Women can have hereditary androgenetic alopecia or alopecia areata if they have an autoimmune disorder, causing hair thinning but rarely widespread baldness.
Most women experience hair loss at some point in their lives. Hair loss is often caused by genetics and aging but can also be caused by physical or emotional stress, side effects of cancer treatment, medications or other factors.
The type of hair loss depends on the cause and differs according to gender. This condition in women usually does not lead to complete baldness like in men. Below are two common types of hair loss in women.
Androgenetic alopecia
This is the most common type of hair loss, arising gradually, when about 100 hair follicles are lost (the scalp has about 100,000 hair follicles), or 100 hairs are lost, every day. Androgenetic alopecia can occur between the ages of 12 and 40, often related to genetics from parents.
In men, hair often begins to fall out and go bald above the temples, gradually spreading around the edges and top of the head. While in women, hair falls out in many places on the head, so it thins more evenly and the hairline changes less.
Women with this type of hair loss may have polycystic ovary syndrome – one of the common causes of difficulty conceiving naturally. Women should have hormone tests if hair loss is accompanied by symptoms such as irregular menstruation, hirsutism, acne, infertility, masculinization or excessive breast milk production.
For treatment, your doctor may prescribe topical medications that help prevent further hair loss, but physical changes in the body make it difficult to stop hair loss completely. Patients often need long-term treatment because if they stop applying the medication, their hair will fall out again. The earlier the treatment, the more effective it is.
There are many causes of hair loss in women. Image: Ngoc Pham
Hair loss in patches
Alopecia areata occurs due to an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system mistakenly attacks hair follicles and stops them from growing. Skin disorders such as psoriasis can also spread to the scalp, causing patchy hair loss. This type of hair loss affects men and women equally and can occur at any age, although it is most common in children and young adults.
Alopecia areata occurs in varying degrees of severity, and can be small, round patches of hair loss that can regrow without medical treatment. In some cases, there is chronic, widespread hair loss, leading to total baldness.
Treatment of alopecia areata includes therapies such as injectable or topical corticosteroid anti-inflammatory drugs, topical immunotherapy, and biological response modifiers. The doctor prescribes treatment methods depending on the patient’s age and level of hair loss.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves several inhibitor drugs to treat alopecia areata. They block signaling pathways that cause inflammation in an excessive immune response.
However, the above treatment methods cannot restore all hair in patients with complete hair loss on the scalp.