Whether you’re a man or a woman, noticing your hair becoming thinner can be an upsetting experience. While there are permanent solutions to some types of hair loss, such as hair restoration surgery, in many cases, surgery isn’t appropriate until the hair loss has advanced somewhat.
In the meantime, you’re left to cope with a decreasing amount of hair on your scalp. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can get a handle on your hair loss and come to terms with it until the time is right for surgery.
Be Gentle
While gentleness won’t put a stop to hair loss that’s occurring due to genes and family history, being kind to your hair will put a stop to excess stress on it and prevent hair loss due to pressure or harsh chemicals. Take a minute to assess and re-evaluate the products you use on your hair and the styling tools you use, as well as when you use them.
Once people thought that brushing the hair frequently made it shiny and healthy. As it turns out, brushing it creates split ends. Trying to comb or brush your hair when it’s wet creates another dilemma. Hair is weaker when wet, so if you try to pull a brush through wet hair, you run the risk of having more strands pull out or of having a considerable number of hairs break.
The chemicals in styling gels, hair spray and hair dye can also make your hair more likely to break, which can make any thinning you have more noticeable. Try to avoid the use of heat styling tools, too, as high heat can also damage your hair.
Fix Up Your Diet
In some cases, problems with your hair can be related to problems with your diet. Just like every other part of your body, your hair thrives when it has enough nutrients. One of the more important nutrients for hair is protein. While most people get more than enough protein in their diets, not everyone does. If you’re not eating enough protein, the evidence might be in the state of your hair. Since hair is made of protein, when you don’t get enough, it has trouble growing back. Zinc and iron are two more nutrients that play a big role when it comes to growing healthy hair.
Change Your Hairstyle
While you wait to be ready for a hair transplant, you might consider making a few tweaks to your hairstyle to minimize the appearance of hair loss. Trimming the hair very short or even shaving the head will make hair loss less visible on a man. A woman with hair loss might try changing the position of her part or might try a completely new style to help mask the thinning.
Changing your hairstyle can also help prevent hair loss in some cases. If your hair is breaking and falling out because your regularly pull it back into a tight ponytail or bun or wear your hair in braids on a regular basis, switching to a looser style can help ease some of that tension and reduce or eliminate the hair loss. Another approach that can be successful is to highlight the hair or make it lighter overall, which can have the impact of looking like a fuller head of hair.
Discuss Your Options
The first step in treating your hair loss is getting to the bottom of it in terms of the cause. Seeing a hair restoration specialist can help you determine what’s behind your hair loss and what your treatments are. In cases when the hair loss is related to a medical condition or external factor, such as a too-tight hairstyle, treating the condition or removing the external factor might be all you need to see results.
A hair restoration specialist can also go over the process of a hair transplant with you and help you determine if you’re a viable candidate and when the surgery might be appropriate. For the surgery to be successful, you need to have a sufficient amount of donor hair on the sides and back of your head to be transplanted. It’s also important to understand that while the results from the surgery are permanent, you might continue to lose hair, meaning you might need an additional surgery in the future.
Finding out the cause of your hair loss and your options will help you learn to cope with it or even correct it entirely. Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a hair restoration specialist with more than 20 years of experience, is available to discuss any hair loss concerns you have and to review your options for treatment. Dr. Epstein sees patients in New York City and in Miami. For an appointment in New York, call (212) 759-3484. To schedule a consultation in Miami, call (305) 666-1774.