I recently heard from a very distraught woman who told me she counted her hair loss one day last week and the total number of hairs she had was over 250. She was very nervous about this. However, he counted again the next day and found that he had lost only 60 hairs that day. After a day he counted again and found about 40 hairs. The next day, she was back again, about 250 hairs. She could not understand why the loss was happening like this.
She said in part: “Can it ever be normal to lose 250 hairs per day? I’ve read that if you lose more than 100 hairs per day it can be abnormal or cause for concern, but I don’t lose that much Every single day. I’m just wondering if I should be concerned. I’ve noticed more hair loss over the past few weeks, but it seems worse some days and better on others.” I will attempt to address these concerns in the following article.
Occasionally, you may lose an alarming amount of hair during seasonal shedding or with a hair condition such as telogen effluvium (TE). 250 strands of hair would definitely fit into any of these scenarios. But, most people who are experiencing normal hair loss lose less than 100 hairs per day during a normal hair cycle. However, keep in mind that these numbers are based on an average head of hair. By this I mean that this average number (100 varieties) is a percentage. Basically, it’s not considered a cause for concern that about 5 – 10% of the strands on your head are lost when those hairs are going through a “resting” or shedding phase.
Hair goes through a life cycle. Sometimes it is rising and sometimes it is falling. We all have some or the other hair fall every day. And, at any given time, most people are shedding 5 – 10% of that on a daily basis. But, sometimes, either different weather, illness, or a condition called telogen effluvium or other hair loss conditions alter this balance and we may lose more than this normal percentage. However, if you’re someone who has a lot more hair than other people, your “normal” percentage may be higher than the 100 hairs you often read about.
And, the wild ups and downs this young woman was seeing are typical, too. Some days you may lose more hair than others due to various reasons. I often suggest taking the average over several days, if you must count at all. In such a situation, he had lost about 600 hairs during 4 days. So, this put her on an average of about 150 hairs per day, which was pretty high. And, she felt in her heart that what she was seeing was unusual for her. So, unless she was seeing seasonal shedding, it makes sense to take a look at some hair loss issues like TE (telogen effluvium) or AGA (androgenic alopecia) to see if these things were possibilities.
Source by Ava Alderman
