December 27 2005, 1:50 pm PT | Posted in: Age + Hair Loss Causes
Hi,
I’m only 16 years old and i’ve noticed I’m losing alot of hair, more then the 100 hairs a day that is “normal”, probably about 400+ a day. My hair has been going gray since I was 14 years old and I’ve died it a few times using the same product each time so I don’t think thats the problem. Since it started (or maybe a day before?) it was VERY itchy, and has been since. Is there anyone you can recommend going to see? or anything I can do myself? As its obviously far from normal losing hair/graying at 14-16yrs old.
You have an interesting problem which is not common and so your first step (based on your symptoms) should be to go to a dermatologist. You should expect that they will want to get some blood tests and possibly do a scalp biopsy. The dermatologist will likely advise you to stop using the hair dye at least until a diagnosis is established since dye in itself can cause itching and hair loss in some cases.
Before you go, there is one thing you can do - perform a hair count. Here is how you do it:
- Clean your brush and shower drain of all hair and change your pillowcase.
- For one week, collect all the hair that falls out and place it into an individual baggy marked with the day of the week.
- At the end of the week, sit down and count EACH hair in EACH baggy — keep a tally.
If your hair loss is less than 100 hairs per day (and some experts say 150 hairs), this is considered a normal amount of loss. When you go to a doctor for this problem, this will also be useful information for them so you might consider making a copy of the tally or bringing the hairs in so that they can be examined under a microscope. Whatever you collect, the actual hair loss will be higher because hair falls out everyplace you go, so if you count 100 hairs/day, it is possible the actual loss might be double that number. You will want your scalp mapped out for miniaturization to determine if you have premature genetic balding.
Hope all goes well!
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What is the exact cause of premature graying of hair?? Is it the deficiency of certain elements in food?? Well i have heard it is Zinc deficiency that causes this problem.
Is that true??