Hair Loss

As there are bad hair loss products, there are also bad hair loss patients, too. Obeying certain basic rules is necessary if you want your hair loss therapy to be successful. The first thing you should do before you start looking for a suitable hair loss treatment is to determine whether you are a hair loss patient at all and what type of hair loss you are suffering from. For male patients who have already lost a noticeable amount of their hair on the top and front of their head, it is easy to self-diagnose. But if you are suffering from diffuse hair loss or your hair loss began only recently, you need to go and see a dermatologist and have a miniaturisation test done. It would be senseless to treat a condition that does not exist. It is very common for hair loss sufferers to skip the doctor’s consultation while many others simply deny their condition. This often leads to hair loss progressing too far for it to be treated successfully. In order to re-grow lost hair you must have fine miniaturized hair left in your bald areas. Once your hair follicles have died and there is no baby hair left, no miracle can rejuvenate them.

After you have determined which type of hair loss you are suffering from, the journey can begin. Whether you intend to follow you doctor’s advice or be experimental, you must have realistic expectations. False hopes necessarily lead to frustration, no matter how effective the treatment is. Do not believe that there is a hair loss remedy that can re-grow all of your lost hair. You will be lucky to find a treatment to arrest your balding process and if you manage to re-grow a few hairs, take it as a bonus. Keep in mind that the ‘before and after’ pictures on promotional websites are forged. The best possible improvement one can expect from any treatment is to re-grow the hair you have lost in the previous three years.

Many patients fail to follow professional advice and use proven treatments and instead opt for allegedly safer alternative natural remedies, as they get scared off by the potential negative side effects of medicinal drugs. This is a common trick used by the marketers of hair loss scams - to spread stories exaggerating the harmful side-effects of medicinal drugs. They lure you into buying their own concoction, which is most likely a waste of your time and money. Starting with unproven remedies deprives you of the opportunity to test some of the best hair loss treatments available today.

The key to a successful treatment is, besides picking the right remedy, adherence to the prescribed daily regimen. Many people, in their impatience, fail to follow their doctor’s instructions and start experimenting with multiple treatments simultaneously. This often leads to them abandoning certain treatments before they have started producing results. Any hair loss treatment requires a minimum of four months to kick in and you should allow it at least six months to bring measurable results. Overdosing will not speed up or improve results.

And lastly, do not overreact to shedding. Shedding is a common occurence in any effective hair restoration therapy. If you start a new treatment, such as Rogaine, you will first have to shed the old hair. Rogaine stimulates hair follicles, resulting in an increase in the thickness of your miniaturized hair. But this will not happen overnight. First, the old thin miniaturized hair must be shed, and then the hair follicles rearrange themselves in order to start producing thicker hair. Typically, the first sign that the treatment is working is accelerated hair loss.

Conquering baldness and restoring lost hair is to many of us a distant dream. However, there are existing options for replacing lost hair and some of them may seem surprisingly effective even to the most sceptical hair loss sufferer. The three principal methods of hair restoration include surgical hair restoration, non-surgical hair replacement and therapies for regrowing hair using pills and topicals. The main technique of surgical hair restoration today is hair transplantation, whereas wigs, hairpieces, hair thickeners and hair loss concealers are the most popular aids used to replace the lost hair by non-surgical means. The non-surgical cover-up is obviously the quickest and the least expensive method of replacing lost hair, though not tremendously popular, as many people believe that wigs and concealers cannot withstand rain and wind and do not look natural. In spite of this common belief, some of them are extremely resistant to external influences and can appear very authentic. Wigs and concealers are usually the only option of restoring lost hair for people suffering from non-hereditary forms of hair loss such as unpredictable alopecia areata.

Surgical hair restoration is the most expensive method of restoring lost hair but also the most elegant solution. It can only be used in people suffering from hereditary forms of baldness and burn patients. Candidates are required to have sufficient hair density at the back of their scalp and many women suffering from female form of hair loss with its typical diffuse balding pattern do not meet this condition. Hair restoration surgery has made great strides in the past twenty years with the introduction of the two main techniques used today - follicular unit transplantation and, more recently, follicular unit extraction. These advances in hair transplantation techniques enable the grouping of hairs very close together, which gives modern hair transplants an entirely natural look. The main weakness of hair transplant surgery, besides the cost and the pain involved, is the limited supply of donor hair and the need for multiple surgeries to achieve the final improvement. Furthermore, patients have to commit themselves to the use of finasteride or any other adequate medicinal hair loss therapy for the rest of their lives to prevent further loss of hair.

Hair loss pills and topicals do not, despite significant scientific advances and the discoveries of recent years, provide satisfactory hair restoration results yet. The two most frequently prescribed hair loss drugs, finasteride and topical minoxidil, can be effectively used to reduce hair loss but their ability to regrow lost hair is relatively poor. Their effectiveness typically declines sharply in the later stages of the balding process. There is no existing medicinal or natural hair loss remedy that can deliver adequate visual results comparable to either hair transplantation or non-surgical hair replacements such as wigs and hair loss concealers. Although there are some promising medicinal hair loss drugs currently being developed, especially in the area of genetic research, the ultimate pill for baldness is not expected to become commercially available within the next fifteen years. Other advances in hair science, such as hair cloning or the generation of new hair follicles in wounds, also hold out some promise but it appears that hair transplant surgery will in the next ten to fifteen years remain the most complete method of hair restoration.

For many women dying their hair has become a part of their monthly routine. Some men have resorted to hair coloring using regular hair dyes, too, but many others are looking for less noticeable alternatives, such as progressive hair colorants. Progressive hair colorants work gradually by changing the hair color for several days after they have been applied, which makes the change less noticeable and allows the user to control how much gray hair he/she leaves untreated. One thing that both types of products - conventional hair dyes and progressive hair colorants - have in common is that all of them contain chemicals that can present a potential health risk to their users.

Both, hair dyes and progressive hair colorants work by a chemical reaction involving the components of the colorant and also, when applicable, melanin and/or the oxygen in the air. The essential difference between the two is that the chemical reaction in regular hair dyes lasts only for a few minutes while the substance is being applied to the hair versus working slowly for several days in progressive hair colorants. The chemicals that fuel these chemical reactions are often poisonous and can trigger allergic reactions.

PPD, which is an acronym for p-phenylenediamine, is considered to be the leading cause of hair color allergic reactions with ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, diaminobenzene and, to a lesser extent, also metallic compounds said to account for their fair share, too. Metallic compounds such as lead acetate and bismuth citrate are found mainly in progressive hair colorants whereas PPD, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia and diaminobenzene are typical of regular hair dyes. One of the recently developed molecules used in progressive hair colorants is 5, 6-dihydroxyindoline that is sometimes described as the best option amongst the chemical molecules contained in gray hair coloring products but it has also been found to cause allergic reactions.

Natural hair colorants might appear to be a healthy alternative to traditional hair coloring products. Unfortunately, the natural hair colorants are no stranger to causing allergic reactions either and were recently found to be even more allergenic than most chemical substances. Therefore, when choosing hair coloring products you should always consider the potential health risks as most of them contain substances that can cause poisoning if used inappropriately or can lead to severe allergic reactions. You should always use a patch test before applying any such treatment and closely follow the application guidelines in order to minimize exposure to potentially harmful substances.