Tricology: Types of Hair Loss

Female Hair Loss and Male Pattern Hair Loss are the most common causes of hair loss. The development of genetic hair loss is associated with the shortening of the anagen (growing) phase of the hair cycle and consequently with an increase in the proportion of telogen (resting) hairs. There is a reduction in the size of the affected follicles, which results in a reduction in the diameter of the hairs that they produce. This is an essential feature of this type of hair loss, which accounts for the thinning of the hair and the widening of the partings.

Female Hair Loss
Female genetic hair loss affects over 30% of women. The hair loss is typically diffuse (evenly spread over the scalp) and affects the frontal and vertex (crown) areas with similar severity. Often a band of slightly denser hair is retained along the frontal hairline. Also, women can exhibit a normal amount of hair in the front area of their scalp, which gradually thins out as you look farther back near their crown. Called a “Christmas-tree” look, this is also indicative of a genetic condition.

Male Pattern Hair Loss
The onset of male genetic hair loss is linearly related to age; that is, 20% of men experience some hair loss by age twenty; 30% of men experience some hair loss by age thirty, and so on. The hair begins to recede at the temples and thin in the vertex (crown) area. Eventually, the entire fronto-vertex (between the hairline and crown) area of the scalp can be involved.

Alopecia Areata
Alopecia areata is characterized by patchy scalp hair loss which occasionally affects every hair follicle on the scalp (alopecia totalis), or body (alopecia universalis).  Alopecia Areata has a rapid onset but tends to spontaneously reverse.

Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania is the loss or damage of scalp hair through repeated pulling or twisting due to irresistible compulsive impulses.

Telogen Effluvium
This hair loss condition, which occurs mainly in women, is usually caused by a temporary disturbance to the hair cycle causing the growing (anagen) hairs to prematurely enter the resting (telogen) phase of the hair cycle.  Stress, illness, medication, anemia, and weight loss are the most common causes, however, many other factors can also influence this condition.

Cicatricial Alopecia
Cicatricial alopecia is hair loss which occurs with the destruction of the hair follicles.  It can be caused by a disease affecting the follicles themselves, or by some process external to them. The follicles may be absent as a result of trauma such a burn or a blow or cut to the head or they may have been destroyed by a specific infection.

Traction Alopecia
Traction alopecia is the breaking of the hair by friction or tension due to vigorous brushing, blow drying, and/or chemical overprocessing.


Traction Alopecia: The hairstyles which can cause hair loss
Traction alopecia is the hair loss that occurs after persistent gentle pulling on the roots over several hours or days. 

Unlike a hair pluck which is painful, persistent gentle pulling may go unnoticed until bald spots or alopecia starts to appear. 

In these times when large numbers of women are having hair extensions, wefts, braids and clip-ins, including the recent trends of the man bun and the man braid, dermatologists are starting to see more women with traction alopecia.  

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