What is hair shedding?
Hair shedding can happen to anyone, male or female, and is known as telogen effluvium. This type of hair loss — or thinning — happens relatively uniformly across the whole of the head, and does not follow a pattern.
All hairs go through the same cycles of growing (anagen), resting (telogen), and shedding (exogen). When hair is healthy, 90% of the hairs on the scalp should be in the anagen phase of the hair cycle, and the remaining 10% should be transitioning through towards shedding. When that ratio is upset, the result is hair shedding.
Why does hair shedding happen?
Unlike other forms of hair loss, hair shedding doesn’t follow a pattern. It tends to be characterised by dramatic volume loss across the whole of the scalp, rather than areas or patches of thinning. People experiencing hair shedding often notice more hairs on their brush or comb, as well as more hairs on their pillow or collecting around the plug after a shower. Those with longer hair will often notice that their ponytail is a lot thinner than before. The biggest concern for many people who experience telogen effluvium is that it will cause baldness but that’s not the case.
The Sinclair Shedding Scale is a six-point visual way of assessing how serious the issue is.
While it’s quite normal to lose up to around 150 hairs a day, anything beyond that might be worthy of investigation.
Is hair shedding reversible?
Yes. Hair shedding is entirely reversible. Crucially, the trigger that has caused the shedding has to be identified and addressed. If there’s no immediately obvious cause, a blood test can help identify any nutritional deficiencies or problems.
But recovery takes time. Once the trigger has been corrected, the first sign of improvement is a slowing down of the shedding which should return to normal levels after three to six months. Full recovery of the volume won’t happen until the hair cycle has returned to the healthy 90% to 10% ratio and that can take between 12 and 18 months, depending on how quickly the hair grows.
As well as correcting whatever triggered the telogen effluvium, recovery can be helped along with a drug called Minoxidil. Available at concentrations of 2% and 5% over the counter and at higher strengths when prescribed by a doctor, Minoxidil is often used for pattern hair loss. But, because one of the ways in which it works is by keeping each hair in the growth phase for longer, it can also be used to help stabilize and renormalize the hair cycle in people experiencing hair shedding.
DOSE Shedding has been specifically designed with higher levels of Minoxidil than you can buy without prescription and has been carefully blended with other clinically-proven active ingredients to help optimize the health of scalp and hair. If you think you’re dealing with hair shedding and want to see if DOSE Shedding might be right for you, take our online consultation.
