Female Pattern Baldness and other types

Types of Baldness

Female Pattern Baldness:

Female pattern baldness is certainly less common than male pattern baldness, but still effects many millions of women. Unlike male pattern baldness, the hair usually thins all over the head, and there is no receding hairline. Those who suffer from female pattern baldness rarely go totally bald.

Toxic Alopecia:

Toxic alopecia is best known for occurring after cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, but may occur after a high fever or severe illness. Some medications, for example thallium and and retinoids, may trigger toxic alopecia. There are also some medical conditions that may cause toxic alopecia. Toxic alopecia causes temporary hair loss.

Partial or full baldness can result, for example from the effects of chemotherapy on cancer patients and others. This occurs in men and women, both, and the loss of hair is total, including pubic hair and eyebrows. With the cessation of chemotherapy, all the hair usually returns although sometimes not to its pre-chemotherapy extent.

Alopecia Areata:

With Alopecia Areata, there is sudden loss of hair in one particular area, and it may grows back eventually. It some cases the hair never grows back. No one knows what causes Alopecia Areata, and it can strike anyone.

My cousin has Alopecia Areata, and lost all the hair on her head, including her eyebrows and eyelashes. It grew back when she was pregnant, but is now gone again and she wears a wig. She has jokingly offered to let me borrow it!

Scarring Alopecia:

Scarring Alopecia is when scars prevent the hair from growing. The scarring can occur from burns, skin cancer, injuries, x-ray therapy, or anything else that causes scars.

Male Pattern Baldness:

Male Pattern Baldness is the biggie – it effects the most people. It is believed to result from changes in the metabolisis of dihydrotestosterone (DHT, a chemical cousin to testosterone) that come from aging, and interfere with the growth of new hair from existing follicles. Normal hair growth involves the entire mass of healthy hair follicles on the scalp divided into “switched on” and “switched off” at any given time. The “switched off” period is believed to, in essence, give the follicle a rest and time to rejuvenate. It’s thought that most male pattern baldness associated with aging results from hair follicles accidentally being switched off permanently. The prevalence of male pattern baldness is thought to result from variations in each individual’s genetics and proteins.

Male Pattern Baldness generally follows a standard progression. The hairline of a young man or adolescent generally aligns with the crease on his upper brow. This represents “not balding.” This is normally followed by what’s termed an “adult” hairline where the hair recedes to about the width of a finger above the earlier hairline, with some recession along the sides (“temporal recession”). This also is not a form of balding.

Actual male hair loss begins with a deepening of this temporal recession. It is followed by first-stage loss of hair in the crown of the head. This sometimes progresses to further loss of hair in the front and an expanding bald patch on the crown, but there’s still a solid bridge of hair across the top of the head. Over time, each of the bald patches expands. The final stage of baldness is extensive hair loss all over the head with nothing remaining but a scanty circle of hair from one side of the scalp to the other, across the back. Total baldness, the complete lack of hair atop the head, is also possible, although in a healthy male, eyebrows usually remain.

As baldness begins, most men just ignore it. When it becomes noticeable not just to the man himself but to others, he may consider hair implants, self-treatment with medications or specialized hair weaves. Some hair dyes have the effect of also masking baldness to some extent. Toupees are even now not uncommon, especially on men in the public eye, onstage, onscreen or in other public roles, but still look artificial to most people – in other words, men who wear toupees are “pegged” as “wearing a rug.” A more advanced toupee option is a complete surgical toupee implant, an expensive procedure that sometimes is successful in some men.

What we haven’t discussed is so-called voluntary baldness, which was made famous by an episode of Seinfeld. Many men with plenty of hair choose to shave their heads for personal reasons, and sometimes the results are quite satisfactory.

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Types of Baldness