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Top 5 Tips for Tackling PCOS Hair Loss

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), is a condition that affects around 1 in every 5 women within the UK. While the cause of the condition hasn’t yet been identified, experts believe that it’s centred around an abnormality in hormone levels, primarily, an increased insulin level. It is believed that the body produces higher insulin levels because PCOS suffers are very resistant to the sugar controlling ability of insulin.

Due to the higher levels of insulin, more male hormones are produced, like testosterone. There are also other factors associated with PCOS, including irregular periods and polycystic ovaries, which is where the eggs in the ovaries are surrounded by follicles and the ovary is enlarged.

The increased level of male hormones is what contributes to the hair loss suffered as a result of PCOS, with hair thinning and hair loss, both being possible. However, it’s not just hair loss that sufferers of PCOS face, but increased levels of hair growth in places like the chest and face.

PCOS and hair loss
PCOS and hair loss

Our Top 5 Tips

Along with medical treatment, making changes to your lifestyle can help to treat hair loss and other symptoms that occur in women with PCOS. We have put together 5 top tips, that can all help you to feel better and start to treat PCOS.

  1. Start a Daily Routine– Daily routines introduce many factors that can help to combat PCOS. Starting an exercise routine designed to reduce testosterone levels, getting the right amount of sleep to ensure that your hormone levels are regulated, and avoiding toxins in your environment that can cause a hormone imbalance, are all essential for PCOS sufferers.

 

  1. Take Care of Your Hair– While hair care is always important, it is even more so if you have PCOS. Reducing the amount of harmful hair products that you use, not washing the oils out of your hair too frequently, and completely avoiding hairstyles that mean pulling your hair back from the scalp, can help your hair to stay in better condition.

 

  1. Change Your Diet– A healthy diet leads to a healthy body. This is especially important with PCOS, as obesity can lead to even higher levels of insulin production. A healthy diet means switching to foods that are better for your body, such as foods with high protein levels and foods with healthy fats.

 

  1. Naturally Manage Your Hormone Levels– You can help manage your hormone levels with just a few changes to your lifestyle. Switching to organic food will limit the amount of toxins that you ingest through your food. Similarly, stopping smoking and excessive alcohol intake can help you to manage your hormone production.

 

  1. Regain Your Confidence with Hair Loss Spray– Stress plays a large role in the symptoms of PCOS, so minimising your exposure to stressful situations is important. However, for many, hair loss is an extremely stressful condition. Like the hair loss spray for women, there are similar products that can help you to regain your confidence, and minimise the stress of hair loss.

Learning that you have PCOS, and then having to deal with the symptoms, can be extremely hard. But with a few changes to the way you live, and with products to help you get your confidence back, PCOS can be managed.

Why do men lose their hair?

It is perfectly normal for men to lose hair as they get older, but it is also becoming more common for the younger generation to experience this as well. Unfortunately, this leaves many of us asking why our hair is thinning or why our hair is receding.

The human body contains approximately five million hair follicles, while the scalp (before any hair loss has occurred) contains 100,000 to around 150,000 hair follicles. It is in fact blondes who have the highest number of follicles, followed by brunettes, and those with red hair have the fewest.

Normal hair growth cycle

Before you wonder why you are losing your hair, it is important to understand the natural hair cycle which occurs within the human body. This happens in three phases; Anagen, Catagen and Telogen and every single hair goes through these phases, with each relating to a different state of activity.

The growing phase – Anagen

The first phase, Anagen, is the growing stage, and lasts for around 1,000 days in the human scalp, but can last for as long as six years! During this phase, hair cells multiply rapidly, the hair shaft grows in diameter and hair reaches maximum length.

Transitional phase – Catagen

The Catagen phase lasts for around two weeks and is the transitional or regressive phase where the hair stops growing before the next phase begins.

Resting phase – Telogen

This is the resting stage, which can last for five or six weeks, and during this phase, the hair simply rests. Towards the end of this phase, activity in the hair follicle starts again, and a new hair in the Anagen phase develops, forcing old Telogen hair out.

old man suffering from hair loss
Old man suffering from hair loss

Why?

We lose lots of hair throughout the day, about 50-100 hairs to be exact, and this can happen during your morning shower and when you are combing it. However, losing a lot of your hair can be due to a number of things. In most cases, it is just due to age and just the natural process, because the body just simply slows down the process of producing hair follicles, meaning they just aren’t as productive as the once were in your youth.

As we said above, for some people the onset of hair loss can happen earlier than they would want. Often these reasons can be genetic and lie in a person’s family tree. In some cases, a grandparent may have lost their hair early in their adult life, and it may occur in their children or skip a generation; this is usually the main cause of hair loss. As men get older they may notice a receding hairline start to develop, which over time may turn to bald patches and eventually full baldness. There can often be medical reasons to explain why a person is losing their hair, as it can be a side effect of medication, stress or due to being ill.

As we age, the natural process of losing hair is actually called ‘male pattern baldness’. The reason this occurs in both men and women is usually down to levels of testosterone as we get older. Men produce a lot of testosterone in comparison to women who produce very little of the hormone, for different biological reasons. This causes the hair follicles to fail and as a result, when hair starts to fall out, it does not get exchanged with new follicles. As men produce more testosterone than women they experience more hair loss as they get older.

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