Myths About Hair Fall

1. Pull out a grey and 2 more will grow?
Myth!
A single follicular unit may consist of 1 to 3 hairs or even more. Repeated pulling out of hair from the same follicle will induce trauma to the entire unit damaging and scarring the follicular unit as a whole - losing its ability to produce hair.
However, pulling out a grey in no way has the ability to convert an otherwise normal dark hair into a grey one unless there is involved.

2. Stress cannot induces hair fall?
Myth!
Well if stress burned calories, all of us would be supermodels isn't it? 

Stress is blamed for many skin and hair problems and hair loss is generally one of them. But understand that
 - unless you were bedridden from high fever or infections
- you just delivered a baby
- you had a major surgery
It is not considered stress enough to induce hair fall! and there is absolutely nothing to worry as the excessive and sudden hair fall induced by stress called telogen effluvium is reversible- yay! with the right supplements and support therapies off course.

3. All patients need to be tested for hormonal imbalance?
Myth!
Hormone levels are usually tested on suspicion of hyperandrogenism which is seen in approximately 30-40% of female patients with receding hair line or widening of central partition (female pattern hair loss).

Only if you have other symptoms of androgen (testosterone) excess like excess hair growth on face, disturbed menstural cycles, recurring acne and thick hyperpigmented skin on your neck and axilla, hormonal testing is adviced.

Of course there are other hormones like thyroid which when disturbed can also contribute to hair fall or hair thinning. 

4. Treat your hair well and hair will not fall?
Myth! 

Oil well, massage well, use mild shampoos, go paraben free, deep condition your hair. Wow! imagine doing all of that…so much luxury!

But does that stop your hair fall?
Noooooo, even if you did all those things hair will still fall because hair is constantly in a cycle of growth (anagen), rest (catagen), dormant (telogen) and fall off (exogen).

Facts:
* as much as we love for our hair to be in the anagen phase, it has to fall off for the newer follicle to kick in.
* the telogen phase usually lasts for 4-6 weeks after the growth has begun and at any given time, we find 10% -15% of the hair in our head in this stage.
* there are normally about 100, 000 hair follicles in our scalp going through this cycle replacing all the hair on our scalp every 3-6 years. Yessss! 

When there is a disruption to this hair growth cycle in terms of telogen effluvium or damage done due to altered water, pollution, excess sun (uv damage), aggressive combing, vitamin deficiencies, more hair will enter the telogen phase resulting in a greater and significant hair loss (>150 hairs/day). 

So what do you do? 
Stay calm & treat on

Just invest your time and money in the right and essential products for your hair and do what you do with oiling and massaging etc.