There are many reasons you could be seeing a difference in your hair, and there is almost always an explanation. Mel goes through what she has learned to be the most common cause of hair loss.

Watch to learn more!

Hi, and welcome back to our channel. We want to talk to you today about hair loss and hair thinning. What's normal. What's not. If you liked this, please subscribe, ring the bell so we can stay in touch and bring you more hair information. My name's Melanie, I'm not a doctor, but I have had a hair loss journey where I've learned a lot and want to share it with you.

So, one of the first things, where does your hair loss journey begin? It begins with is the amount of hair loss I'm experiencing normal or not. How do you tell, so let's talk about what is normal. What is normal is for someone to lose about 50 to a hundred hairs a day. And believe it or not, women lose more than men because of the processing, the brushing and the things that we do it so 50 to a hundred years may sound like a lot, but it's really not because we have over a hundred thousand hairs on average.

So how do you know if your hair's falling out too quickly before we get to that? And I'm going to show you a little test at the end, you can do on yourself. Before we get to that, I want to run through some of the causes of hair loss with you. So that you can kind of have a little checklist, say that's me.

That's not, it can help you think about hair loss and how to solve the problem. So lots of causes of hair loss, first and foremost, dying our hair chemicals on the follicle, just like chemicals on any living thing can cause it to grow as quickly or cause the follicle damage and, and to fall out heat styling.

Heat styling causes hair loss because we'll just pause inflammation. When the follicles inflamed, you have more hair loss, heat is always associated with inflammation. So we really want to be careful the blow dryer and the styler, any kind of heat, even hot weather. We want to be careful with on the hair, over brushing, brushing too hard, pulling it the hair, instead of getting your hair and brushing from the bottom up.

If you're pulling, obviously that's going to cause hair loss washing too much can cause hair loss because it drives up the follicles. Washing too little can cause hair loss because it clogs up the follicles with skin. Remember the scalp is skin skin in the form of dandruff. Sebum that comes out of the follicle hair products, always a balance that we have to strike sort of a top, a little bit about conditions that can cause it.

So if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be a major cause of hair loss. Hyperthyroidism hypothyroidism, diet and nutrition. Probably one of the most common really is people just not getting the nutrients. Remember hairs to think of it as a tree, as a plant, it's a living growing thing. It needs nurturing. It needs vitamins for hair growth.

It needs regular nutrients watering and gentle care. So look at your diet, stress alopecia, which means hair loss and all of its type. Are growing, not just because our population's aging, but because of stress, stress is a major cause of hair loss, your life cycle, where are you in your life cycle pregnancy?

We know that can cause hair loss, not everyone suffers it. Postpartum can cause hair loss. Those are often associated hormones and nutrition menopause. When I went through menopause, my hair got so thin. I didn't even know what to do with it. He got thin and brittle too, so that can really change it. This one kills me.

I love a glass of wine alcohols and inflammatory alcohol and excessive use of alcohol. Can cause hair loss, not something we want to hear, but moderation is always the key, right? So those are some of the things that can cause hair loss. Once you determined, I've got too much hair on my pillow. I've got too much here in the shower.

I've got too much hair in my hair brush. If it's more than that, 50 to a hundred a day. You want to look at some of these causes, if you can't afford to go to the dermatologist and the dermatologist is the doctor we want to begin with because your scalpel skin that's what a dermatologist does. They take care of your skin.

If you can't afford to go to a dermatologist, um, do your best to keep air journal and keep track of these things. But we encourage you to go to a dermatologist. And ask your dermatologist to do the following. You can ask them to take blood work. That way can help you determine if your hair loss is from a nutrient deficiency.

You can have the dermatologist do a scalp biopsy. This is the key way to know what is calling causing the hair loss. Dermatologist also have a hair counting machines. Yes, there is such a thing as a hair counting machine. It's a high powered microscope. Hooked up to a camera and they had a little piece of your hair.

Take a piece of the scalp and watch what happens to the follicles. You can ask them to do that. You can also ask them to do the poll task. Now you can do the poll test at the dermatologist. Or you can do it yourself, but here's how you do the whole test. So you get a little piece of hair like this, about the size, and you kind of run through your fingers like this.

Okay. Make sure it's smooth. And then you pull on the bottom a little and so you can get in here and get any. Okay, so I'm gonna pull this. I'm gonna smooth it out a little bit. Okay. We'll see. I don't know how many strains this is, but, um, got that fitness and then start going to you yet, but I didn't get it here. That's good. I'm not losing hair in that, in that phase of losing hair, if you lose. More than about 10% of your hair. Um, on average, for example, let's say this was a hundred strands and I pulled it. I got 10 strands. That could be a problem. Let me explain why there are three phases to your hair.

And Virgin catagen, intelligent anogen is when everything's growing. Think of it as a tree and it's spring. And the leaves on the tree are green and happy. Catagen is kinda like fall when your hair and the tree, the leaves on the tree are essentially turning to different colors to get ready to fall. So androgen is the happy face everything's growing.

Catagen says. Nothing's happening. We're not growing anymore. We're getting ready to fall and intelligent is that stage I was describing as I was pulling out my hair. Telogen like when the leaves from the tree actually fall, the telogen phase, usually it's normal to lose about six to 9% of your hair during that phase, that's normal.

If it goes above 10% and that hair poll test is showing about 10% of hair loss. You really want to go to your doctor? Look at some of the factors that we listed earlier, heritage so important to all of us. It takes a last though it takes laughter and your nutrients. And if you're sick, your body is going to take care of its organs first.

So. Don't deny or nor the information that your hair is giving you, pay attention, get to your doctor. And please, if there's any questions we would love to hear from you, we want to do anything we can to help you on this hair journey. So if you like us, please subscribe, ring the bell, send us questions. We want to share this with you and share the information.