Lose Estrogen? Hair Loss Follows

Aging isn't fair to women. When we lose estrogen, hair loss, wrinkles, and a variety of health issues follow. We have pills and creams to take for most of the symptoms, but that balding sensation isn't so easy to deal with. Rogaine for Women is an option, but it doesn't work for all women, perhaps not even most.

Don't feel like you're alone if you're losing hair fast. Over a third of all women report that they lose hair after the age of forty - and those are just the women who admit to it. When hormones change, hair loss is an inevitable fact of life, just like hot flashes and mood swings. (Come to think of it, the mood swings might just be a symptom of the symptoms!) Your hair falling out is simply part of how we're made. But you don't have to accept it.

Women who are losing hair due to hormonal changes have an option. Doctors have found that when you supplement estrogen, hair loss decreases and sometimes stops entirely. Why? Because when you lose estrogen, the hair loss hormones, primarily testosterone and androgen, are no longer blocked by the female hormones that encourage your hair to stay where it belongs. Hair follicles produce finer and finer hairs and ultimately die. Often, your hair loss is not traditional loss, but just shorter and finer hairs being produced, but by the time we hit our 80s, most women have experienced some version of real hair loss. This can be heartbreaking, especially for those of us who take pride in having beautiful hair.

One thing women have found to work against hair loss as they age is taking oral contraceptives. The hormonal boost in these little pills is often enough to ward off the beginnings of hair thinning, and even when it doesn't work perfectly it often prevents the start of low estrogen hair loss.

Doctors offer many aging women estrogen supplements, but this is not an ideal solution. First, many of these supplements also have other very bad health effects, such as the boosting of cancer risk. Second, many women have found that oral estrogen supplements have lengthened and even intensified their less-pleasant menopause changes. Often, the side effects are more unpleasant than the hair loss; after all, you can always wear a wig!

But wigs are not the only solution if you want the hair to stay put and the negative side effects of estrogen supplements to go. You can find a number of topical hair loss prevention creams that include estrogen. These topical creams have the added effect of blocking the androgen hormones that are created in your skin, which oral supplements are less effective on.

Ultimately, if you lose estrogen and hair loss results, you should consult your dermatologist for your best option. More likely than not, he'll tell you to go with a topical treatment. While this can be expensive over the short term, in the long term you'll be glad you did it. No amount of money can pay for your youth.

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