Guide to Men’s Hair Loss
This guide explains the causes of male hair loss, the different types of hair loss you might be experiencing, the different treatment types available to you and how you can develop your own hair loss treatment regimen. Keep in mind that the most important part about treating hair loss is to act now. The longer you wait the harder it is to regrow fuller and thicker hair.
What Male Hair Loss is and What it Isn’t
There are a lot of tales about what causes a man to lose their hair prematurely or have pattern baldness. Before we discuss what does cause hair loss let’s eliminate any of these so called “causes”
Hair loss in men is NOT caused by any of the following
- Wearing a ball cap all the time
- Excess stress
- Some form of nutritional or mineral deficiency
- Excess sebum or sweating on the scalp
The actual cause of male pattern baldness, aka Androgenic Alopecia, is hormones, more specifically Androgens. If that’s the case you might ask why don’t all men have troubles with thinning hair? Well, the second reason is because you’ve been genetically predisposed to it. In plain english your body has been pre-programmed to respond this way to particular types of hormones in your body.
What exactly happens
As hormone activity shifts on the scalp your hair follicles become sensitive. DHT (dihydrotestosterone) develops on in your body from testosterone. When it finds it’s way to the scalp it binds with hair follicles. Over time your body begins to reject these follicles and they are no longer capable of growing hair. This final step doesn’t occur over night and you do have the chance to stop them from being rejected, the key is taking action sooner then later.
Treatments That Work
Now that you understand it’s hormonal activity causing your hair loss troubles you can get down to the facts of choosing a treatment that will work. There are two alternatives.
1.) A treatment that will reduce the hormone activity (DHT) on the scalp or in the body
2.) A treatment that will push through this activity and stimulate new growth and fuller hair
If a hair loss treatment doesn’t discuss being able to stop the hormonal activity or stimulate growth then it’s a waste of your time and money.
Let’s Start Treating: Choosing a Hair Loss Treatment Regimen
If you have hair still growing then generally it can be stimulated to grow thicker and fuller. If you’re at the stage where there is no more hair growing and you have a bald spot unfortunately a treatment regimen isn’t going to restore a full head of hair. Your best alternatives are either a hair transplant or treatment system.
As a rule of thumb, if you have a blend of thinning and slick balding regions on your scalp then trying a treatment regime will almost always be worth it. Ideally you should wait to consider a transplant or other alternatives only after you’ve been working a hair loss treatment program for a couple of years without finding any satisfactory results.
What Type of Hair Loss Do you Have?
There is more then one pattern that men begin to lose their hair. The majority of cases are those where the hair is receding along the hair line and at the temples. How ever more central loss on the top of the scalp, as well as “diffuse thinning” or “diffuse alopecia” which refers to hair loss or thinning over the entire scalp.
Below is an image of what’s known as the Norwood Scale. It is often used to characterize the type and severity of hair loss in men. If you can find yourself on the scale and you’re at the starting stages of hair loss then you can use these images to understand how your hair loss will likely progress.
Hair Loss Products
Getting Started
