The most com­mon ques­tion asked by peo­ple diag­nosed with trac­tion alope­cia is, “is it reversible?” The answer is, as always with such cases “it depends”. The good news is that when caught early enough, trac­tion alope­cia is indeed reversible and treatable.

Trac­tion alope­cia is caused by wear­ing your hair in styles that exert too much pres­sure on it, pulling at the hair shafts and even­tu­ally dam­ag­ing the hair fol­li­cles. Unlike many other forms of hair loss, it is not a direct result of emo­tional stress, poor dietary habits, hor­monal bal­ances or genet­ics (although those can affect the strength and dura­bil­ity of the hair overall).

This makes the under­ly­ing cause of this con­di­tion much eas­ier to treat than other forms of hair loss. If you have estab­lished that you are suf­fer­ing from trac­tion alope­cia and not another form of hair loss, the first thing to do is to stop wear­ing your hair in the offen­sive style to pre­vent any fur­ther weight and pres­sure on the hair.

No hair regrowth treat­ment will work as long as the cause of the con­di­tion has not been removed, in this case – the hair­style. It’s impor­tant to be diag­nosed by a pro­fes­sional before decid­ing on a course of treat­ment, but as trac­tion alope­cia can aggra­vate exist­ing hair loss and can actu­ally be caused by hair­styles such as weaves and clip on hair exten­sions – often used to dis­guise other forms of hair loss – avoid­ing hair­styles that are known to be poten­tial causes for this con­di­tion is wise regardless.

Once the cause has been removed, it’s then time to treat the symp­toms by using top­i­cal (local) treat­ments to help the fol­li­cles recover. For the best chance of revers­ing the effects of trac­tion alope­cia, you need to start the treat­ment as soon as hair loss is noticed.

If scar­ring hasn’t occurred, you will be able to reverse the results of the con­di­tion, allow­ing new hair to grow. There are many types of treat­ments that can be used, both herbal hair loss treat­ments and chem­i­cal based treat­ments. They come in the form of creams, sprays, lotions and shampoos.

Many hair loss treat­ments aimed at treat­ing male and female pat­tern bald­ness can also be used to treat trac­tion alope­cia in both men and women. Treat­ments that tar­get the fol­li­cles them­selves and work to revive them and stim­u­late them to pro­duce new hairs should be preferred.

If minor skin irri­ta­tion appears, as the result of the con­di­tion itself or the treat­ment, doctor-prescribed steroids should be able to clear it. Of course, dis­con­tinue any treat­ment that causes severe irri­ta­tion and always read the instruc­tions and con­traindi­ca­tions in full before com­menc­ing treatment.

Keep in mind that although reversible, trac­tion alope­cia takes time to heal. A timescale of 4–6 months is nor­mal before fol­li­cles fully recover and the hair begins to look nat­ural again. In some cases, the hair can recover with­out treat­ment, although trac­tion alope­cia treat­ments have been shown to speed up recov­ery times and the over­all con­di­tion of the hair.

In severe cases where trac­tion alope­cia was not caught and treated quickly enough, it may be harder to achieve full recov­ery using stan­dard hair loss treat­ments, or even impos­si­ble. In such cases, hair trans­plants may be the only answer.