Male Pattern Baldness - Truth Be Told
How to Reverse Hair Loss
|
Coming to terms with hair loss can be the source of a lot of unwanted stress and frustration. After all, we're quite attached to our hair. Even though a lot of men may pull off the bald look extremely well, saying goodbye to a thick head of hair can bedifficult. But what if I told you that experiencing hair loss doesn't mean that you have to go bald? In fact, with the right treatment program, you might be able to stop the dreaded receding hairline.
If you're not ready to do the comb over or go completely buzzed, keep reading. We're going to talk about how you can stop male pattern baldness and in some cases, even reverse it.
Showing Signs of Balding? Take a Proactive Approach
You’re not going to be able to preserve your head of hair if you don’t take action. The sooner you spot the problem and start a treatment program, the better your chances are to stop hair loss. The challenge that a lot of people face is spotting the signs of balding before losing a significant portion of hair.
Common Signs of Balding
- An abrupt change in the way your hair reacts to being styled and brushed.
- Receding hairline and thinning around the temples.
- Your hair is growing slower and coming in thinner.
- You start to notice more than your fair share of hair lying in the sink, shower, stuck in your hairbrush, or on your pillow.
- You start noticing bald spots.
When you notice one or more of these problems, you might be experiencing hair loss. For more information on the different stages of balding, have a look at the Norwood Scale. There, you can see some of the common types of male pattern baldness. As hair loss progresses it becomes more difficult to keep your hair and potentially regrow lost hair.
How to Address Hair Loss in the Early Stages
Did you know that approximately 85% of American men will experience some level of androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness) by age 50? Perhaps knowing you’re not alone isn’t enough to make you feel better, but understand that advancements in medical science have made it more likely to stop the signs of balding from progressing. A study in 1998 examining male pattern hair loss in men aged 18 - 49 found that 42% experienced moderate to extensive hair loss, and this got worse with age (16% for ages 18-29 to 53% for ages 40-49).
Relax and reduce stress to help your hair grow
You may not know it, but stress affects your health in a number of different ways. It can zap your energy, make you feel physically ill, and even cause your hair to fall out. That’s right, stress can play a role in contributing to thinning hair. On its own, stress-related hair loss is usually temporary and may grow back over time.
Talk to a Dermatologist and Be realistic with your approach to hair loss
You always hear these stories about people who take a homeopathic approach to fighting baldness. It’s usually some off-the-wall remedy like smearing a paste of ginger and cayenne pepper on your scalp three times a day or eating a special type of ginseng farmed only in a rural village in Tibet. We'll go on the record to say that it's highly unlikely that these remedies work at any level.
There’s a lot of misinformation, half-truths, and pseudoscience regarding hair loss, and there are also treatment programs that have been well-researched and tested in clinical settings. So, how do you find the difference? For starters, talk to the experts in the industry like dermatologists and general physicians about treatment programs. Avoid people advertising secret cures, all-natural remedies, and permanent fixes. If there was a way to stop baldness from happening, we’d all know about it already.
Explore your hair loss treatment options
It never hurts to do a little bit of research when exploring treatment options for hair loss. But at some point, you'll probably want to talk with a healthcare professional so that you can get a professional opinion about how to combat hair loss. We don't recommend cutting corners by exploring cheaper homeopathic and all-natural remedies as an alternative. Drugs like finasteride and minoxidil are clinically proven to treat male pattern baldness and even reverse hair loss with a majority of men, and they’re approved by the FDA.
As great as hair loss medicine is, there’s still a catch: you have to be committed. That means using the products exactly as directed and sticking to a treatment regimen for the long-term.
Consider new haircare products
You might be surprised to know that some of those shampoos, conditioners, and styling agents have harsh chemicals that do a number on your hair. You may want to consider switching to softer hair care products that are designed to slow down hair thinning in men. DHT-blocking shampoos and conditioners containing ingredients such as ketoconazole and pyrithione zinc have shown some promise in helping reverse hair loss by potentially disrupting the production of DHT, the hormone linked to male pattern baldness.
In fact, research posted in the Journal of Dermatology found that ketoconazole was effective in treating mice for dermatitis and hair loss. In clinical trials, researchers found that 15 men who used a unique hair lotion composed of, among other ingredient, finasteride, minoxidil, and ketoconazole for a 90-day period benefitted from hair growth, getting a noticeably thicker head of hair than what they had at the beginning of the studies. It is important to note that this was a classic pilot study and not a standard double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
There have also been studies on the effects of 1% pyrithione zinc shampoo and a 5% minoxidil solution. In one study, 200 men between the ages of 18 to 49 who experienced baldness between type III and type IV on the Norwood scale were given this treatment for a six-month period. They found that minoxidil, when used on its own, was approximately twice as effective as pyrithione zinc at stimulating hair growth, but that both products were successful at increasing the amount of visible hair when used over a 26-week period.
Going through male pattern baldness is frustrating and stressful. Fortunately, advancements in medicine make treatment easier and more effective than they were a couple of decades ago. Take advantage of products backed by science and research to stop hair loss.
