When I lecture to groups of dermatologists, I often say that hair loss is epidemic among black women. In the twenty years that I have been in practice, I have gone from seeing five women with hair loss each week to seeing 25 or more. No one knows for sure if African-American women are experiencing more hair loss or if more are visiting the dermatologist to find out why they having hair loss.

Hair loss can be absolutely devastating, particularly for women. Hair is so strongly tied to our beauty, sense of worth and self-confidence. Often when we loose our hair, we attempt to camouflage the loss but frequently utilize hairstyles that make the problem worse. Sadly, we wait too long to see the dermatologist.

Most women have no idea that there are many causes of hair loss. Some think that hair loss is a normal part of aging. Others do not realize that their hair care practices may lead to or contribute to their hair loss. Still others do not realize that something can be done to stop the hair loss.

I think that it is very important for you to comment and share your experiences with hair loss. Comment after each hair loss blog post and tell me if you have, had or currently have the type of hair loss discussed and what your personal story is. Remember, you are not alone.

In order to understand hair loss, it is important to begin with a quick vocabulary lesson, so that we are all speaking the same language. 

Hair Loss Vocabulary

Alopecia simply means hair loss. If you have hair loss, then you have alopecia. However, it is important to realize that there are many different types of hair loss or alopecia. Alopecia may occur in different locations on the scalp. There are different causes of alopecia. Some types are reversible and others are not. As you would expect, there are different treatments for alopecia depending upon the type.

Traumatic Alopecia (Hair Breakage) means that the hair strand has become shorter than it was before because of trauma or injury to the hair strand. An example is hair that previously touched your shoulders that may have broken off and now only touched the top of your ears. There are also many reasons for hair breakage. Your dermatologist and hair stylist may help you identify your specific reason.

Anterior Hairline is the growth of hair closest to your forehead, which is also called the edges.

Posterior Hairline is the growth of hair closest to the back of your neck, which is also called the kitchen.

Vertex is the crown or the top of your head.

Traction means pulling. There are many hairstyles and hair implements that can cause pulling of the hair.

Traction Alopecia is hair loss from pulling.

Central Centrifugal Cicatrical Alopecia is a type of hair loss that begins in the central portion of the scalp, spreads in an outward or centrifugal pattern and causes scarring or cicatrix of the hair follicles.

Scalp Biopsy is a procedure where a small area of the scalp is numbed with Novocain or lidocaine and a piece of the scalp is removed. A stitch is placed to close the area so that you will not have a patch of missing scalp. The small piece of scalp is sent to the laboratory to be analyzed under the microscope.

Fungal Culture is a procedure where several strands of hair are cut close to the scalp and sent to the laboratory to determine if the hair is infected with fungus (sometimes called ringworm)

Although there are many causes of hair loss that I will discuss, the three most common causes of hair loss that I see in my black female patients are:

• Traumatic Alopecia (Hair breakage)
• Central Centrifugal Cicatrical Alopecia
• Traction Alopecia

I would like to begin with hair breakage because that is the easiest to recognize and to reverse. It is often a matter of altering the way that you treat your hair.

Traumatic Alopecia (Hair Breakage) can occur at any location on the head and it is directly related to trauma or injury of the strands of hair. There are some women who report that they have a “weak” spot where the hair will break, re-grown and break again in that same area. Others will experience hair breakage infrequently and once the hair re-grows it will not break again. When the hair breaks you will not see the white hair bulb at the end of the hair. A broken hair is usually very short but it can be of any length. Sometimes you will see the short broken hairs in the sink or on the pillow. Other times you won’t notice the breakage when it occurs. Your scalp will feel normal. The breakage may be sudden and unexpected or slow and gradual. Since there are many causes of trauma to the hair strand, there are many causes of breakage and I will highlight a few of the most common.

Common Causes of Traumatic Alopecia (Hair Breakage):

• Excessive Chemical Use: Relaxers, dyes or the combination of both relaxers and dyes
• Excessive Heat: Curling irons, flat irons, hot rollers, hot combs, blow dryers, hooded dryers
• Frictional forces: Rubber bands, excessive brushing or combing

Some women tell me that after a relaxer (perhaps one that was left on too long or one that was too strong) they noticed that their hair is suddenly shorter.  In this case the trauma was because of the relaxer. Other women who have used peroxide containing hair dye and then immediately relax their hair have noticed breakage. In this case the trauma was from the combination of two chemicals applied to the hair.

Still others will report that they are doing nothing different in regard to their hair care practices (they have always relaxed, blow dried and flat ironed their hair every two weeks). Often we can identify the cause of the breakage, as in the above examples, but not always.

What can you do if you notice hair breakage? There are several simple measures that can be done to stop and reverse your hair breakage.

• Recognize that your hair is breaking and take action. By that I mean, sometimes we find it difficult to recognize or even admit that our hair is breaking. The experience can be very traumatic. If you suspect breakage, ask your hair stylist or a family member to take a look at your hair to determine if there are areas that are shorter than others.  If that is the case, it is time to take action (see below).
• If you have relaxer in your hair, analyze how often you get a touch up. Ask yourself if you could be getting touch-ups too often. For some women, using relaxers too often can damage and weaken the hair shaft and cause breakage. Generally, touch-ups are performed every six to eigh weeks. Determine if you can possibly space your relaxer out to every eight or ten weeks or longer, particularly during the winter months when there is little to no humidity and you hair is less likely to revert. Can you use moisturizers more consistently to smooth and “tame” the new growth until it is time for a touch up? Can you use a wide-tooth comb to gently comb the hair, beginning at the ends and working up towards the root to minimize breakage? Can you avoid pulling and tugging the hair when combing new growth?
• Combining two chemical processes such as permanent hair dyes or highlights, containing hydrogen peroxide, with relaxers can lead to damaged hair shafts and breakage. I generally suggest picking one or the other chemical treatment and avoid using both chemical treatments on your hair. However, if you do use both chemicals, do not have them done at the same time but rather, wait several weeks after applying one to your hair before applying the other.  Additionally, condition your hair regularly and minimize heat from blow dryers and curling or flat irons if you have both chemicals in your hair.
• Excessive heat may also damage the hair and produce hair breakage. This may be from hot combs, curling irons, flat irons, blow dryers, hooded dryers, or hot rollers. Do not use these implements more that once a week. See if you can decrease the heat that is generated from them by turning the setting down. Roll, pin curl or wrap your hair at night so that you do not have to apply heat in the form of curling irons or flat irons each morning.
• The hair of many black women is very fragile and studies have demonstrated that normal brushing and combing the hair can result in breakage. Brushing your hair 100-times a day is a no-no for our hair. Only comb and brush your hair to style it. Also avoid rubber bands or other implements that can physically cut into and break the hair shaft.
• Natural hairstyles are not immune to the possibility of hair breakage. If twists or locks are twisted too tightly, hair breakage may occur. Have you experienced a twist, lock or braid snapping off?
• Hair care practices that you could once tolerate (relaxers, blow drying, flat ironing) may result in breakage at another time in your life. Just like your body, your hair changes. If hair begins to break, ask your stylist what you can do differently. You might wear a wig for a period of time or smooth your hair back in a loose ponytail.
• Trim the damaged ends of the hair, wash and condition the hair every two weeks.

(view original article here)

Millions of UK women suffer from hair loss, according to a new study by trichologist Dr David Kingsley.

The expert’s research found that one in three women, aged 30 to 55, had experienced some degree of hair loss.

The finding confirms that it is not only men who are affected by hair loss, although the problem is still more common among men, around half of whom develop male-pattern baldness at some point.

One in five women who had discussed the problem with their healthcare provider claimed the issue had not been taken seriously, leaving one in four feeling depressed about their hair loss.

Over two-fifths of people with hair loss said they felt less attractive as a result, while 16 per cent claimed they were left feeling unfeminine.

Three-fifths also said they thought their hair loss was stress-related.

Dr Kingsley, who is president of the World Trichology Society, said: ‘Because we are still searching for a reliable cure for genetic hair loss, GPs often fail to take patients seriously when they present with signs of thinning hair.’

The expert pointed out that while hair loss is not life-threatening, it can be ‘life-altering’.

He said the problem should be taken seriously and that available treatments can greatly improve women’s psychological health and quality of life.

(view original article here)

It’s An Unexpected And Devastating Experience For Women

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — For many women their hair is their crowning glory and suffering unexpected hair loss can be devastating, especially when that hair loss is triggered by a common prescription medication.

Experts recently told CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson that for many women the choice between health and hair is often difficult.

“When they come in the first thing is tears. No one wants to come into a wig store,” said Flora Shepelsky, the owner of Designs By Flora.

For some of Shepelsky’s clients a wig on top of a hair weave can help to hide a devastating secret. That secret is extreme and often sudden hair loss.

Shepelsky’s clients told CBS 2 that their hair loss was triggered by a reaction to prescription drugs.

“I would have done anything to get my hair back, but then my health was suffering,” one patient said.

When she tried to go off of the medication to save her hair, that patient’s health declined, and she had to go back on the pills.

Some women told CBS 2 that hormone therapy is to blame for their hair loss, while others blamed a variety of other medications that listed hair loss as a possible side effect on their warning labels.

“There’s nothing that has no side effects. Everything that you take they can fix one thing and something else goes wrong,” a patient said.

Some patients have turned to natural drugs in an effort to improve health and grow back their hair.

Mary Speciale told CBS 2 that her hair began to fall out following hip surgery 18 months ago.

“I took some of the medications post-operatively and no one told me that they could cause hair loss,” she said.

But doctors said they are not sure if it was the surgery or the medicine that caused the hair loss.

“We don’t know if it’s due to the surgery itself or due to medication she got for anesthesia. Sometimes they’re given medications during surgery, so it’s very difficult to pinpoint,” explained Dr. Richard Mizuguchi, the director of The Hair Loss and Restoration Institute.

Specialists said that they will work with primary care physicians to help change patients to medications that do not cause hair loss. They also explained that only a small portion of the population suffer from this type of hair loss.

What would you go with, the medicine or your hair? Let us know in our comments section below…

(view original article here)

It started slowly. Karen Meyer’s already thin hair seemed to be getting more and more sparse each year. By the time she graduated high school in 1966, she knew what was happening. She was barely 18 years old, and she was going bald.

“I alternated between a hairpiece and a wig,” said Meyer, 63, of North Cumming. “Back then, it was more of a fashion trend, but I was one of the few who actually needed to wear hair.”

Women make up about 40 percent of Americans experiencing hair loss, according to data from the American Hair Loss Association, a California-based organization dedicated to educating and improving the lives of those affected by hair loss. Despite growing concern among women, hair loss is still often considered a male issue, but there are signs that women are no longer willing to suffer in silence.

Many women have taken to cyberspace, creating online communities to share their hair loss stories, treatments and other information. As a testament to the marketing potential of women with hair loss, Aveda recently introduced Invati, a line of hair care products designed to boost thinning strands.

As an adult, Meyer was diagnosed with androgenetic alopecia, also known as male or female pattern baldness. Meyer’s mother had lost all of her hair, and her brother was bald by age 21. Doctors confirm that female pattern baldness has a genetic link, but there are many other reasons that women lose their hair and many are losing it at increasingly younger ages.

“About 50 percent or more of women have some shedding by age 50,” said Dr. Ashley Curtis of Dermatology Associates of Atlanta. Medications, autoimmune disorders, pregnancy, birth control pills, menopause and stressful hair styling are just some factors that can cause hair loss in women of various ages, with the effects ranging from temporary, isolated patches of hair loss to widespread permanent balding.

In female pattern balding, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a derivative of the male hormone testosterone, binds to receptors, causing negative effects on the hair follicle that lead to thinning. The only Food and Drug Administration-approved hair loss treatment for women is a 2 percent concentration of minoxidil topically applied to the scalp.

With few treatments being tested on women, particularly women of childbearing age, it is often left to dermatologists to find the right combination of medications, some of which are prescribed off-label, to assist in managing the condition.

Dr. Melissa Babcock of Babcock Dermatology in Sandy Springs has prescribed spironolactone, a medication used to reduce blood pressure, which also slows the production of male hormones and blocks DHT from binding to receptors. Estrogen, oral contraceptives and the drug finasteride (more widely known as Propecia or Proscar) — an FDA-approved pill for male pattern baldness — also have been used to combat hair loss in women.

Other solutions include hair transplants in which a strip of hair with active follicles or individual follicles are taken from the one part of the head and transplanted to the bald areas. Natural follicle simulation is a method of tattooing the scalp to camouflage patchy hair loss. But because female pattern baldness differs from male pattern baldness in that the hair loss is diffuse, women may or may not be candidates for these treatments.

Meyer, who was not a good candidate for a hair transplant, knew given her family history there was little she could do to stop the process of losing her hair. When the former hairstylist moved to Atlanta in 1992, she decided to work in hair replacement full time. She knew how devastated a woman could feel when she was losing her hair.

“I wear my hair from the time I get up in the morning to the time I go to bed at night,” said Meyer, who has about 30 percent of her hair and wears a three-quarter prosthesis. “Even after 44 years of marriage, I don’t feel comfortable being around [my husband] without my hair.”

At New Horizons, an Alpharetta-based company that offers custom hair restoration solutions, Meyer’s youngest client is 7, and her oldest client was 93. Company owner Sharon Mason said women are more aware now than in the past that they do have options to address hair loss.

“Before, they were like, this is too silly to go to the doctor,” said Mason, who has been in the hair replacement business since 1976. “Now they go online, they see symptoms and they go to the doctor.”

When clients come to Meyer, she helps them find solutions to suit their condition and lifestyle. But fitting them for a “cranial prosthesis,” as the hair systems are called, is just part of the job, Meyer said. She also shares her story with clients in the hopes that they will be encouraged.

“We have a lot of crying and a lot of support,” she said. “I always said … I was going to do something important. That is exactly what this has been.”

IF YOU ARE IN THE NEW YORK METRO AREA, VISIT HRCNY.COM TO CONTACT OUR HAIR REPLACEMENT SPECIALISTS.

(view original article here)

Folligraft 3.1 – created with our patented Individual Strand Application is a non-surgical solution to problem hair loss. This unique and innovative procedure is performed exclusively by professional technicians at our Hair Replacement Center and allows us to replace hair back into your own in a natural growth direction. This ensures complete styling flexibility without necessitating an overabundance of hair (so characteristic of other antiquated methods).

Garden City Hair Restoration for Women -

Just like trapeze performers who meet and join in mid-air, Methode Trapeze creates bridges in the gaps between hairs. It’s onto these bridges that new, 100% human hair, can be inserted. The result is a secure, natural and sane approach to restoring womens’ hair loss. With Methode Trapeze, you can pinpoint the hair restoration to isolated thinning areas or fill in a scalp from nape to hairline. No matter how much, or how little hair you require, Methode Trapeze’s 100% human hair is indistinguishable from the growing hair it lays alongside.

Garden City Hair Restoration for Men -

The Folligraft 3.1 Hair Replication technique allows for real human hair that is first hand picked to match your growing hair in color, texture, sheen and wave or curl, then inserted into a liquid skin membrane in a direction that is geometrically matched to your growing hair. The Folligraft 3.1 membrane resembles a layer of skin: it is porous, so it breathes like skin; it is transparent, so it takes on the color of the individuals own skin. Before the graft application occurs, the skin of the scalp is thoroughly exfoliated of dead skin cells, expediting a naturally-occurring process. The grafting procedure itself is non-invasive and is accomplished through a chemically induced ionization process. All materials have been specially formulated of medical grade and are FDA and/or EU approved for contact with human skin.

“If you’re going through a very severe divorce,” Amy McMichael, MD, professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, N.C. says, “you might not be eating properly; you might lose weight or not sleep well. You may go off and then back on your oral contraceptives.” All of these things cause physiological stress and an imbalance in your system. “The point is,” she says, “there are a lot of other things that are physiological going on. You’re not losing your hair because you hate your ex-husband.”

McMichael says that women have a number of things that happen on a regular basis that they may not recognize as stressors. “You start out your life and you’re fine,” she says. “You’re 20 years old and get married. You get on some oral contraceptives. Well, that causes shedding.”

When a woman decides to have a baby, if she is taking them, she will stop taking oral contraceptives. “Maybe you have a little bit of shedding related to that. And then you get pregnant.” Pregnancy causes the body to keep the hair that normally would fall out as part of the regular hair cycle, so a woman may notice her hair may feel extra thick and fuller during that time. After giving birth, all the hair that would have fallen out is shed three to six months later.

“Also, after birth,” McMichael says, “you realize you’ve gained 30 pounds and go on a diet to lose it. That causes shedding. But somewhere in all this, someone in the family dies and, because you’ve heard that stress causes hair loss, you say, ‘Oh my God, I’m losing my hair because someone died.’ But that’s not it. You’re losing hair because you lost 30 pounds.”

“It’s not a foregone conclusion,” McMichael says. “Not everyone gets these episodes of hair loss. Some women go on and off of contraceptives and never have shedding. Some have seven children and have no hair loss related to it.” McMichael does point out that once you have shed hair in response to a physiological stress, you are likely to do it again.

McMichael says that because people have repeated the myth of a direct connection between emotional stress and hair loss for so many years, many people now believe it. There’s no way to predict who’s going to lose hair and who’s not. If you’re a shedder, you’ll shed. She also says there’s no scientific evidence that points to specific emotional stresses that might trigger the physical stress that can lead to hair loss.

A variety of stressors may cause your body to undergo hair loss. It happens, Amy McMichael, MD, professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, N.C. says, when there’s some type of physiological change in your system. “For instance,” she says, “you go on or off an oral contraceptive. Or you lose more than 15 pounds of weight. Things like this change the physiological balance in your system.”

Other stressors, according to McMichael, could include:

• Being on a strict low-calorie diet
• After childbirth when estrogen levels fall
• Severe illness
• Having a high fever
• Having major surgery
• Severe infections

Paradi Mirmirani, MD, a dermatologist with the Permanente Medical Group in Vallejo, Calif. says that hair shedding can also result from certain medications such as some type of blood pressure medications, thyroid disease, and nutritional deficiencies such as vitamin D or excess vitamin A.

Pinpointing the actual cause of the shedding isn’t always easy. That’s because, Mirmirani says, there’s a three- to six-month lag time between the stressful event and the hair loss. In order to determine the cause, you need to look back at what was happening three, six, or even nine months before the hair loss began.

A normal head of hair contains about 120,000-150,000 strands of hair. Usually, at any one time, about 90% of those hairs are in a growing phase, growing by about 1/2 inch each month. This phase lasts for two to three years. At that point, a hair will go into a resting stage. This “rest” lasts for 3 to 4 months before the hair falls out and is replaced by a new one.

“Typically, people shed about 100 hairs a day,” says Carolyn Jacob, MD, founder and medical director of Chicago Cosmetic Surgery and Dermatology. “Most people don’t even notice.”

Sometimes, a significant stress of some sort may spark a change in your body’s routine physiological functions, Jacob says, and cause a disproportionate number of hairs to go into the resting phase at the same time. Then three to four months later, sometimes longer, all those resting hairs are shed. The effect can be alarming. The types of events that disrupt the normal hair cycle, can be caused by the substantial physiological stresses on your body.

But, according to Amy McMichael, MD, professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, N.C., physiological stress is not the same as emotional stress. Hair loss can be one way the body responds to significant physiological stress that may be brought on by diet, medical, or lifestyle changes.

“Only those things that cause physiological stress can cause a hair loss event,” McMichael says. The good news is that the hair loss from these kinds of events is usually only temporary, as long as the stress event is temporary. Once the stressor is addressed, or goes away on its own, hair grows back and the normal hair cycle resumes.

Hair has been credited with being a man’s strength, a woman’s allure, and the savior of modesty. But even if you’re not Samson, Rapunzel, or Lady Godiva, the mythology of hair also has applications for those of us living in the stressful reality of modern life.

It has been said that stress can make you go gray, or cause you to lose your hair. Is that possible?

Sometimes, you might feel like tearing your hair out due to personal, economic, and work-related stresses, but stress won’t likely be the direct cause of gray hair. A 2009 study in the journal Cell found that unavoidable damage to the DNA in cells that produce the pigment responsible for hair color is most likely the culprit that causes a hair to turn white.

But can stress accelerate the aging process on a cellular level and, as a result, cause you to go gray before your time? Right now, the answer is debatable.

“We have all witnessed the graying hair of many past presidents. Perhaps over long periods of stress, there may be an acceleration of gray hair in some people,” says Amy McMichael, MD, professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, N.C. But, she points out, that idea is mainly speculation. “I don’t know of any studies showing this,” she says, “and I’m not sure I have a scientific answer.”

If the jury’s still out on the question of stress being responsible for turning hair gray, then what’s the verdict on stress and hair loss? Is there a relationship?

Paradi Mirmirani, MD, a dermatologist with the Permanente Medical Group in Vallejo, Calif., says it all depends on what type of stress you’re talking about. “Stress because you’re late to work or you’ve got a heavy workload is not going to cause you to lose hair,” she says. Mirmirani, a member of the North American Hair Research Society, tells WebMD that short-term, everyday stress is not going to affect your body in such a way that your hair falls out. It takes something larger to do that. “Something that causes you to lose sleep,” she says, “or changes your appetite and raises the level of stress hormones.”

McMichael puts it more bluntly. “There has been, for my entire life, this mythical connection between stress and hair. It’s absolutely ridiculous.” McMichael says there is no evidence to support the idea that just because you had a few stressful days last week, your hair will fall out this week. “It doesn’t even work that way,” she says.

Folligraft 3.1 – created with our patented Individual Strand Application is a non-surgical solution to problem hair loss. This unique and innovative procedure is performed exclusively by professional technicians at our Hair Replacement Center and allows us to replace hair back into your own in a natural growth direction. This ensures complete styling flexibility without necessitating an overabundance of hair (so characteristic of other antiquated methods).

Freeport Hair Restoration for Women -

Just like trapeze performers who meet and join in mid-air, Methode Trapeze creates bridges in the gaps between hairs. It’s onto these bridges that new, 100% human hair, can be inserted. The result is a secure, natural and sane approach to restoring womens’ hair loss. With Methode Trapeze, you can pinpoint the hair restoration to isolated thinning areas or fill in a scalp from nape to hairline. No matter how much, or how little hair you require, Methode Trapeze’s 100% human hair is indistinguishable from the growing hair it lays alongside.

Freeport Hair Restoration for Men -

The Folligraft 3.1 Hair Replication technique allows for real human hair that is first hand picked to match your growing hair in color, texture, sheen and wave or curl, then inserted into a liquid skin membrane in a direction that is geometrically matched to your growing hair. The Folligraft 3.1 membrane resembles a layer of skin: it is porous, so it breathes like skin; it is transparent, so it takes on the color of the individuals own skin. Before the graft application occurs, the skin of the scalp is thoroughly exfoliated of dead skin cells, expediting a naturally-occurring process. The grafting procedure itself is non-invasive and is accomplished through a chemically induced ionization process. All materials have been specially formulated of medical grade and are FDA and/or EU approved for contact with human skin.

DIRECTIONS TO OUR LONG ISLAND OFFICE FROM FREEPORT, NY

These directions are from Google maps starting from:
South Shore Porsche
185 West Sunrise Highway
Freeport, NY 11520
(11 mins / 9.4 miles)

1. Head east on NY-27 E toward S Bergen Pl
2. Turn right onto the Meadowbrook Pkwy N ramp to Mineola
3. Merge onto Meadowbrook State Pkwy N
4. Take exit M1 for Old Country Rd toward Westbury/Mineola
5. Turn right at Old Country Rd
6. Turn left at Cherry Ln
7. Turn left at Westbury Ave – Destination will be on the left

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