Experiencing hair loss for a huge amount might get your nervous. However, you should now that hair loss related to thyroid diseases caused by thyroid conditions is typically temporary.
It can show itself in two different forms: hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. While the former one is called underactive thyroid causing many symptoms, such as weight gain and fatigue, the later one, hyperthyroidism, is known as overactive thyroid, may result in weight loss and extreme nervousness.
It is basically related to unbalance the hormonal system. You can make it again be in a balanced system by using some medications and other treatment ways you will read below in a while.
The Connection Between Thyroid Diseases and Hair Loss
When thyroid hormones work more or less than the optimal level, it affects hair growth and causes hair loss. Hair growing to start from the root in the bottom of your hair follicle creates more hair cells for hair growth. While it happens, oil glands help keep it soft and shiny at the same time.
however, any changing in hormonal balance might disturb and stop this hair circle. Mostly hormonal imbalance of T3 and T4 hormones affect negatively this process related to the development of hair at the root. the reason for thinning hair across your scalp is surely related to this condition.
For those with autoimmune thyroid disease tend to have a higher risk for alopecia areata that is rapid hair loss resulting in baldness in time. What is worst is that it can end with hair fall in other parts of the body such as eyebrows and chest. Before it is too late, you should apply one of the treatment ways you can find below.
The Life Cycle of Hair Growth
Although each hair follicle has its own life cycle by following independently of the surrounding strands, the phases and steps they follow for the life cycle are the same for each. During the first phase which will be explained more detailed below is where our hair actively grows.
It may even last from 1 to 3 or 4 years to be regenerated and produces a hair fiber. The circle closes with the third phase after the second one, the catagen phase, lasts 2 to 3 weeks. After the follicle retracts from the surface of the scalp, with the third and last step the hair stops growing within a few weeks.
To fully grasp what it is wrong for your hair growth, you know know how it works properly. When your thyroid hormones work more or less than the optimum level, this hair growth cycle will now work properly.
Knowing about the proper way of hair growth circle will help you to identify the difference between normal hair growth and hair loss related to thyroid abnormalities.
There are three main stages of hair growth period:
1.Anagen Phase: The first stage, that is also called the growth phase, is where your hair has started to grow properly.
Actually, the pace and the duration of hair growth is determined by the individual’s own genetic conditions but still, it is said that about 90 percent of the hair on your scalp growths in this stage averagely.
2. Catagen Phase: Transition phase is the second stage where it is known as the catagen phase that lasts almost three weeks.
This stage is related to less than 1 percent of the hairs on your scalp at a time.
3. Telogen Phase: The last phase is where the hair prepares itself to be shed. After that, it is pushed out of the follicle in the telogen phase and finally falls out at the end. Daily speaking, around 50 and 150 telogen hairs can be and then replaced by new growth.
When everything is successfully is done a the end, it is the time to start a new hair growth circle to begin.
How Can You Understand When You Have Thyroid-Related Hair Loss?
Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are two different results of thyroid-related factors. The symptoms are not necessarily to be completely bald, but reading thinning hair is enough sometimes to say that you have a hair loss problem.
When you experience hair loss more than the optimal one, which is between 50 and 100 hairs from your head each day, it is time to give an alert.
This condition may affect your psychology, too. When you realize some changes in mood; for example, when you feel extremely sensitive, such as anxiety, irritability, and the feeling of nervousness against many people in your daily life.
If you have sleepless night more than three days in a week, this insomnia also might be a symptom of thyroid-related hair loss. When it comes together with pain and weakness muscle, this means that the situation might be more critical than you think of.
Another symptom of hair loss which is associated with thyroid diseases is to gain or lose weight in a short time period. Abnormal weight changes are the thing you should take into consideration since they are certainly about a disease whether or not it is thyroid-related.
Besides all the symptoms listed above, dryness in the hair or skin, cognitive impairment problems remembering, and concentrating, abnormal menstruation, and being unable to tolerate hot temperatures or cold temperatures might be possibly your reason to realize the symptoms of thyroid-related hair loss problem.
When you recognize one of them, you should go to a doctor or hospital for a checkup. You should keep your peaceful attitude since thyroid-related hair loss is not something permanent, which means that you can find a treatment way to this temporary hair loss problems.
The signs that you can realize thyroid-related seriousness problems can be listed as such:
- If you realize some missing eyebrows on the outer edge
- Having experienced less hair on your legs, arms, and other areas of your body
- If you feel dry, and itchy sense of your hair scalp time to time
- When you have a serious amount of dandruff
- If your hair breaks easily after getting coarse and dull
- When you have quite soft and fine hair with lots of shedding
- If you or your friend realize that you have balding patches
What to Do Against Hair Loss Because of Thyroid Diseases?
In order to reverse thyroid hair loss, here are some tips that will get your hair back to being shiny, and healthy.
- Thyroid related diseases are caused by imbalance hormonal condition. That is why you should focus on to balance your hormones.
It is valid especially for women with the unbalanced hormonal condition due to pregnancy and menopause reasons. In fact, the hormonal shifts have a strong potential to affect your system including hair loss.
For instance, estrogen levels might have an influence on hair loss issue. When it is too high, which alters hormonal balance or increased chronic stress, this might increase your levels of thyroid-binding globulin. As a result of this, the thyroid hormones that are supposed to go through your bloodstream might remain inactive. Hence, it ends with some hypothyroid symptoms such as hair loss.
- Secondly, you should increase your iron level with some nutrients rich is iron to prevent iron deficiency in particular. Especially in premenopausal women, this issue gets more serious. It would be a good idea to have some iron supplement.
- Adrenal Fatigue to produce adrenaline and manage your fight or flight response should work properly for your endocrine system and your major metabolic processes.
If they do not work regularly, it means regulating blood pressure, electrolyte balance, blood sugar, immune response, digestion would take some harm. To prevent its negative impacts on the thyroid, you can find some managing methods with stress. For example, you can send time in natural places, you can learn some meditation techniques, or even or taking a nice relaxing bath would be good to decrease your stress level.
- When it comes to vitamin supplements, you should enrich your daily diet. By doing so, you can support your immune system. It would be better to consult your doctor if you are pregnant or have any chronic diseases.
Yet, it is still important to know that vitamin supplement supports your thyroid function and health. Additionally, you can take some minerals as an effervescent tablet to support your system so that it works properly as well as iodine, selenium, and zinc supplements.
- Your Labs should be optimal so that hormonal balance works properly.
Thyroid hair loss has a strong connection to the work of some hormones such as TSH, Free T4 (FT4), Free T3 (FT3), and Reverse T3 (RT3) levels. It is better to have a regular checkup one or two times in a year just to take some precautions when it is needed.
- The next tip you should take into consideration is to optimize your diet for thyroid health. By doing so, you will realize ditching toxic and inflammatory foods will help you a lot in the time since they are nutrients which are needed for essential thyroid function.
These can be listed as corn, soy, nightshades, eggs, nuts, and seeds. It is also recommended to consume some foods including plenty of grass-fed, pasture-raised meat, leafy greens, starchy vegetables, organic fruits, and healthy fats.
It is also a good idea to include collagen in your diet. This protein, that is packed with amino acids, and glutamine will give your hair its strength, and supports healthy bones and joints.
- Using some certain medication is also a smart way. It is only possible when your doctor recommends you to keep your condition under control with medication. It is because of keeping your hair thicker and regenerating hair growth. You should be patient enough for the result since it is not only one day or even one week process.
If your problem is associated with hypothyroidism, you can use the medicine named levothyroxine. Yet, if it is hyperthyroidism, this time propylthiouracil and methimazole, and beta-blockers might work well for you.
The best way to approach this issue is to consult your doctor since it is needed to be monitored your thyroid levels when you consume the medicine. As I stressed above, you might need several months to see the result of hair growth. That means you should keep using the medications your doctor suggest patiently and regularly.
Natural Treatments of Hair Loss Problem Related to Thyroid Diseases
- For those who suffer from hypothyroidism, coconut oil is a good solution as a substance of polyunsaturated fats that provides the thyroid hormone to work properly.
By containing medium-chain fatty acids and healthy saturated fats, coconut oil success in restoring thyroid health. you can use one teaspoon coconut oil every day to fight with hypothyroidism. Alternatively, you can apply some hair mask prepared with coconut hair for hair growth and shiny hairs.
- Sea Kelp for thyroid hair loss is another homemade idea for your good. It is recommended by many doctors since it has a high content of iodine. therefore, by maintaining thyroid function, sea kelp can help you.
Not only promoting your hair but also curbing hair fall will be beneficial a lot for you after using sea kelp which contains essential vitamins and minerals making your hair strong protecting it from the harmful rays of the sun.
- The next natural treatment for hair loss related to thyroid-related issues is Saw Palmetto. The reason why saw palmetto is used when fighting with hair loss is about its being inhibition of DHT production in your body, which means it can prevent hair fall from follicle damage by promoting healthy hair growth.
You can buy some and brew saw palmetto into your tea around doses of 160-200 mg in a day. For the best result, it is better to make it twice a day. I hope you will like the taste and enjoy your tea time more when accomplished with saw palmetto!
- As one of the antioxidant, Vitamin E protecting body tissue from damage caused by substances called free radicals and helping to keep the immune system strong against viruses and bacteria.
When it comes to hair loss related issues, Vitamin E has an important role to nourish your hair by repairing and then building your tissue. You can take vitamin E from many food sources.
For example, Vegetable oils such as wheat germ, sunflower, safflower, corn, and soybean oils, green leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli are good examples. Besides, you should consume nuts like almonds, peanuts, and hazelnuts, seeds such as sunflower seeds to get Vitamin E in order to fight with hair loss problem.
You can prepare a mix at home and apply your hair instead of having Vitamin E directly with food rich in Vitamin E. The oil of Vitamin E will help you with it. You can massage your head with Vitamin E oil directly so that you can support to improve blood circulation in your hair by helping to have hair shiny.
Or alternatively, you can easily mix two Vitamin E capsules with 1 tablespoon of almond oil, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, 1 teaspoon of castor oil, and few drops of lavender essential oil. After mixing all the ingredients, you should store the mixture in a jar. You can apply the oil mixture on your entire hair and hair scalp.
However, you should leave it there during the night. Please do not forget to rinse it off immediately when you wake up. You need to use also shampoo and cold water the next morning.
It would be better to apply this mixture regularly if you want to see the result in the possible shortest time. It will both prevent hair loss, and strong roots of your hair because of playing a role like antioxidants that fight free radicals.
- Here are some essential oil types to support hair growth and improve hair density. You can use Arnica montana, Cedrus atlantica, Thyme Vulgaris, Lavandula Angustifolia, Pilocarpus jaborandi, Ocimum sanctum, and Rosmarinus officinalis together with some other combinations by preparing hair mask.
You can prepare a hair mask contained essential oil easily at home. For example, you can use ginger and olive oil as one of the best solutions for hair loss and hair growth.
This mixture is very effective since it contains a high level of vitamins, it can easily nourish your hair from the scalp to the ends. Moreover, olive oil has a strong potential to add your body to your hair making your hair thinning in time.
For this hair loss mask, you can take ginger essential oil and then, you need to massage this mixture onto your hair. You should wait between 30 and 45 minutes for the best result. You can spend your time when doing your favorite activity such as reading a book or watching a TV series. After that, you should rinse it gently.
Or the second option is that you can leave it overnight if you do not have time during the day. If you follow one, you should rinse your hair when you wake up in the morning by being very careful.
The other alternative is to prepare a hair mask with curry leaves and coconut oil. It works well to reduce hair fall by moisturizing and nourishing hair. You can take 10-12 fresh curry leaves and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil as the ingredients.
Firstly, you should heat the curry leaves in the coconut oil until they pop. Subsequently, you should wait until the oil has come down to a warm temperature, and then apply it to your hair scalp and hair. Please do not forget to wait around 20 minutes before rinsing off with a shampoo gently.
Apart from that, there are other essential oils for hair loss related to thyroid diseases, which you can easily find a supermarket near to your home.
Argan oil which is so beneficial with rich in natural phenols that are beneficial to your hair follicles, aloe vera juice to protect the skin on the scalp and stimulate new growth of hair, and cocoa butter in order to penetrate the deep layers of the skin and nourish because of the breakage for individuals with damaged hair it is three of them.
The rest can be listed as biotin, sage extract, jojoba oil, macadamia nut oil, meadowsweet, and sesame oil. While biotin includes Vitamin B helping hair and skin health by providing an essential ingredient in the process of hair growth, the sage extract, that is one of the traditional ways of medical systems, is successful when it comes to fighting hair loss and baldness.
Moreover, the fatty acids in macadamia oil will help make your hair strong, and shiny with meadowsweet clarifying your hair scalp and helping promote circulation around follicles and hair shafts.
- You should change your daily habits when it comes to hair care. If you suffer from hair loss related to thyroid-related issues, you should be more careful than you used to.
For example, you can start with avoiding pulling your hair into tight braids, buns, and ponytails. Secondly, it is significant not to twist and pull your hair; you should take care gently as long as possible. These tips will help you not to make your hair fall bigger.
- Homemade remedies are not limited to the essential hair loss oils or hair mask prepared at home. You should change your mood and prepare your psychology by supporting some activities such as motivation, yoga, regular exercise, or it even enough to feel positive and good to spend time with your close friends.
In other words, you should do whatever you can do to relieve your excessive stress that is what you should manage first to fight with all diseases during your entire life. Some mindfulness techniques and meditation are such popular methods nowadays to regulate the blood sugar and enhancing circulation and then promoting regrowth of hair.
There are some people using acupuncture to combat hair loss related to a thyroid issue and have positive vibes in daily life. It would work for you, too.
Especially for women hair loss treatment, it is common although acupuncture whose needles inserted into the scalp initially is known as a form of Chinese medicine which has been practiced for thousands of years thought the history. It might help stimulate your hair follicles, which is helpful to promote regrowth.
