Home

Hair Loss

Cosmetic

Store

Centres

FAQs

News

Testimonials

Newsletter

Contact us

Book Consultation

Hair Loss Causes

If you understand the cause of your hair loss, then you will be able to choose the most appropriate hair loss treatment.

The most common causes of hair loss are genetic and hormonal, followed by illness and trauma. Causes of male and female hair loss will be considered separately.

To understand more about the genetic causes of hair loss effecting both men & women then please click on the links below. Hair restoration & hair replacement techniques are discussed at a separate page here: Hair loss treatments

Find out more about male hair loss causes here

Find out more about female hair loss causes here

Introduction on the causes of hair loss

The average lifespan of a single hair is 3 -7 years, the hair then falls out and is replaced in three months by a new hair. The cause of hair loss can be due to the hair falling out faster than usual (shedding), regrowing back poorly or not growing back at all. In addition, the quality of the skin can be the cause, rather than the hair itself.

There are a number of conditions and situations that cause hair loss which effect both men and women these are discussed below.

As we mentioned earlier it is important to understand the cause of your hairloss and then you will be able to find the most appropriate treatment. The list of hairloss causes below can affect men or women.

Other Causes of Hair Loss

Alopecias

Strictly speaking alopecia simply means hair loss but doesn’t explain what the cause actually is. For example:

Alopecia areata is a common cause of hairloss, more so in women and gives a patchy type of hair loss, which spontaneously improves, usually after a few months. Most noticeable on the scalp, it can affect eyebrows, beards or general body hair loss. If severe this cause of hairloss, can become alopecia totalis which is loss of all body hair. The cause of the hair loss is an auto immune disease, where the skin recognizes the hair as a "foreign body" and tries to reject it.

Androgenic alopecia is in fact male pattern hair loss and not to be confused with these other types.

Traction Alopecia is where the cause of the hair loss is damage to the hair follicle. This can be either acutely (trauma) or chronically (tight hairstyles, dreadlocks, Sikh custom). Traction progressively cause damage to the hair root by pulling on the hair. Overplucking of eyebrows is essentially the same thing. View our gallery photos of eyebrow transplants.

Burns

Burns cause hair loss by physically heating and killing the hair follicle and surrounding skin cells. Superficial burns may cause the hair to be burnt off (flash burns) leaving the deeper skin and hair bulb undamaged or the burn may be deep and causing contracted scars with no hair growth. Hair transplants can grow quite well in burn scars and so is very useful in helping to cover up facial burns to eyebrows, beards, moustaches and scalp. Other techniques may also be needed to restore the hair.

Find out more about Hair transplants

Drugs

This is a wide ranging category, as many medications can cause changes in hair quality or hair loss. Usually, these side effects are uncommon but do occur and there is some overlap with the Hormonal category below i.e. Oral contraceptive pill.

Find out more about female hair loss causes

Chemotherapy drugs are used to attack rapidly growing cancer cells, unfortunately these drugs also attack other rapidly growing cells in your body, which include your hair roots. Chemotherapy can cause hair loss not just on your scalp but on other areas of your body, sometimes your eyebrow or public hair falls out.

Facelifts

There is often a characteristic loss of sideburn hair in front of the ears when patients have facelifts performed. This is caused by loose skin in front of the ears being removed during the facelift. Unfortunately, the sideburn hair gets removed and this can look odd but can be easily replaced by hair transplantation.

Hormonal

Although typically hormones cause hair loss most commonly in women, there are some hormonal changes that affect men equally. Examples include thyroid disease (both hyper and hypothyroid) and tumours that secrete high levels of growth hormone, testosterone, adrenaline or other important hormones. This hair loss cause also includes medically prescribed drugs, as well as recreational or performance enhancing drugs such as steroids.

Radiation Therapy Hair Loss

This hair loss cause is quite similar to a burn in some respects. Essentially, the skin is damaged by the radiotherapy treatment but usually recovers. However, hair is very sensitive to the radiation and is killed by it. This means that hair transplants can be very successful in replacing lost hair on the scalp or face when patients have received radiotherapy for brain tumours.

Scars

If caused by trauma, then the hair loss cause situation is again very similar to burns, above. Old fashioned hair punchgrafts and scars from other previous hair surgery, can be improved in a number of ways: Rows of punchgraft “dice” scars can be removed simply by excision, usually with immediate improvement. This also applies to poorly healed strip scars.

Alternatively, we can place hair transplants into the scar and this will camouflage the scar, in the same way that it does for burn scars. However, each case is different and you need to discuss the detail with one of our professional hair consultants.
See our gallery for photos relating to scar repair and hair transplants.

Trichillomania

Tricillomania is a similar cause to excessive plucking of eyebrows. Obsessive pulling or twisting of scalp hair causes damage to the hair root until it no longer grows properly. Once the patient has stopped the Obsessive Compulsive behaviour ( OCD ), then the damaged hair can be replaced by hair transplant surgery.