Caring For Your Hair And Skin In Menopause
My hair, nails and skin look amazing since menopause started, said no perimenopausal or postmenopausal woman EVER! BUT that does not mean all hope is lost. On the contrary, there is a lot of easy and effective actions to take.
In general, skin and hair appearance are a reflection of what our body is trying to tell us. We are what we eatso lets start with the nitty gritty about diet and nutrients:
TAKE HOME POINT: for most women- a daily multivitamin is really all you need.
Pay Attention To Your Diet
Hair loss is often one of the first signs of a nutritional deficiency. When your body lacks particular micronutrients to function adequately, essential processes like brain and heart function take priority. Non-essential jobs, including hair growth and production, are stopped to allow nutrients to be redirected to the body’s parts where they are needed the most.
Nutrient deficiency is more prevalent among older individuals because the body loses its ability to effectively use and retain the vital compounds found in our food. This can amplify hair thinning that is already taking place during menopause.
Consume a well-rounded diet that incorporates plenty of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and olive oil. The fatty acids found in fish, seeds, and legumes are also crucial for your tresses’ health. Augment your nutritional intake with Significant Other Hair Fortifying Vitamins, a multivitamin supplement that includes folic acid, biotin, and vitamin B6. Significant Other gummies are packed with vitamins chosen specifically to bolster your aging locks.
Find Out If A Medical Issue Is Causing Your Hair Loss
Perimenopause is a natural state of aging, but hair loss can be a symptom of a more serious problem. The first thing you should do if youre experience hair loss is see your doctor to make sure you dont have a health issue .
Once you and your doctor have determined that your hair loss is caused by perimenopause, it might be time to try out some other treatments.
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What Is The Prognosis/outlook For Women With Hair Loss
Your diagnosis determines the prognosis:
- Anagen and telogen shedding may stop with time.
- Treat any diseases associated with hair loss.
- Disguise or cover your hair loss using a wig or hat.
- Early treatment of alopecia may reduce the speed of thinning and may promote regrowth.
While hair loss is not itself dangerous, women with hair loss tend to be very upset by the changes to their appearance. These negative feelings can affect self-esteem and social lives. Recent studies suggest that FPHL can be associated with conditions that include metabolic syndrome, endocrine disorders and diabetes.
What Are The Common Causes Of Hair Loss In Women
What causes hair loss?
- Hair style: Your style of hair can cause hair loss when your hair is arranged in ways that pull on your roots, like tight ponytails, braids, or corn rows. This type of hair loss is called traction alopecia. If hair follicles are damaged, the loss can be permanent.
- Vitamin deficiency.
- Over processed scalp hair .
What causes anagen effluvium hair loss?
- Toxic substances, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy and some medications. These cause sudden hair loss that can occur anywhere on your body. It happens to hair in the growth stage. Sometimes, this type of hair loss can be permanent if your hair follicles are damaged.
What causes telogen effluvium hair loss?
- Extreme physical stress or shock to your body: This causes temporary hair loss. This category includes events like losing a lot of weight, surgery, anemia, illness and having a baby.
- Extreme emotional stress: mental illness, the death of a loved one, etc.
- An abnormal thyroid.
- Medications and supplements: blood pressure medicines, gout medicines and high doses of Vitamin A.
- Hormone changes caused by pregnancy, menopause or birth control pills.
What causes FPHL ?
- Genes: Your familys genes can cause thinning of hair along the top of your head.
- Aging: Hormone changes as you age can cause balding.
- Menopause: This type of hair loss often gets worse when estrogen is lost during menopause.
There are also some conditions that affect hair loss:
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What Are The Symptoms Of Menopausal Hair Loss
Women experiencing menopause hair loss tend to lose hair differently from men. Whereas men see pronounced areas of thinning in a classic horseshoe shape, women will experience menopausal hair loss as all over thinning. Because thinning hair during menopause is more uniform and subtle, you might not even notice it at first.
If youre worried about menopause hair loss, here are a few signs to look out for:
- Widening part
- More hair on your pillow, hairbrush, or shower drain
- Hair looks limp and is more difficult to style
- Hair breaks off more easily than usual
In rare cases, some women with menopausal hair loss experience pronounced thinning at the crown or the sides of the head.
The sooner you notice these signs of menopause hair loss, the easier it will be to treat it. So if youre going through the change, keep an eye out!
Preventing Menopause Hair Loss Tip #: Be Gentle With Your Hair
With your hair growing more slowly, its important to take care of the hair you already have on your head. That means being extra gentle with hot tools and dyes! Overstyling and over-processing can cause hair to break off, which will make your hair appear more thin.
One easy change you can make to help prevent menopause hair loss is to swap out your regular comb for a Wet Brush. The Wet Brush has soft silicone bristles that gently detangle your hair with far less breakage than a traditional comb.
Detangle Wet Brush, Rose
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Nutrients For Healthy Hair During Menopause
For many women, hair loss during menopause is a stressful and all too common occurrence and bio-identical hormone replacement therapy can be an excellent treatment option. However, your diet can also play a huge role in maintaining healthy hair during menopause. These ten nutrients can make excellent additions to your diet.
Preventing Hair Loss: Over
The simplest solution is to start using 5 percent minoxidil, which is available without a prescription, says Bruce. The trade name is Rogaine, but there are also generic versions available. This treatment is effective in about two out of three people who use it, she says.
Compliance can be an issue, because you have to use it every day to retain the benefits, she says. There are medications marketed to both men and women, but women can use the mens formulation and it is often less expensive.
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Oral prescription drugs have been shown to help with female pattern hair loss. These drugs have been approved for use in other conditions, but are used by doctors off-label for FPHL, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association .
Spironolactone, a blood pressure medication that is a diuretic can prevent hair loss from worsening and restore hair growth, according to the AAD. Other drugs block the effects of circulating androgens or lower androgen levels.
These oral medications should not be used by women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, according to the AAD.
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Embrace Your Hair Loss During Perimenopause
I called my friend Emily when I had finished all of my research, excited about all of the things we could do for our thinning hair. I went down my list, ticking everything off, explaining, elucidating, answering questions before she could even ask them. When I was finished, I let out a deep breath, and said, Well, I guess thats it.
There was a long pause.
Hello? I said. Em? Are you there?
Yes, Im here, but the question is, are you all there?
What are you talking about?
That sounds totally exhausting and really expensive. Forget it! You know what Im doing? Im getting a summer hat! I saw a really cute one when I was at the mall, but it was like $50, and I thought, thats crazy, Im not spending fifty bucks on a stupid straw hat! Now that seems like a total bargain to me! Im just going to wear hats all the time! Wool hats in winter, straw hats in summer. Itll be an investment Ill make every couple years. Done! Thank you, Kelly, you have made me realize I dont need to solve this problem, I just need to keep covering it up.
Umm, youre welcome?
But Emily had already hung up, apparently impatient to get on her with her life and get to the mall. I didnt even know Emily frequented malls.
But if theres one thing Ive learned, its that perimenopause changes us all.
This essay was originally written by Kelly Dwyer, a published novelist, playwright, and freelance writer.
What Questions Might Your Healthcare Provider Ask To Diagnose And Categorize Your Hair Loss
Your healthcare provider might ask about your habits:
- What kinds of hair products do you use?
- What kinds of hair styles do you wear?
- What types of food do you eat ?
- Do you have a habit of pulling your hair out ?
They might ask about your history:
- Has anyone in your immediate family experienced hair loss?
- Is there anything stressful going on in your life?
- What medications and supplements do you take every day?
- Has hair loss ever happened to you before?
- What foods are in your diet?
And, they might ask about your observations:
- How long have you been losing hair?
- Have you been shedding more?
- Have you noticed hair loss in places other than your scalp, like your eyebrows? Leg and arm hair?
- Does anything worsen your hair loss?
- Does anything improve your hair loss?
- Have you noticed hair loss occasionally or has it been going on continuously?
- Have you noticed if your hair growth has changed?
- Has your hair been breaking more often?
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What Is Female Pattern Hair Loss
The most common type of hair loss in women is called androgenetic alopecia, or female pattern hair loss . Hair follicles shrink, causing the hair to become thinner and finer, with decreased numbers of hairs overall. The hairs growing phase also gets shorter and fewer hairs are in the active growing phase.
Usually in female pattern hair loss, the frontal hairline stays about the same, but there can be a widening of the part and a central thinning of the hair, says Alison Bruce, MBChB, a dermatologist at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Bruce presented information on common causes of midlife hair loss and new therapy options at the North American Medical Society Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, held September 2225, 2021.
How To Manage Menopausal Hair Loss With Diet Supplements And Lifestyle
There are several effective supplements on the market to address menopausal hair thinning and loss. Diet plays an important role in managing hormones, and should be seriously considered as women enter menopause. In particular, Denniston advocates an anti-inflammation and low-glycemic diet. “Keeping inflammation and insulin regulated is important,” as underlying inflammation and insulin resistance can affect the 5-alpha-reductase pathway, she says.
Denniston also suggests a high-fiber diet to “keep blood sugar stable and to keep insulin resistance and testosterone in check.” She also suggests incorporating ground raw flaxseed into your diet. “It has lignans that help modulate estrogen activity and omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation.”
Maca is another supplement to consider, Denniston says, to “support the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, which can make a big difference for a womans symptoms during menopause.” She adds, “The plant sterols in maca have a balancing effect on the endocrine system. Maca has been used for hundreds of years in Peru to help ease menopausal symptoms.”
A couple other herbs that may be helpful include adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha and holy basil. Denniston says they can “help regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and increase stress resilience.” She also likes reishi mushroom and saw palmetto. These help “block the 5-alpha-reductase enzyme and the production of super testosterone, dihydrotestosterone.”
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Complete Your Nutrient Pack
Consuming a healthy balanced diet to complete your nutrition deficiency acts as the best defense mechanism against hair loss. Include whole grains, fruits, and vegetables in every meal. Drinking green tea and taking vitamin B6 and folic acid supplements may help restore hair growth as well. Essential fatty acids also play a crucial role in maintaining hair health.
Au Naturale Is Always Best
Try to not use hair dryers, straighteners, extensions, and so on so as to prevent your hair from drying, breaking, and falling out. If you have to dye your hair, use an all natural hair colour. Skip a day between hair washes to let your hair build up its natural oils and keep your follicles strong. Let your hair dry naturally and donât tie it in buns, ponytails, or braids.
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Contact Our San Francisco Hair Transplant Doctor For Help
Contact or call the MHTA Clinic for a consultation with Dr. Diep, a widely-known San Francisco hair transplant doctor. He has performed many hair transplant surgeries for female patients and is available to consult about your distinct hair loss condition and restoration options. Dont let menopause influence how you feel about yourself and your appearance if hair loss is an issue for you, call or contact us online here for more information.