Hair Restoration and Replacement

If you are interested in this post because of the title then you realize the importance of attacking your hair loss problem immediately instead of waiting another week or month or year. The longer you wait the more hair you will lose and the balder you will look. Just to give you an example, the average man loses between 50 and 100 hairs a day due to natural shedding. When you suffer from a balding problem caused by male pattern baldness you can be losing over 500 hairs a day. At this rate it will not be long before that thinning hair turns in to a shiny bald head.

In order to pick the correct products to stop hair loss now you need to understand a little about what causes your hair to fall out in the first place. If you want to learn how to stop hair loss now then you need know what is causing the balding before you can map out a plan of attack.

The majority of men who suffer from hair loss are actually genetically predisposed to make this happen. There is a condition known as Male Pattern Baldness that is responsible for the largest number of cases of thinning and balding hair. There are a few other causes such as illness, medical procedures, and accidents but the majority are a result of the effects of the this Male Pattern Baldness which has the scientific name Androgenetic Alopecia.

You hair is actually manufactured in a little bulb at the base of the hair shaft called the hair follicle. This follicle is connected to the blood supply and utilizes oxygen and nutrients from the supply to actually manufactures the hair shaft. As it creates more material the shaft is pushed up through the shaft just like a blade of grass. Unlike a tree which grows from the top, a grass grows from the roots and is pushed up. It is a good thing because otherwise if a cow ate the top of the grass blade it would never be able to re-grow. This is what happens to a tree when it loses its top, it can’t grow any taller. Likewise, if the hair shaft didn’t grow from the root when you got a hair cut your hair would not be able to grow any more and you would be stuck with that length hair.

How To Stop Hair Loss

When a man suffers from Pattern Baldness, or a woman has the similar condition Female Pattern Baldness, the hair follicles are actually stopped from producing the correct amounts of hair shaft material. Vitamins for hair loss will not help this problem because there is another cause than nutrition. People who suffer from this condition actually have hair follicles on certain areas of their head, this is where the name pattern comes from, that are susceptible to a hormonal metabolite known as DHT. This DHT bonds with receptors on these hair follicles that are predisposed for their reception. The DHT actually inhibits the natural growth cycle of the hair unit causing it to produce less and less hair material. Eventually the hair shaft weakens and falls out and you find it on your pillow or in the shower drain.

If you want to know how to stop hair loss you must deal with this DHT problem so the hair follicles can stay healthy. There are two angles of attack you can take. The first is to limit the amount of free DHT in the body and the second is to treat the follicles so they no longer are susceptible to the hair loss hormone.

There is a US Food and Drug Administration drug that has been approved for the limiting of DHT in the body. Finasteride is taken in tablet form and works with the body to stop the production of the hormonal metabolite. It is not to be used to stop female hair loss though because of the possibility of birth defects. A natural product to stop hair loss that works along the same lines as Finasteride is the extract of the Saw Palmetto Plant. This is not as effective but it is a natural hair loss supplement.

Another FDA approved drug that does answer the question of how to stop hair loss in women is Minoxidil. This drug is applied to the scalp in a topical solution. It acts to inhibit the bonding of the DHT to the hair follicles and thus they can continue to grow hair. Women generally apply the Minoxidil in a 2% solution while men use a 5% solution. Minoxidil can be obtained in several products including a shampoo to stop hair loss.

The key to both these treatments is to start them early. They both can help to stop hair loss but they aren’t too good at getting hair follicles to begin producing hair material again once they have stopped. If you are experiencing extra hairs on you pillow or in the shower than start today to treat that condition before it gets out of hand and you end up being called chrome dome.