by Amanda Cook

Created on: October 29, 2008

There are many causes of hair loss among men women, and children. Though, most people already know about pattern baldness or its technical term androgenetic alopecia, which is usually hereditary. Some may have never heard of cicatricial alopecia, alopecia areata, telogen effluvium, and traction baldness.

Ciciatricial alopecia is a permanent hair loss caused by scarring, in which inflammation damages and scars the hair follicles which prevents new from growing. The follicles are where the stem cells and oil glands are. The inflammation may predominantly involve lymphocytes. There are other types of ciciatricial alopecia also. Lichen planopilaris, frontal fibrosing alopecia, central centrifungal alopecia, dissecting cellulitis, and pseudepelade.

Alopecia areata is a patchy baldness that is an autoimmune disease, which the cause of is unknown. Along with affecting your immune system, with this you may also lose and regrow hair a few times. You may already be genetically predisposed to this condition. At a young age there is a poorer outcome, in which the hair may not regrow. Anything can trigger it from a virus to something in the environment.

Telogen Effluvium is a chronic hair loss due to changes in your normal hair cycle. Among other causes it is usually brought on by stress or some other type of shock. The hair normally grows back within a few months. In some cases there is a loss of the eyelashes and eyebrows. And like alopecia areata it also affects you immune system.

Traction Baldness is normally caused by excessive pulling of the hair or pulling the hair too tightly. Most cases of this are found in people that have Trichotillmania, which is a type of mental illness where the person has the irresistible urge to pull their hair from their scalp or other areas.

All of these causes are generally unknown to how they come to be and generally have the same symptoms which are burning, itching, or tenderness of the scalp. Or sometimes have all of the symptoms at once. Also; they have the same treatments depending on how severe the case is. There topical corticosteroids with medium to high potency. Subcutaneous steroid injections are under the skin injections. Last is ultraviolet light therapy.

For those who are experiencing any of these symptoms look into these hair loss causes. Most of them if you catch it in time hair loss can be prevented. Hair loss can also lead to depression and other emotional issues, which are the cause of the hair loss. So it seems to me that it's better to take care of the problem before the cycle even starts.

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