Illness and hair loss: what you should know

Thyroid

Thyroid disease is often associated with hair loss. Hair growth depends on the working of the thyroid gland. When abnormal levels of thyroid hormones are produced by this gland, hair growth can be affected. If you have too much thyroid hormone, your body hair may remain intact while the hair on your head thins. Too low a level of thyroid hormone can cause the loss of hair over the whole body. Thyroid disease is generally treatable, and the hair loss should disappear once hormone levels return to normal. Dr Fares Seffen offers a hair transplant in Tunisia suited to every type of hair loss; contact us today to benefit from it.

Lupus

Another disease that can bring on hair loss is lupus, an autoimmune condition that can damage the skin, the joints and the organs. The hair loss associated with it may be a side effect of the disease, or of the drugs taken to treat it. Hair loss can prove permanent where scar tissue has formed; where that is not the case, the hair will grow back, and when lupus treatment brings the disease under control, the hair will grow back if the loss was linked to the drugs taken.

Cancer

It is hard not to think of cancer when drug-related hair loss is mentioned. Chemotherapy can cause hair loss. This is because these drugs, designed to destroy cancer cells, also attack other rapidly dividing cells such as those at the hair root. Chemotherapy can make all the body's hair fall out, and not only the hair on the head. This hair loss generally begins two to four weeks after treatment starts. The hair grows back a few weeks after treatment, but may have a different texture and colour. Depending on the dose, the various drugs responsible may bring about hair loss ranging from thinning to total loss.