How to Avoid Damaged Hair Follicles and Keep Hair and Scalp Healthy


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Did you know that your hair is made up of com­pletely dead cells?  When I say this, I mean the hair strand itself is made up of com­pletely dead cells.  The liv­ing Cornrows cause thinning hair or traction alopeciapart of the hair that you see grow­ing on your head and other parts of your body is the hair fol­li­cle.  The hair fol­li­cle is where it all hap­pens – where the pre-programmed cells located in the bulb of the hair fol­li­cle deter­mine the future of each hair shaft.

The Hair Follicle

This tear-drop shaped hair fol­li­cle con­tains the cells that deter­mine the type of hair shaft that will be pro­duced – peach fuzz or the thicker pig­mented hair shaft.  These cells also deter­mine the color and tex­ture of the hair shaft as well as whether it will be straight or curly. There are hun­dreds of thou­sands of these hair fol­li­cles located in the skin all over your body.  It is vital to pre­vent dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles because these cells also con­trol the growth cycle of the life­less pro­tein that we call hair and it is pre-programmed to run the growth cycle a spe­cific num­ber of times dur­ing your life time.   If we expe­ri­ence dam­age to the hair fol­li­cle, the result could be hair loss from many dif­fer­ent causes.

How to Keep Your Hair and Scalp Healthy and Avoid Scalp Stress

Hair needs pro­tein, iron, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids and vit­a­min A in accept­able quan­ti­ties for good health.  A good way to keep your hair shiny is to feed the hair fol­li­cle the nec­es­sary nutri­ents.  The hair fol­li­cle gets its nutri­ents from the blood sup­ply in your body.  So, by con­sum­ing things like salmon and wal­nuts for omega-3 fatty acids, spinach and car­rots for the vit­a­min A, Brazil nuts for sele­nium and Oys­ters and cashews for zinc you can feed that pre­cious hair fol­li­cle what it needs to pro­duce healthy and shiny hair strands.   And, don’t Viviscal Extra Strength Dietary Supplementsfor­get that low fat dairy prod­ucts, whole grains and veg­eta­bles are not only good for your hair but also are good for your heart! If you aren’t con­sum­ing enough of these good foods, it may cer­tainly be worth tak­ing a hair growth supplement.

Other Ways to Avoid Dam­age to the Hair Follicles

There are things that we do to our hair, done by both males and females, to make it look pre­sentable can cause hair fol­li­cles to be dam­aged.  If you are among the thou­sands of peo­ple who pre­fer the tightly braided corn rows, pig­tails or hair­styles that pull the hair shaft tightly, then you could be set­ting your­self up for a hair loss con­di­tion called Trac­tion Alope­cia – which sim­ply means stress hair loss.  The ten­sion placed on the hair shaft and the hair fol­li­cle beneath the skin for extended peri­ods of time will loosen the grip of the hair fol­li­cle on the hair shaft and it will be shed pre­ma­turely.  As men­tioned above, if the hair is shed pre­ma­turely and the hair fol­li­cle starts the next grow­ing cycle, you could find your­self run­ning out of growth cycles before you would like.

Other ways that we can cause dam­age to the hair fol­li­cle and the hair shaft is by over-styling.  You know what I mean – blow dry­ing, flat iron use, col­or­ing and bleach­ing and even over-brushing can dam­age the outer layer of the hair shaft.  Dam­age to the hair in this way will result in dry and dull look­ing hair.

What Can You Do to Change the Cycle of Damage?

You can change the cycle of the dam­age by chang­ing your hair style or weav­ing the style more loosely.  You can eat the foods sug­gested above to pro­vide the nutri­ents needed by the hair fol­li­cle for good health.

Down­load our free ebook to find out what to do when your hair falls out. See the side­bar or click here.


Increased Hair Loss: Could It Be Traction Alopecia?


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Are you los­ing more hair each time you comb or wash your hair than you have in Woman with traction alopecia hair lossthe past?  Are you notic­ing more hair on your pil­low in the morn­ing when you awaken from your night’s sleep?  Are there thin areas or patches in your hair that haven’t been there before?  Do you wear hair styles that pull tightly on the hair shaft? If the answer to any of these ques­tions is yes, then your hair loss issues could have their root in a hair loss con­di­tion called “trac­tion alopecia”.

What is Trac­tion Alopecia?

The term “alope­cia” is sim­ply defined as bald­ness or hair loss.  The term “trac­tion” in this case refers to stress placed on the hair shaft and the scalp — so, the def­i­n­i­tion of trac­tion alope­cia is quite sim­ply stress hair loss. This occurs when the hair shaft is pulled tightly and secured tightly for extended peri­ods of time.  There are a num­ber of hair styling tech­niques that pro­duce con­di­tions that can lead to trac­tion alopecia.

More about the Causes

There are many types of hair loss and, for the most part, we really don’t have much con­trol over the causes of them.  Trac­tion alope­cia is not one of the types of hair loss over which we have no con­trol.  Quite the con­trary, the pri­mary cause of this type of thin­ning hair con­di­tion is caused by how the hair is styled or cared for.  If you are a per­son of color, whether male or female, it is likely that a cul­tural tra­di­tion that involves styles that require the hair be pulled back tightly in corn row braids, or pig­tails or tightly knit buns for exam­ple, is the pri­mary cause of your thin­ning hair issues.

How Does Trac­tion Cause Hair Loss?

The hair shaft is made up of com­pletely dead cells and is rooted into the hair Cornrows can lead to traction alopecia or thinning hairfol­li­cle which con­tains a bulb at the base.  The bulb at the base of the hair shaft con­tains derma papilla cells that are respon­si­ble for grow­ing the hair shaft.  The hair strand is securely held by the fol­li­cle dur­ing the first phase of the grow­ing cycle, called the Ana­gen phase.  As the growth cycle of the hair shaft pro­gresses through the Cata­gen and Tel­o­gen cycles, the hair fol­li­cle begins to lessen the grip it has on the hair strand.  The total growth cycle can last sev­eral years before the hair shaft is finally released from the hair fol­li­cle and is shed.  Dur­ing this cycle of hair growth, if you place large amounts of stress or trac­tion on the hair strand, it will be shed prematurely.

The Nor­mal Growth Cycle of Hair

To under­stand the impor­tance of pre­vent­ing pre­ma­ture shed­ding of hair, it is vital to under­stand, first, how the nor­mal cycle of hair pro­gresses.  The hair fol­li­cle is loaded with those derma papilla cells which are respon­si­ble for grow­ing the hair shaft.  The derma papilla cells are pre-programmed to begin to grow the hair strand and move through the entire cycle over a spe­cific period of time.  The cells deter­mine what the hair strand will look like in terms of color, tex­ture and whether it is straight or curly.  It deter­mines if the hair is to be like that of “peach fuzz” or the thicker strand that grows on var­i­ous parts of our bod­ies.  The cells are also pro­grammed to begin and com­plete this cycle a spe­cific num­ber of times through­out our life­time.  If we do some­thing that causes the hair shaft to be shed before it is pro­grammed to do so, then we has­ten the end of hair pro­duc­tion by the follicle.

Trac­tion alope­cia is a type of hair loss that we can con­trol.  By mod­i­fy­ing the hair styling tech­niques and con­trol­ling the dyes and bleaches that we use to color, straighten and curl, you can con­trol the thin­ning hair issues caused by stress hair loss.

Sign up to our mail­ing list to down­load our free 10 Step pre­scrip­tion on what to do when your hair falls out. It con­tains tips on what prod­ucts and tech­niques to use to stim­u­late hair growth.


Hair Loss – Traction Alopecia Only One of Many Types


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Many peo­ple are plagued by the embar­rass­ment of hair loss.  This prob­lem doesn’t limit it self just to one gen­der but rather can present in both males and females and can do so at almost any­time in your life­time.  Most of the types of hair loss have causes that are out of our con­trol – such as genet­ics, med­ica­tions we must take for other health sit­u­a­tions and other health con­di­tions.  But there are a few that we can affect some con­trol.  Trac­tion Alope­cia is one of them.

Sim­ple Def­i­n­i­tion of Condition

Trac­tion alope­cia, sim­ply defined, means stress hair loss.  When the hair shaft is tightly pulled and secured, it cre­ates scalp stress and poten­tial dam­age to the hairThinning hair caused by tight hair style fol­li­cle.  The excess ten­sion placed on the hair shaft by tightly braided corn rows, pig­tails or other tightly woven hair styles can, over time, loosen the hold by the hair fol­li­cle on the hair shaft and cause it to be shed pre­ma­turely. If the hair shaft is shed too many times, it will not grow back.

Other Causes of This Type of Hair Loss

Dam­age to the hair fol­li­cle can also occur when we over use col­or­ing dyes, bleach­ing solu­tions, per­ma­nent wave solu­tions and straight­en­ers with­out regard to the health of our hair fol­li­cle.  Over styling with blow dry­ers, flat irons and the like can also cause dam­age to the hair fol­li­cle and the hair shaft cuti­cle (the outer layer of the hair shaft).  When this hap­pens, the hair appears dry and dull and brit­tle, break­ing off easily.

Other Types of Hair Loss

Trac­tion alope­cia is by no means the only type of hair loss, though it is one over which we have some con­trol.  Cer­tain med­ica­tions can cause hair loss.  These med­ica­tions include, but are not lim­ited to, anti clot­ting drugs, cho­les­terol low­er­ing drugs, non-steroidal anti inflam­ma­tory drugs (NSAIDS), drugs for menopause and birth con­trol as well as antibi­otics.  Gen­er­ally speak­ing, for most of these med­ica­tions, when the drug is dis­con­tin­ued, the hair gen­er­ally grows back.  How­ever, this is not a guar­an­tee in all cases.

If you take any of these med­ica­tions, and you are expe­ri­enc­ing unex­plained hair loss, con­sult with your med­ical doc­tor to see if any of these med­ica­tions could be the cause.  If so, do not stop them on your own but work with your doc­tor to find a more suit­able substitute.

Genet­ics

Genet­ics is prob­a­bly the most com­mon cause of hair loss in both men and women.  If you are los­ing your hair or have thin­ning hair, look at your fam­ily mem­bers and past gen­er­a­tions to see if there is a sim­i­lar­ity.  If so, you will likely have no con­trol over the thin­ning hair you are expe­ri­enc­ing.  You may wish to look into the var­i­ous hair replace­ment options.

Here is a list of other hair loss or thin­ning hair causes, most of which are out of our control:

As you can see, some of the above causes are con­trol­lable while oth­ers are not.  The dis­eases and autoim­mune dis­or­ders, chemother­apy drugs and radi­a­tion expo­sure, poi­sons and the hair loss after child­birth are the ones that we will have the least amount of con­trol in regard to pre­ven­tion or mod­i­fi­ca­tion.  We do have choices in the areas of nutri­tional defi­cien­cies, stress and phys­i­cal trauma to the scalp.  Hair loss can be a seri­ous issue on lev­els more than just phys­i­cal appear­ance.  Don’t let unex­plained hair loss go unad­dressed by your med­ical doctor.


The Causes of Hair Loss By Traction Alopecia


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Trac­tion alope­cia is form of hair loss result­ing in bald patches where the scalp Clip on hair extensions can lead to thinning hairhas been dam­aged. It often found in women who wear tight hair styles, which require exten­sive pulling on hair fol­li­cles, and users of hair exten­sions. While not per­ma­nent, the scalp may take months or even years to fully recover from the dam­age it has received.

The causes of hair loss of this kind are var­ied, but each type results in the same inflam­ma­tion of the scalp and dam­age to the fol­li­cles. The main cause of trac­tion alope­cia is a defor­ma­tion of the hair fol­li­cles, which occurs due to pulling, ten­sion and exces­sive weight on the hair.

The nat­ural growth cycle for a hair fol­li­cle involves going into a peri­odic dor­mant state, dur­ing which time the fol­li­cle repairs itself. When the fol­li­cle is deformed, the dor­mant state is length­ened; and some­times becomes per­ma­nent. In these sit­u­a­tions, the roots weaken and the hair no longer grows.

As a direct result of many fol­li­cles going into a pro­longed dor­mant state, bald patches appear. This is known as trac­tion alope­cia. In addi­tion, the scalp will often become itchy and inflamed in the area where the dam­age has been caused; which in itself can lead to fur­ther dam­age due to scratch­ing and rubbing.

Pulling on the Hair Follicles

One of the main causes of hair loss in suf­fer­ers of trac­tion alope­cia is down to exces­sive pulling on the hair, and thus on the hair fol­li­cles.  Hair­styles such as pony­tails, which pull hair tightly at the crown, exert a lot of pres­sure on the hair fol­li­cles, which lead them to deform.

Pulling on the hair fol­li­cles is also caused by an exces­sive hair styling regime that Tight buns place tension on the hair follicles around the hairlinerequires a lot of comb­ing and teas­ing of the hair in order to cre­ate the right look. When you wear a style like that, con­sider tak­ing a few days off and let­ting your hair recover after­wards; to give your hair a chance to recover.

Ten­sion on the hair

Ten­sion on the hair is a major hair loss con­di­tion because it actively deforms the hair fol­li­cle. Ten­sion is caused by pulling on the hair through tight weaves, and also by adding weight to the hair; as occurs when using hair extensions.

Tight weave braid­ing, whether for hair exten­sions or sim­ply as part of a hair style, involves hold­ing each strand of hair under sig­nif­i­cantly increased ten­sion. This pulls on the roots of the hair and, when the hair grows, the ten­sion is only increased. The tighter the braids and the closer the braids are knit to the scalp, the more ten­sion the hair is under.

This results in dam­aged hair fol­li­cles, weaker hair roots and, even­tu­ally, bald patches caused by trac­tion alopecia.

Exces­sive weight on the hair

Hair fol­li­cles are not designed to carry a lot of weight. The scalp sprouts hair that it can carry but any extra weight placed on the hair can over­load the fol­li­cles in the scalp; which causes defor­ma­tion of the fol­li­cles and thus leads to baldness.

Extra weight is placed on the hair by attach­ing hair exten­sions. Exten­sions can be added using a vari­ety of meth­ods, from tra­di­tional beeswax and mod­ern glues; to braid­ing the exten­sions into the hair; or even tightly braid­ing the nat­ural hair and stitch­ing the exten­sions into the braids. Each attach­ment method adds weight to the hair, which pulls on the follicles.

Scratch­ing and Rubbing

One source of trac­tion alope­cia that is often over­looked is due to mechan­i­cal dam­age to the scalp in the form of scratch­ing and rub­bing. Rub­bing often occurs where tightly-fitted hel­mets are worn, such as crash hel­mets and safety hel­mets worn in the work­place. These press onto the scalp and rub both the scalp itself and any hair caught between scalp and hat.

Sim­i­larly, when the head is scratched repeat­edly and on a reg­u­lar basis, as can hap­pen with an inflamed scalp caused by exces­sive hair styling, the hair is put under pres­sure and the dam­age to the scalp is exacerbated.

The result is that the hair is con­tin­u­ally pulled while under pres­sure, and the scalp is inflamed. As with pulling and ten­sion due to hair­styling, this causes dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles and trac­tion alope­cia can occur as a direct result.

The causes of hair loss by trac­tion alope­cia are var­ied but their effects on the scalp are sim­i­lar. Each of the var­i­ous causes dam­ages the hair fol­li­cles, deform­ing them and caus­ing their dor­mant phases to elon­gate. The hair roots become weaker and the hair will even­tu­ally either snap or sim­ply fall out, at which point bald spots begin to appear. The only solu­tion is to give the scalp time to heal itself; a process that can be sped up by using inter­nal and exter­nal treat­ments for trac­tion alope­cia hair loss.


Recovering From Traction Alopecia


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Trac­tion alope­cia can strike any­one at any age. It causes patches of bald­ness on Naomi Campbell's traction alopecia hair loss is a result of wearing weaves continuouslyoth­er­wise healthy scalps due to dam­aged hair fol­li­cles. Just because trac­tion alope­cia has struck does not mean hair loss has to be per­ma­nent, how­ever. You can recover from trac­tion alope­cia by chang­ing how you style your hair, eat­ing a more healthy diet, and prac­tic­ing good hair­care. When applied cor­rectly, the results are spectacular.

What Causes Trac­tion Alopecia?

There are many causes of trac­tion alope­cia, rang­ing from pulling on the hair fol­li­cles to dam­age to the scalp caused by con­stant rub­bing. The end result is always the same how­ever: the hair fol­li­cles become mis­shapen and they enter a dor­mant phase. Thank­fully it is pos­si­ble to stim­u­late hair growth again and recover the lost hair.

Scalp inflam­ma­tion puts pres­sure on the hair fol­li­cles and causes them to become mis­shapen. The scalp becomes inflamed for many rea­sons, such as con­stant rub­bing from a tight hat (hard hats worn in the work­place are well known for this) or even a build-up of dead skin cells on the sur­face of the skin.

Mean­while, pres­sure can be exerted directly on the hair fol­li­cles them­selves. Tight braid­ing pulls on the hair roots, caus­ing an incred­i­ble amount of dam­age to hair fol­li­cles that are put under intense stress. Wear­ing hair exten­sions, espe­cially when they are fas­tened in using a stitched method, and tying your hair in a tight pony­tail are both noto­ri­ous causes of trac­tion alopecia.

Mas­sage the scalp to stim­u­late blood flow in the dam­aged area. If you are uncom­fort­able with some­one mas­sag­ing your hair, con­sider gen­tly brush­ing your hair with a natural-bristle brush instead. This has a sim­i­lar effect to a mas­sage and will help to encour­age blood flow back to the dor­mant follicles.

In addi­tion to the causes of trac­tion alope­cia dis­cussed above, there is also the issue of stress. It has long been under­stood that extreme stress can cause hair loss, and patchy bald­ness is stress­ful in and of itself. As a result, the stress of hair loss com­bines with the orig­i­nal rea­son the hair fell out, cre­at­ing a vicious and self-sustaining cir­cle of misery.

Recov­ery Time

Recov­er­ing from trac­tion alope­cia takes time and patience. Nobody can tell you for cer­tain how long it will take for you to repair the dam­age to hair fol­li­cles caused by trac­tion alope­cia, but esti­mates are pos­si­ble. On aver­age, a mild case of hair loss will take a few months to re-grow once the hair fol­li­cles can be coaxed back into oper­a­tion; whilst a more severe case can take up to a cou­ple of years.

The process can be speeded up some­what, with mod­ern reme­dies hav­ing been proven to stim­u­late hair growth ear­lier than in suf­fer­ers who sim­ply let nature take its course. Which hair stim­u­la­tion method works best for you will depend on your per­sonal cir­cum­stances but each method has a proven track record, so it is a good idea to try out a cou­ple and see how you go.

How to Stim­u­late Hair Growth

What­ever tech­niques you try, the first thing suf­fer­ers should do is use scalp exfo­li­at­ing lotion fol­lowed by a deep Hair formula 37 hair vitaminscon­di­tion­ing treat­ment. This will clear away any excess serum on the scalp and hair fol­li­cles, which mixes with dirt and dead skin cells to cre­ate a layer of grime that sticks to the scalp. This is a breed­ing ground for bac­te­ria and it will cause inflam­ma­tion of the scalp; which hin­ders recovery.

The deep con­di­tion­ing treat­ment will then restore nutri­ents to the hair, improv­ing strength and mak­ing the hair eas­ier to style with­out excess hair products.

Once this is done, look to improve your diet, to ensure you are get­ting enough  pro­tein, iron, zinc, and sele­nium. Pro­tein is a major com­po­nent both in hair itself, where it forms ker­atin and gives your hair strength, but also in the body’s growth and repair process. With­out enough pro­tein and the right amino acids, your body can’t heal the dam­age to your scalp.

Next con­sider using a hair growth oil such as Bhringaraj oil (eclpita alba), which stud­ies in 2009 demon­strated helps speed

Bhringaraj is an excel­lent herbal alter­na­tive to minoxidil

up the recov­ery process sig­nif­i­cantly. Rub­bing oint­ment con­tain­ing eclipta alba on the dam­aged areas of the scalp helps stim­u­late hair growth and brings the hair fol­li­cles back out of the dor­mant phase.

By com­bin­ing the var­i­ous tech­niques for restor­ing lost hair, you will begin to see results quickly. Remem­ber that once the hair has grown back in, you have to ensure you con­tinue to take care of it. Do not over­load the hair fol­li­cles with tight hair­styles that pull on the fol­li­cles; or by wear­ing hair exten­sions all the time. Give your hair time to recover after every severe hair­style you use and you will find hair loss is a thing of the past.


Treatments for Traction Alopecia


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Trac­tion alope­cia is a form of pat­tern bald­ness that need not be suf­fered in How to treat traction alopecia and thinning hair ebooksilence. The prin­ci­ple causes are down to hair care prod­ucts that irri­tate the scalp, tight hats that con­stantly rub on the scalp, and hair­styles that pull on the hair fol­li­cles. Each of these causes is avoid­able in its own right, but even when the best endeav­ours are made to limit the dam­age, hair loss can still occur.

In that sit­u­a­tion, it is impor­tant to know that trac­tion alope­cia treat­ments do exist and they do work to restore lost hair. There are sev­eral dif­fer­ent treat­ment meth­ods you can try and which will give the best results depends largely on the extent of the dam­age that has been suffered.

Deep Con­di­tion the Roots

The hair root con­nects the strand to the hair fol­li­cle, so when the root becomes brit­tle and dam­aged, it is only a mat­ter of time before the hair itself snaps or falls out.  When recov­er­ing from trac­tion alope­cia, it is impor­tant to ensure that the weak­ened hair roots have the time they need to repair them­selves and become strong again.

Using a deep con­di­tion­ing treat­ment on your hair will help to re-hydrate the roots. A deep con­di­tion­ing restores vital­ity all through your hair, mak­ing it stronger and less prone to snap­ping — down­load our free ebook for a list of suit­able con­di­tion­ing treat­ments. By revi­tal­is­ing the hair that remains, you make it less prone to fur­ther dam­age; which frees up the body to work on repair­ing the dam­age to the scalp. In addi­tion, a deep con­di­tion­ing treat­ment soft­ens the hair, mak­ing it eas­ier to style. This reduces the need to apply strong hair­care prod­ucts that will only cause fur­ther dam­age to your scalp.

Stim­u­late Circulation

With the hair taken care of, it’s time to look at what can be done for the scalp itself. It may seem a lit­tle silly but mas­sag­ing the scalp helps stim­u­late cir­cu­la­tion in the cap­il­lar­ies that lie just below the sur­face of the skin. These are the blood ves­sels that bring oxy­gen and nutri­ents to the hair fol­li­cles, so stim­u­lat­ing the blood flow helps to ensure your scalp gets the mate­ri­als it needs to grow strong, healthy hair. Down­load our free ebook for step by step mas­sage tech­niques to stim­u­late hair growth.

If you are uncom­fort­able with some­one mas­sag­ing your scalp and you can’t do it your­self, it is worth not­ing that brush­ing your hair also improves blood flow. The gen­tle pulling on the hair fol­li­cles caused by brush­ing your hair actu­ally stim­u­lates blood flow almost as well as a good mas­sage. For best results, use a nat­ural bris­tle brush rather than a heavy duty styling brush. Remem­ber not to brush your hair too many times a day how­ever, as all that pulling on the roots can result in more dam­age to the follicles.

Scalp Exfo­li­a­tion

Hair nour­ish­ment and hydra­tion is an impor­tant part of the body’s nat­ural meth­ods of main­tain­ing healthy hair. The scalp pro­duces sebum, a mix­ture of nat­ural oils, along the hair shaft; to nour­ish the hair and keep it from falling out. How­ever, the scalp also sheds skin cells like every other part of the skin, and these are not always removed properly.

The dead cells mix with the oils on the hair and build up on the sur­face of the scalp. This causes irri­ta­tion of the skin and the scalp becomes inflamed, which is a prin­ci­ple cause of hair loss in women. The prob­lem is only made worse when excess sebum is pro­duced, as hap­pens in peo­ple who have nat­u­rally more oily skin.

A good scalp exfo­li­at­ing treat­ment removes the excess sebum and clears away the dead skin cells. By exfo­li­at­ing the scalp, you give it a chance to breathe and to recover from inflam­ma­tion. In addi­tion, reg­u­lar exfo­li­a­tion ensures that a build-up never has to occur in the first place; so exfo­li­at­ing is an excel­lent method of pre­vent­ing hair loss.

For best results, exfo­li­ate just before wash­ing your hair with a mild sham­poo. Rene Furterer Shampoo contains micro beads that exfoliate the scalp This ensures that not only is your hair clean but all the dirt, dead cells and oils that build up on the scalp are washed away.

The effec­tive­ness of each of the var­i­ous trac­tion alope­cia treat­ments depends on the extent of the dam­age that has occurred, so it is a good idea to try sev­eral treat­ments before decid­ing which one you are going to stick with.

When it comes to restor­ing lost hair, you must also take into account that the effects won’t appear overnight. Each treat­ment will take time to work and nobody can guar­an­tee results within any given time frame. Every­thing depends on the extent of the dam­age to the scalp; how long the hair fol­li­cles have been dor­mant; and also on your body’s own cir­cum­stances. Some peo­ple heal faster than oth­ers, but every­one heals in the end. Patience is the key.


How to Remedy Traction Alopecia Hair Loss With Eclipta Alba


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Hair loss is a stress­ful expe­ri­ence, espe­cially when it is the patchy bald­ing found  Flower from Eclipta Alba plantin suf­fer­ers of trac­tion alope­cia. The scalp is often inflamed and sore, and this leads to increased stress for the suf­ferer. Unfor­tu­nately stress is a con­tribut­ing fac­tor in hair loss, so it can quickly become a vicious spi­ral as more and more hair is lost.

For­tu­nately mod­ern stud­ies have demon­strated that there are ways to halt and even reverse the effects of trac­tion alope­cia. By apply­ing specially-formulated oint­ments to the affected areas, the scalp is encour­aged to heal, and the lost hair to re-grow.  Although there have been many hair loss reme­dies over the years, the most effec­tive treat­ment has been found to come from tra­di­tional Indian Ayurevedic medicine.

What is Eclipta Alba?

Eclipta alba, also known as bhringraj, is a plant that has long been used in Indian med­i­cine to treat hair loss. Its leaf extracts con­tain pow­er­ful chem­i­cals that help to revive hair fol­li­cles that have been ren­dered dor­mant due to the effects of trac­tion alopecia.

Eclipta alba is an impor­tant part of Ayurevedic med­i­cine, the tra­di­tional med­i­cine of India. While the extract can be used in sev­eral ways for dif­fer­ent ail­ments, such as rub­bing into the tem­ples or ingest­ing, the cor­rect method for treat­ing hair loss is to cre­ate an ointment.

The eclipta alba is mixed with an oint­ment base to form a mois­tur­is­ing treat­ment of 2% eclipta. The oint­ment is then rubbed into the area to be treated; allow­ing the chem­i­cals to quickly reach the area they are to treat. Dur­ing the course of the 2009 study by Datta, Singh et al., the data col­lected showed that the eclipta treat­ment was 147% more effec­tive than other hair loss treatments.

The Effects of Eclipta Alba

Stud­ies pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Ethnophar­ma­col­ogy in May 2009 showed that eclipta alba is a far more effec­tive treat­ment for hair loss than a com­pa­ra­ble solu­tion of Minox­i­dil; another pop­u­lar hair loss treat­ment. When applied to the affected area, the pat­tern bald­ness caused by trac­tion alope­cia was sig­nif­i­cantly reduced.

The eclipta chem­i­cals work by encour­ag­ing the dor­mant hair fol­li­cles to move

Bhringaraj oil

Bhringaraj (Eclipta alba) hair grown oil

out of the tel­o­gen phase of their growth cycle and into the ana­gen phase; the part of the cycle dur­ing which hair is grown. More new hair growth was detected when sub­jects were treated with eclipta alba than on those sub­jects that were left to heal the dam­age to their hair fol­li­cles naturally.

The result of this research demon­strates that Ayurevedic med­i­cine inco­po­rat­ing eclipta alba mois­tur­ing treat­ment is an effec­tive method of pro­mot­ing hair regrowth. This is not a mir­a­cle cure, of course, so the best results still occur with fre­quent use but as a method of speed­ing up the recov­ery process, it is hard to beat.

Recov­er­ing From Trac­tion Alopecia

Trac­tion alope­cia occurs because the scalp is over stressed and the hair fol­li­cles it con­tains become dam­aged. The dam­aged cells deform and stop pro­duc­ing new hair, becom­ing dor­mant for long peri­ods while the dam­age to the fol­li­cles is repaired. This process can take months or years depend­ing on the extent of the damage.

When hair fol­li­cles stop grow­ing new hair, the hair that has grown already works its way out of the scalp. Three months after the hair fol­li­cle has entered the tel­o­gen phase, dur­ing which no hair is pro­duced, the hair that had already grown will be shed. This is a nat­ural part of the growth cycle and the rea­son we don’t all go bald for part of the time is because each hair fol­li­cle is in a dif­fer­ent point on the growth cycle; so we never notice the lost hairs.

When many hairs enter the tel­o­gen phase and become dor­mant, the effects of hair loss become vis­i­ble very quickly. Hair is shed but no new growth comes through to take its place. The result is patchy bald­ness, par­tic­u­larly on the crown and around the hairline.

Tra­di­tional med­i­cine has been proved to assist in coax­ing hair fol­li­cles out of the tel­o­gen phase and back into the ana­gen (grow­ing) phase. When applied as a mois­tur­is­ing treat­ment on the bald areas of the scalp, the body is able to bet­ter heal itself, so hair re-grows faster. This makes eclipta alba a worth­while treat­ment for hair loss in both men and women.

Feel free to down­load our free ebook for more tips on how to stim­u­late hair growth.


The Dangers of Traction Alopecia


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Trac­tion alope­cia is a con­di­tion where dam­aged hair fol­li­cles can­not grow hair. traction alopecia caused by hair extensions The fol­li­cles enter a dor­mant state and the hair they had been grow­ing falls out over time, leav­ing bald patches on the exposed scalp. In minor cases this leads to patch bald­ing in only the worst affected areas.

More devel­oped cases can result in com­plete, or near-complete, hair loss. When this hap­pens, it is impor­tant to iden­tify the cause and work to remove it. When the scalp has time to repair the dam­age to hair fol­li­cles, they will often begin to grow hair again. The length of time the heal­ing process takes will of course vary depend­ing on the extent of the dam­age at the time the stres­sors are removed, but the body is a remark­able heal­ing machine and the hair will even­tu­ally grow back.

Causes of Trac­tion Alopecia

Trac­tion alope­cia has a num­ber of causes. One major fac­tor is dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles, often caused by con­tin­ued pulling on hair strands. Wear­ing hair exten­sions exac­er­bates the prob­lem because not only are the exten­sions them­selves con­stantly pulling on the hair root but the method of attach­ing the exten­sions adds pres­sure too.

In addi­tion to dam­aged hair fol­li­cles through pulling, stress on the scalp can lead to hair loss. Scalp stress comes about through con­stant rub­bing, which occurs Track weave hair extensions are notorious for causing traction alopecia or thinning hair most often when tight hats are worn on a reg­u­lar basis. Hard hats, cycle hel­mets and crash hel­mets are all scalp stres­sors because their close fit causes rub­bing that even­tu­ally leads to inflammation.

All hair fol­li­cles go through a growth cycle that involves a three-month tel­o­gen or rest phase. After the tel­o­gen phase is over, hair growth resumes. Dam­aged hair fol­li­cles are unable to exit the tel­o­gen phrase and instead end up going into dor­mancy. This is the point when trac­tion alope­cia becomes vis­i­ble, as dor­mant hair fol­li­cles cause vis­i­ble bald patches.

Stress Hair Loss

When the body is stressed, this can cause hair fol­li­cles to enter the tel­o­gen phase of the growth cycle. When trac­tion alope­cia is present, the hair fol­li­cles are deformed and can­not leave the rest phase. As a result, stress hair loss is a sig­nif­i­cant problem.

Some esti­mates put the num­ber of fol­li­cles that enter the rest phase at up to 70 per­cent of active hair cells; mean­ing the results could be highly vis­i­ble. Hair falls out of the scalp after the fol­li­cles have been in the rest phase for three months, but in the major­ity of cases this is per­fectly natural.

You will notice the occa­sional hair falling out here and there but each hair is at a dif­fer­ent stage in the growth cycle so you should retain a healthy head of hair despite a few strands falling out here and there. When you have dam­aged hair fol­li­cles that can­not begin hair growth again, bald patches start to appear. This in turn can lead to more stress, and the cycle repeats itself.

How to Avoid the Dangers

The sim­plest method of avoid­ing hair loss is to recog­nise the causes of trac­tion alope­cia and avoid them. Style your hair in a way that allows it to hang loosely. Avoid wear­ing a tight-fitting hat as often as pos­si­ble, so you do not have some­thing rub­bing against the scalp all the time. Sim­i­larly, wash your hair with sham­poos and con­di­tion­ers that do not inflame the scalp or cause itch­ing, as this will stop you scratch­ing. Scratch­ing is a major cause of dam­age to hair follicles.

If you must wear hair exten­sions, do so only on occa­sion and allow your hair a good two to three months recov­ery time after wear­ing them. When you tie your hair back in a pony­tail, make sure it is a loose pony­tail so the pres­sure on the crown is not as high. Avoid tight braid­ing, espe­cially when it is close to the hair­line for stitch­ing hair exten­sions into.

By recog­nis­ing the causes of trac­tion alope­cia and adjust­ing your hair care regime to avoid them, you have a far greater chance of pre­vent­ing hair loss. Where hair loss does occur, know­ing the causes is an impor­tant first step in the recov­ery process. Recov­er­ing from hair loss can take months or even a cou­ple of years but when your scalp is given the time to heal with­out new stres­sors being intro­duced, you will see the hair grow back nat­u­rally. The recov­ery time can how­ever be short­ened by using for­mu­la­tions that are effec­tive in stim­u­lat­ing hair growth.

Our free ebook, which can be down­loaded by join­ing our mail­ing list, con­tains step by step mas­sage tech­niques for stim­u­lat­ing hair growth. See the side bar to sign up.


How to Stimulate Hair Growth After Traction Alopecia


Posted by Tractionalopeciatreatments

Trac­tion alope­cia is a con­di­tion caused by dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles, which

Scalp massages stimulate hair growth

Scalp mas­sages stim­u­late hair growth

results in patches of hair loss. To recover from this con­di­tion, it is not enough to sim­ply stim­u­late hair growth. You also have to repair the dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles, oth­er­wise any hair that does man­age to grow back will not grow strong and healthy. This means eat­ing a healthy diet so the body is strong enough to repair the dam­age, and mak­ing sure the nutri­ents you ingest are able to reach the parts that need them.

Stim­u­lat­ing the Scalp

If the body is going to repair itself it needs an ade­quate sup­ply of nutri­ents and pro­teins to the affected area, and this means good blood flow. When hair fol­li­cles become dor­mant, they use less nutri­ents than when they are active. This results in less blood flow being needed, and the scalp responds accordingly.

You can help to boost the blood flow to the hair fol­li­cles by stim­u­lat­ing the scalp and encour­ag­ing activ­ity back into the cap­il­lar­ies in the affected areas. Brush­ing your hair two or three times a day with a nat­ural fibre, wide brush helps to do this; although it is best to avoid pulling on the hair fol­li­cles too much through vig­or­ous brush­ing, as this may sim­ply end up with you pulling more weak­ened hairs out.

Sim­i­larly, reg­u­lar mas­sag­ing of the scalp helps to stim­u­late hair growth in a sim­i­lar fash­ion. Mas­sag­ing reawak­ens the scalp and encour­ages blood flow through that area of the skin; which brings much-needed nutri­ents to the area. Try mas­sag­ing the scalp once a day. You don’t need some­one else to do this for you, so don’t worry if you’re shy. It can be done sim­ply by gen­tly knead­ing the parts of the scalp where you want to encour­age hair growth to start again. For step by step mas­sage tech­niques, down­load our free ebook from the side bar.

Dietary Sup­ple­ments

The body needs a healthy diet if it is to work at max­i­mum effi­ciency, and it needs plenty of pro­tein if is is going to repair itself. Pro­tein is used in growth and repair. Pro­tein forms into ker­atin in the hair fol­li­cles, and ker­atin means strong, healthy hair.

You will also need to make sure you are get­ting enough iron, mag­ne­sium, sele­nium and zinc. These are essen­tial chem­i­cals for hair growth and they pro­duce strong, healthy hair. To ensure you get enough of each chem­i­cal, eat plenty of dairy, eggs, red meat (if you don’t eat meat, soya con­tains the same essen­tial nutri­ents) and spinach.

You may also want to con­sider tak­ing a dietary sup­ple­ment spe­cially for­mu­lated Hair formula 37 hair vitamins for healthy hair growth. These sup­ple­ments con­tain biotin, which is proven to extend the length of time hair fol­li­cles remain in the grow­ing stage. This will help your hair to grow back quicker. Again, our free ebook has sug­ges­tions you may find helpful.

Get a Good Night’s Rest

Growth hor­mone is only pro­duced when you are asleep. If you have ever noticed that when you’re ill, you sleep more, the pro­duc­tion and use of growth hor­mone is the rea­son. Your body uses growth hor­mone to repair itself so when you are ill, you sleep more. The same thing is true of rekin­dling healthy hair growth.

So when try­ing to over­come trac­tion alope­cia and stim­u­late hair growth again, it is impor­tant to get a good night’s rest. Make sure you get to bed at a decent time, so you are refreshed in the morn­ing. It will do your body a lot of good, and it will speed up the recov­ery process at the same time.

How Long Will It Take?

Nobody can say for cer­tain how long a par­tic­u­lar per­son will take to recover from trac­tion alope­cia. While stim­u­lat­ing hair growth will cer­tainly speed up the process (as the Eclipta Alba study proved), an overnight cure is not pos­si­ble at this point.

Instead we have to look at the nat­ural repair cycle as a guide, and work from there. When left to repair itself, the body can take between two months and sev­eral years to fully recover from the dam­age caused by trac­tion alope­cia. The exact recov­ery time all depends on the amount of hair fol­li­cles that have been ren­dered dor­mant, and also on how quickly the sufferer’s body usu­ally repairs dam­age to the skin.

Every­body is dif­fer­ent, so your per­sonal recov­ery time will never be the same as some­one else’s even if their cir­cum­stances seem iden­ti­cal to your own. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that patience is the watch­word when it comes to trac­tion alope­cia. So for best results, take the dietary sup­ple­ments and use the tech­niques dis­cussed above for stim­u­lat­ing healthy hair growth and you’ll get the best results you can, as quickly as possible.


How to Remedy Thinning Hair


Posted by Danielle

Thin­ning hair and bald patches are often a sign of dam­age to the scalp rather than the advance­ment of age. In cases of scalp stress lead­ing to hair loss, it is pos­si­ble  to rem­edy the prob­lem with­out hav­ing to resort to hair replace­ment surgery or other med­ical solutions.

You can rem­edy thin­ning hair nat­u­rally and enjoy strong, healthy, nat­ural hair again. The meth­ods involved are not ardu­ous, just sim­ple and straight­for­ward solu­tions to repair the dam­age to a stressed scalp, and encour­age nat­ural regrowth.

Tight Hair­styles Lead to Bald Patches

When­ever a tight hair­style is worn, the hair is pulled unnat­u­rally taut. This puts  incred­i­ble strain on the hair root and can often lead to indi­vid­ual strands being pulled out. In addi­tion, the strain on the hair fol­li­cles is intense.

When the hair fol­li­cles are sub­ject to this level of strain, they quickly deform and become unable to func­tion cor­rectly. The tel­o­gen or rest phase of the growth cycle increases as the cells attempt to repair the dam­age they have received. When the dam­age is exten­sive, the cells become dor­mant and bald patches appear on the scalp.

Tight hair­styles should be avoided for any­one with thin­ning hair, as they will Braiding hair tightly will lead to traction alopeciaonly make the prob­lem worse. Tight pony­tails and exten­sive braid­ing are com­mon sources of hair loss; espe­cially on the crown in the case of pony­tails. Braid­ing and weaves are noto­ri­ous for caus­ing hair loss along the hair­line, as that is where the hair roots are nat­u­rally weakest.

Avoid Stress­ing the Scalp

Scalp stress is one of the prin­ci­ple causes of hair loss through trac­tion alope­cia. When the scalp is stressed, it becomes inflamed; which leads to rub­bing and scratch­ing the inflamed area. This adds to the dam­age and also causes dam­age to the hair fol­li­cles in the stressed area.

In turn, the fol­li­cles become deformed and unable to func­tion cor­rectly. They enter a dor­mant phase, dur­ing which time hair will not grow from them, until the body has time to repair the dam­age. The repair process can take months or even years, depend­ing on the extent of the dam­age done.

Scalp stress is caused in two ways. The most com­mon method is through the use of hair­care prod­ucts that cause rashes and irri­ta­tion. There are many dif­fer­ent for­mu­las of hair­care prod­uct on the mar­ket, from sham­poos and con­di­tion­ers to hair relax­ants and regen­er­a­tive lotions. Not every per­son can use every prod­uct, our bod­ies react to them dif­fer­ently. Find a prod­uct that does not cause your scalp to itch or become inflamed.

In addi­tion, avoid using hair relax­ants, at least until your hair has fully grown back in. Hair relax­ants dam­age the bonds between the ker­atin mol­e­cules in your hair, per­ma­nently weak­en­ing the strands and caus­ing the roots to become less strong. As a result, chemically-straightened hair snaps eas­ily, which makes the effect of hair loss more noticeable.

Also, avoid wear­ing hats that fit tightly to the head. These rub against the scalp, caus­ing more irri­ta­tion. While it’s not always pos­si­ble to avoid some hats, such as safety hel­mets that must be worn when bike rid­ing or hard hats in some work­places, con­sider car­ry­ing your hat when you are in a place that does not require it to be worn. This will greatly reduce the time the hat can stress the scalp; which short­ens your recov­ery time.

Eat a Healthy, Bal­anced Diet

While it may not seem all that impor­tant for hair care, a bal­anced diet is essen­tial if you want to rem­edy thin­ning hair. Hair loss is often caused at least in part by a lack of the nutri­ents needed to repair the dam­ages of scalp stress, and also because the com­po­nents of healthy hair are miss­ing from a person’s diet.

Strong, healthy hair requires a lot of pro­tein. Pro­tein is needed to repair the dam­age to hair fol­li­cles that causes trac­tion alope­cia, and it is also the main chem­i­cal in ker­atin. Ker­atin is the chem­i­cal that gives your hair its strength, so a low-protein diet results in weak hair that breaks easily.

Eat plenty of protein-rich foods such as eggs and nuts to strengthen your hair the nat­ural way. Your hair also needs plenty of iron, sele­nium, mag­ne­sium and zinc. These are found in abun­dance in spinach, red meats, eggs, peanuts and fish. Hair formula 37 hair vitaminsVeg­e­tar­i­ans should look to mush­rooms and soy as alter­na­tives to meat and fish; as these also pro­vide the nutri­ents essen­tial to healthy hair. The alter­na­tive is to take hair growth sup­ple­ments that con­tain the right bal­ance of amino acids and vit­a­mins required for healthy hair growth.

By main­tain­ing a healthy diet you will not only improve your hair’s health but your gen­eral well being at the same time. Com­bin­ing this with good gen­eral hair care and scalp mas­sages, and using a less inten­sive styling for your hair will quickly show results. With a new reg­i­men in place, your thin­ning hair will soon become lus­cious and healthy once again.

To find scalp mas­sage tech­niques described in detail, we invite you to request our FREE E-book – see sidebar.