Female Hair Loss and PCOS

Much of our identity is linked to having healthy, plentiful, luxuriant hair on our heads. Our hair is an integral part of "who we are". This seems to be especially true for women, judging by the billions of dollars spent by women on hair care.

So when you start losing scalp hair, your self-identity is eroded. You are no longer the person you perceived yourself to be. You feel that you are less attractive and less desirable to others. Others may make judgments of you that are unfair or may think there is something wrong with you.

Female hair loss results in a great deal of emotional distress.

The distress is increased by a perceived inability to control and stop your hair loss. It feels like a process that is irreversible and out of control.

If this describes you, you're not alone! Fewer than 45% of women will go through life with a full head of hair.

Your doctor may not fully appreciate what a difficult problem hair loss is for you. Since hair loss isn't an immediate threat to your health, your doctor may not give it the attention it deserves.

Women who are losing their hair have reported the following problems:

• Inability to style their hair.
• Dissatisfaction with their personal appearance.
• Concern about hair loss continuing.
• Concern about others noticing their hair loss.
• Feeling self-conscious.
• Feeling jealous.
• Experiencing embarrassment and shame.
• Feeling powerless to stop their hair loss.

A few women have reported directly to us that hair loss is the worst problem they have ever had in their entire lives.

The Hair Cycle

Symptoms of Female Hair Loss

Hormonal Causes of Hair Loss in PCOS Women

Other Factors Involved in Hair Loss

Treatment Options

The Hair Cycle

Hair grows in cycles. Approximately 100 hairs are lost from your scalp daily. The average scalp contains roughly 100,000 or so hairs. The hair shaft grows out of its follicle at an average rate of about one-half inch per month.

Each hair grows for two to six years, then rests, and finally it falls out. A new hair is supposed to begin growing in its place. At any particular time, about 85% of hair is in a growing phase and 15% is resting.

Loss of hair or baldness occurs when a hair falls out but is not replaced by a new hair. The loss usually develops gradually and may be patchy or diffuse (all over), depending on the type of alopecia.

The typical pattern of female pattern baldness is different from male pattern baldness. In women, the hair thins all over the head, but the frontal hairline is maintained. There may be a moderate loss of hair on the crown, but this rarely progresses to total or near baldness as it often does in men.

The reason for this is that hormone and enzyme receptor sites on a woman's scalp are located differently as compared to a man's scalp. Therefore, changes in hormone levels affect the hair follicles of women in locations that are different from men.

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Visible Symptoms of Female Hair Loss

The usual symptoms are thinning of hair over the entire head, and mild to moderate hair loss at the crown or hairline.

Female pattern hair loss or baldness, or significant hair thinning, may be permanent.

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Hormonal Causes of Hair Loss in PCOS Women

 

The possible reasons for the inability to grow new hair are numerous and not fully understood.

However, multiple hormone disorders common in PCOS are at least partially responsible.

Your hair follicles and adjoining skin are active every second of every day. They receive and respond to hormonal messages from other areas of the body or from nearby cells. They also create their own hormones that act locally or in concert with other parts of the body.

What you have is an unbelievably complex web of interacting hormones and other signaling molecules that either cause hair loss or prevent hair loss. Here are a few hormones that affect your hair:

• Androgens (male hormones)
• Cortisol (stress hormone)
• Estrogen
• Growth hormone
• Melatonin
• Prolactin
• Thyroid hormones.

Most commonly, the biggest concern of women with polycystic ovary syndrome is the high levels of their androgens.

Women with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) frequently have a condition called "androgenetic alopecia", which appears to be caused primarily by excessively high levels of androgens. Androgens are male hormones such as testosterone.

The primary culprit appears to be a male hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is converted from testosterone and binds to hair follicles.

DHT (dihydrotestosterone) causes hair follicles on the scalp to contract and miniaturize, which in turn causes the hair growing from that particular follicle to become thinner and more fragile.

These hairs become progressively shorter and thinner with each successive hair cycle. Over time, only fine, miniaturized hairs remain. Eventually the hairs die out, leading to a scalp with decreased hair coverage.

Meanwhile, the DHT is making your facial hair coarser.

So you end up losing hair where you want it, and growing hair where you don't want it.

Another common hormone issue with women who have PCOS is an underactive thyroid, known as hypothyroidism.

Besides causing you to gain weight and become infertile, hypothyroidism contributes to hair thinning.

It's fairly common for PCOS women to simultaneously have hypothyroidism and too much testosterone. This imbalance presents a real challenge for maintaining hair health.

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Other Factors Involved in Hair Loss

There are multiple additional factors involved in female hair loss.

Some of them are listed below:

• Chemotherapy or radiation
• Childbirth
• Chronic degenerative disorders
• Compulsive hair pulling
• Depression, negativity and fear
• Eating disorders or crash diets
• Hair style
• Immune system disorder such as autoimmune disease
• Inflammation or infection
• IUDs
• Major surgery
• Marijuana use
• Medications (some)
• Mineral deficiencies
• Organ or gland dysfunction (especially thyroid gland)
• Poor diet & induced vitamin and mineral deficiencies
• Radiation
• Stress
• Tight scalp.

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Find out about

Female Hair Loss Prevention & Treatment Options

Hirsutism and PCOS