Female Hair Loss

Clinicians Classification to describe female pattern hair loss.
Type I is minimal thinning that can be camouflaged with hair styling techniques.
Type II is characterized by decreased volume and noticeable widening of the mid-line part.
Type III describes diffuse thinning, with a see-through appearance on the top of the scalp.

Life cycle of a hair

Each hair develops from a follicle and goes through three phases of growth.

Anagen (A), the active growth phase, lasts two to seven years.

Catagen (B), the transition phase, lasts about two weeks. During this phase, the hair shaft moves upward toward the skin's surface, and the dermal papilla (the structure that nourishes cells that give rise to hair) begins to separate from the follicle.

Telogen (C), the resting phase, lasts around three months and culminates in the shedding of the hair shaft.

Female Pattern Hair Loss

a) Hair thinning mainly on the top and crown of the scalp. It usually starts with a widening through the hair line on top of the scalp.

b) The front hairline remains unaffected except for normal recession, which happens to everyone as time passes.

c) The hair loss rarely progresses to total or near total baldness, as it may in men.

Alopecia Baldness

There are three categories of alopecia, depends on the severity of the hair loss problem, i.e. Alopecia Areata, Alopecia Totalis, and Alopecia Universalis.

a) Alopecia areata – sudden loss of hair, a few patches of hair loss. There may be a few broken or tapered hairs within the bald patches.

b) Alopecia totalis – all scalp hair is lost

c) Alopecia universalis – all hair on entire body is lost

a) Alopecia is considered an autoimmune disease, in which the immune system, which is designed to protect the body from foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria, mistakenly attacks the hair follicles, the structures from which hairs grow.

b) However, fortunately, the stem cells that continuously supply the follicle with new cells do not seem to be targeted. So the follicle always has the potential to regrow hair, but it may also fall out again. No one can predict when it might regrow or fall out.

c) Scientists do not know exactly why the hair follicles undergo these changes, but they suspect that a combination of genes may predispose some people to the disease. In those who are genetically predisposed, some type of trigger, perhaps a virus or something in the person’s environment brings on the attack against the hair follicles.