Hairs To You Podcast: Genetics, hair loss diseases and seeing a dermatologist

Diving further into the topic of hair loss, Hairs To You podcast guest Nicole Budani discusses the role genetics and hormones play for both men and women. She also explains when one should start to address their balding along with whether it’s better to see a dermatologist over a hair loss specialist.

READ: Part 1 - Hairs To You Podcast: Alopecia, misconceptions and how to combat it
READ: Part 2 - Hairs To You Podcast: Rogaine, laser light therapy and PRP for hair loss
READ: Part 3 - Hairs To You Podcast: COVID, telogen effluvium and reasons for hair loss with women

If you prefer, you can also listen to the full episode below:

If my grandmother and father have lost their hair, is it guaranteed that I will lose my hair?

No, it could skip you. It's not a death sentence. Not necessarily [guaranteed]. It's a higher probability.… My favorite is when you ask, do you have a family history of hair loss and they go, ‘No.’ And then they're like, ‘actually, my brother has hair loss, but I don't or I do. And my brother doesn't. Or my father has no hair loss, but he was old.’ It is genetic in the end. Doesn't matter how old you are.

When is it better to see a dermatologist over a hair loss specialist?

I always support seeing a dermatologist. For many reasons, especially women. Women - if you have hair loss, see a dermatologist. Are they going to give you your answers? Maybe not. But at least, you have a diagnosis. Men are a little bit on the edge of like, you really have to…hard to say. If you have genetics for hair loss, then probably don't bother. If you're young, like a young, young man, I'm talking like, you know, anywhere between the ages of like 13 to like 20, you should probably see a dermatologist as well. It's very early on for hair loss to happen. It does happen and it can be really aggressive genetics, but it's always a better idea to get a diagnosis. Unfortunately, it does take a lot of time. And the problem is, in the grand scheme of things, to a dermatologist clinic, hair loss is not a life threatening thing.

READ: Reasons young male adults suffer from hair loss and possible solutions

So they're not really going to be super eager to see you quite right away. So you have to be really patient with it. Now with that being said, you could totally go to a hair specialist or clinic that deals with hair loss in the meantime. They are going to provide you with different types of information. The family doctor or the dermatologist is going to give you a diagnosis. They may suggest some medications that you can take like rogaine, like we talked about, or finasteride or a DHT blocker or in a woman, a lot of the times you have, something like spironolactone, which is like a testosterone blocker with those things. There's a lot of side effects. So you do have to be really cautious about what you're taking and you should really do your research before you decide to do that. But yes, I do think you should see a dermatologist. It is something that's happening to your body and yes, in most cases, it's totally a natural occurrence. But it never hurts to err on the side of caution.

Are there specific diseases that cause hair loss?

Yes. Like thyroid conditions, for example. Or PCOS. PCOS is a polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's a very common thing that women get diagnosed but it's again, hormonal changes, hormonal deficiencies that contribute to the hair loss. If there's a hormonal component to it, there's a chance. There's always a chance.

Does getting hormones in place alleviate hair loss or is it something someone will constantly struggle with?

It's a really good question. It's really hard to say, it's complex. It makes sense that let's say, let's say you lose hair and then you're trying to grow that hair back. And it's hormonally based. If you fix your hormones, the hair loss should kind of stop. You shouldn't be losing more hair, but the hair that you've already lost might have a difficult time coming back. In some cases, yeah. You could totally, like your body could just adjust and the hair after a period of time, again, we're talking like six months, a year, could start to grow back in, but it's kind of like a chance. You just don't know.

It's always better to kind of support hair growth during those kinds of times. And it is important if you do have a hormonal component to your hair loss to try to fix that hormonal component so that it doesn't keep going. If you can balance things out, then you're far better off.

Would it still take about a year when it comes down to, say pregnancy. Someone has a pregnancy and they lose their hair, is it sort of the same thing about a year before everything's going kind of bounce itself back out and get to normal?

Maybe, maybe. I'm not a hundred percent sure about this from a scientific perspective, but I'm sure breastfeeding plays into some of that as well. And it depends on how long a person is breastfeeding for. Everybody is different and if you have a genetic component and then you, you know, it kind of turns on those genetics. Maybe not, maybe it won't come back. You never know. And this is the problem with hair loss. There's no way to predict it a hundred percent. And that's really frustrating for people like you would like to be like, ‘oh, a year's time. Yeah. It's gonna all grow back in.’ But it doesn't always work that way unfortunately.

When should someone first address hair loss? How long should they wait before they start to panic?

If you start to notice hair loss…So, the first person who's going to notice hair loss is going to be you. You know your hair, you're looking in the mirror. You're like, ‘oh, when I shower, I'm like, oh, I noticed it's a little thinner than I usually see,’ or you're noticing fallout or you're noticing your ponytail is a little bit thinner. If you want to try to get ahead of the game, you do it as soon as possible. And you start to do some treatments to kind of help yourself over that period of time. If you wait, you have the potential to lose those hairs. Now it's not, listen, it's not the end of the world if you have lost some follicles. Those follicles, they're gone, but we have quite a bit of hair on our head. So, you can hide things quite well. And even when we talk about transplants, for example, the densities of transplants naturally are lower. They're not going to be the same as what you generally see and they still look really, really good.

And then if anything, you can also wear a men’s or women’s hair system. There's always something that can be done depending on the stage that a person's at. But if you do something earlier on, it allows you to try to keep the hair around for a bit longer than you would naturally have.

Stick around as the final blog recap of our first Hairs To You podcast episode will discuss topics such as gender transitioning, testosterone, creatine and steroids, and how they relate to hair loss!

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