patches on the scalp. The hair loss can occur anywhere on the body including scalp hair or hair of eyebrows, eyelashes or arms and legs. Though, the actual cause is still unknown, researchers believe that alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease which mistakenly attacks the healthy cells in the body. The immune system destroys the hair follicles, resulting in hair loss.
Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania is a mental condition in people (especially children) where there is an irresistible urge to pull out hair from the scalp, eyebrows or other areas of your body. Hair pulling can be a way of dealing with negative or uncomfortable feelings, such as tension, loneliness, stress, boredom or frustration.
Pregnancy
Pregnancy disturbs the hormone levels in women and the changes in the hormone also disrupt hair’s natural growth cycle pushing most hair into the resting phase. Women notice excessive hair loss postpartum because the hormone levels decrease to their normal, pre-pregnancy levels. All those resting hair falls out, resulting in thinning hair.
