While rarely dangerous or physically debilitating, hair loss is a condition that can severely reduce your quality of life, and lead to all manner of mentally and emotionally debilitating conditions. From loss of confidence to depression, alopecia can be a serious detriment, which is why it’s not surprising that so many myths have sprung up about baldness and hair loss. Here are the top 10:
1. You don’t have to worry about hair loss if you’re young. Actually, many people first begin to experience hair loss in their 20’s and 30’s, and some even earlier.
2. Using any hair products will cause baldness. Most hair products will only cause damage to already grown hair, not hair follicles, and will not cause baldness. Note: improper application of some relaxers and dyes CAN cause follicle damage. Always be careful with chemicals in your hair.
3. Wearing hats causes hair loss. Unless the hat is so tight it cuts off circulation, wearing a hat will not cause baldness or alopecia.
4. Stress can make you lose your hair. t cause permanent hair loss. Extreme stress like a major surgery can slow or halt hair growth temporarily, but it will resume as soon as the stress goes down.
5. Increasing blood flow to my head, with magnets or by hanging upside down, will restore lost hair. Blood flow is just one of, and the least important, component of hair loss. Increasing blood to the scalp will not restore lost hair.
6. Shaving or cutting hair makes it grow in thicker. This is a persistent myth caused by the fact that hair is thicker closer to the root, making fresh stubble appear thicker. Once it grows out, it will look just like it did before, though.
7. Shampooing causes hair loss. Another common myth. Shampooing only washes out hair that has already come loose through the natural hair growth cycle, it doesn’t affect alopecia or baldness at all.
8. If I notice hair falling out in the shower, I’m going bald. Many people panic if they see a lot of hair falling out at once. Actually, the natural hair growth cycle causes most people to lose about 100 hairs per day. This is perfectly natural, and that hair will regrow.
9. If I don’t notice hair falling out in the shower, I’m not balding. The opposite of number 8 is also a myth. Baldness isn’t caused so much by massive hair loss as it is by a process of hair progressively getting thinner and finer. You can go bald and barely see any hair in your drain at all.
10. Hair loss is passed down from the mother’s side of the family. While all of the factors contributing to hereditary alopecia aren’t known, the few identified genes can be and are passed down from either parent, not just the mother.
