Gray Hair Treatment

The main methods of non-surgical hair replacement today involve the use of hair systems and hair loss concealers. Various types of hair systems such as full wigs, hairpieces, hair extensions, toupees and weaves can look extremely authentic and have been used for ages to cover bald spots and typically with good rates of success. However, their main weaknesses are high maintenance costs and, in a number of situations, the discomfort of wearing them. Hair loss concealers and hair thickeners on the other hand have been around for a shorter period of time and have often been looked down upon for being incapable of withstanding adverse external conditions and for appearing unnatural. This seems to be no longer true as many of them have greatly improved recently, both in terms of their authentic appearance and their resistance.

There are three existing types of hair loss concealers: those that simply paint your scalp to match your hair colour, then there are hair thickeners that thicken your hair by coating and penetrating the hair and trapping moisture and volume-building proteins inside the hair shaft and, lastly, there are concealers that apply microfibers that cling to your hair like branches to the trunk of a tree, increasing the hair density. Some products combine two of the aforementioned approaches and paint your scalp and thicken your hair at the same time. All of these products come in various forms, such as a powder, cream or a spray. Hair loss concealers do not contain any ingredients that would help treat and improve hair loss condition but some of them allow you to continue with a topical hair loss treatment such as minoxidil.

Microfiber-based hair loss concealers can be usually applied in as little as 30 seconds versus a minimum of five minutes needed for hair thickeners. However, microfibers are less water-resistant and it is quite difficult to apply them precisely and thus they are not very good for creating an authentic-looking frontal hairline. Their main strength is that they are unrecognisable in your hair, even with a very close inspection. Hair thickeners, especially those that also colour your scalp, are extremely water-resistant and excellent for creating fine frontal hairlines but they take longer to apply. They cover your scalp with a layer of colouring substance, which makes it impossible to apply any topical hair loss treatment. Their main weakness in comparison to microfibers is that in direct sunlight it can become visible to the sharp eye that the scalp has been painted.

The common weakness of all chemical substances used for concealing hair loss is the limited choice and authenticity of available shades. Some hair loss sufferers use a combination of two different products simultaneously to overcome the weaknesses of individual products and to achieve the most authentic shade, texture and appearance. Most often a combination of a hair thickener and a micro fibrous concealer is used. The results of such combinations are typically excellent. If you decide to try any such combinations, make sure that you apply the scalp-painting, hair loss thickener first and then use the microfibers to mask the remaining imperfections. There are many products in all three categories of hair loss concealers and you may need to test several of them in order to identify those that best match you hair colour and style of application.

Premature gray hair and hair loss are some of the most common known genetic conditions. Restoring lost hair remains to most of us a distant dream. However, there are some existing options for replacing lost hair and several of them may seem surprisingly effective even to the most skeptical hair loss sufferer. The three main methods of hair restoration known today include surgical hair restoration, non-surgical hair replacement and therapies for regrowing hair using pills and topical applications. The main technique of surgical hair restoration today is hair transplantation, whereas wigs, hair system, hair loss concealers and hair thickeners are the most popular aids used to replace the lost hair by non-surgical means. The non-surgical camouflage is obviously the quickest and the least expensive method of replacing lost hair, though not tremendously popular, as many people believe that hairpieces and concealers cannot withstand rain and wind and do not look natural. In spite of this common belief, some of them are extremely resistant to external influences and can appear very authentic. Hair systems and concealers are often the only options of restoring lost hair for people suffering from non-hereditary forms of hair loss such as unpredictable alopecia areata.

Surgical hair restoration happens to be clearly the most expensive method of restoring lost hair but also the most elegant solution. It can only be used in people suffering from hereditary baldness and burn patients. Hair transplant candidates are required to have sufficient hair density at the back of their scalp and many women suffering from female form of hair loss with its typical diffuse balding pattern do not meet this condition. Hair restoration surgery has made great strides in the past twenty years or so with the introduction of the two main techniques used today - follicular unit transplantation and, more recently, follicular unit extraction. These advances in hair transplantation enable the grouping of hairs very close together, which gives modern hair transplants a completely natural look. The main weakness of hair transplant surgery, besides the cost and the pain involved, is the limited supply of donor hair and the need for multiple surgeries to achieve the final change. Furthermore, patients have to commit themselves to the use of finasteride or any other adequate medicinal hair loss therapy for the rest of their lives to prevent further loss of their existing hair.

Hair loss pills and topical applications do not, despite great scientific advances and the discoveries of recent years, provide satisfactory hair restoration results yet. The two most commonly prescribed hair loss drugs, finasteride and topical minoxidil, can be effectively used to reduce hair loss but their ability to regrow lost hair is relatively limited. Their effectiveness generally declines sharply in the later stages of the balding process. There is no existing medicinal or natural hair loss remedy that can deliver adequate visual results comparable to either hair transplant surgery or non-surgical hair replacements such as hair systems and hair loss concealers. Although there are some promising medicinal hair loss drugs currently under development, especially in the area of genetic research, the ultimate pill for baldness is not expected to become commercially available within the next fifteen years or so. Other advances in hair science, such as hair multiplication or the generation of new hair follicles in wounds, also hold out some promise but it seems that hair transplant surgery will in the next ten to fifteen years remain the most complete method of hair restoration.

Hair loss is similar to gray hair in that it is in the most cases genetically determined and thus very difficult to deal with efficiently. The hair loss treatment options can be, in the first place, divided into surgical and non-surgical therapies. Although there are only a few surgical techniques currently used, the non-surgical spectrum is wide and confusing. Propecia and Rogaine might be the best known medicinal hair loss treatments, while dried fruits of saw palmetto and a Chinese herb, He Shou Wu, also known as Fo-Ti, are the natural ingredients most frequently used in alternative hair loss remedies. Fo-Ti is also frequently used to treat gray hair.

The non-surgical, hair loss therapies can be in principle broken down into medicinal and alternative treatments, whereas when considering methods of application, they can be divided into oral treatments, topicals and others, such as low-level laser therapy or massage. Irrespective of the aforementioned breakdowns, hair growth treatments work either by blocking the activity of dihydrotestosterone, also called antinandrogens, or by stimulating hair growth.

Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is a biologically-active metabolite of the male hormone testosterone that is held to be the main cause of both male and female hereditary pattern baldness. DHT causes hair miniaturization as the hair becomes finer and thinner with every new hair growth cycle until the hair follicles refuse to produce another hair at all. The exact mechanism by which DHT affects hair follicles is not known, though. Finasteride, better known under its trade name Propecia, is the only clinically-proven and FDA-approved anti-androgen used for treating male pattern baldness. It acts by preventing the creation of DHT in the scalp. Since the introduction of Propecia, many other drugs and natural therapies have emerged claiming anti-androgen activity. Some of them are supposed to work by a different mode of action than Propecia, such as preventing DHT from binding to the receptor sites in the follicle or blocking activity in the androgen receptor itself.

Minoxidil, also known under its trade name Rogaine, is the best-known hair loss medicine amongst hair growth stimulants. It is assumed that hair growth stimulants work by directly stimulating epithelial growth of hair follicles and some of them may also counteract the hardening of the hair follicles but the exact mechanism of their action has never been described. One thing that all hair growth stimulants claim to have in common is their ability to increase the length of the hair growth cycle, thus improving the ratio of hair in the growth phase and to increase the hair’s diameter.

The natural hair loss treatments are in principle assumed to work by the aforementioned modes of action and are often presented as safe alternatives to medicinal treatments. There are not too many hair loss treatments out there that have been clinically proven and independently verified to be effective in treating baldness. Of those few existing, all happen to be medicinal drugs. Natural hair loss treatments have still to live up to marketer claims.

When deciding about the most suitable hair loss treatment option, one should consider approaching the problem from different angles. It is best advised to use a combination of anti-androgen and hair growth stimulant, such as a Propecia/Rogaine combo. Alternative, hair loss treatments, for instance natural remedies, should mainly be considered as a method of fine-tuning this basic regimen in order to achieve additional benefits. You may need to try out several combinations of hair loss treatments to find out for works best for you.

Rogaine was the first medical drug in history approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating genetically determined hair loss. By now it has been approved and is available as a cure for thinning hair in many other countries of the world. Its sole active ingredient is minoxidil, a vasodilator that was initially used in the form of the oral drug Loniten to treat high blood pressure. Minoxidil is a hair-growth stimulant but its exact mechanism of action is not very well known. Since Loniten has long come off patent, generic minoxidil is widely available in pharmacies at a very reasonable price and in most countries it does not require a doctor’s prescription.

Both Rogaine and generic minoxidil solutions come in concentrations of 2% for women and 5% for men but many experimental, generic hair loss remedies use concentrations of up to 20%. Minoxidil is often blamed for causing negative side effects. Since it has become the most commonly used drug for treating baldness, its side effects are very well documented and they happen to be often largely exaggerated. In less than 1% of patients they include an irregular or fast heart beat, decreased blood pressure, blurred vision, swelling face and ankles, numbness in the hands, etc. These symptoms are directly related to minoxidil being a vasodilator. In addition, minoxidil can cause undesired hair growth on the face and other parts of the body. This is due to its ability to stimulate hair growth. But some side effects that minoxidil is often blamed for are not caused by minoxidil itself. They include inflammation, itchiness and redness of the scalp, dandruff and allergic reactions. These side effects can be attributed to the chemical vehicles used in the solution, such as propylene glycol and isopropyl alcohol (propanol). Many hair loss sufferers have discontinued their minoxidil treatment because of scalp problems, although minoxidil seldom causes such reactions.

Furthermore, many generic, minoxidil based lotions contain supplementary ingredients that are supposed to improve their overall efficacy, such as azelaic acid, retinoic acid, herbal extracts, etc. These substances, especially the herbal extracts, are known to be allergenic to many people. It is recommended to try several different minoxidil based products, for instance, those that do not contain propylene glycol, in order to test their tolerability for your scalp. A more expensive product, e.g. the original formulation, Rogaine solution, is not necessarily a better choice than a less expensive generic mixture. However, Rogaine foam, though relatively expensive, is usually very well tolerated. Anti dandruff shampoos, e.g. Nizoral, can, in the majority of patients, be employed successfully to treat scalp inflammations, itchiness and dandruff caused by the use of minoxidil based topicals.

Men have been seeking an ultimate cure for hair loss for thousands of years but until very recently all available cures were either cosmetic cover-ups or unsophisticated and harmless vitamin/mineral pills and herbal lotions, with many of them just being scams. It was only with the arrival of finasteride and minoxidil and improvements made in hair transplantation techniques in recent years that the new era began, enabling hair loss sufferers to halt the further progression of the balding process and replace the missing hair on top of their head using the hair left at the back of their scalp. However, to this day no ultimate cure for hair loss exists. There are presently several new drugs and techniques under development but none of these promising therapies is expected to hit the market before 2011.

NEOSH101 is being developed by the US firm Neosil and it is currently undergoing phase IIb clinical testing. NEOSH101 has shown to be a more powerful and faster-acting, hair growth stimulant than minoxidil and it only needs applying once daily. Though significantly improving the current hair loss treatment chances, NEOSH101 is not going to become an ultimate cure for hair loss. The clinical trials seem to be advancing slower than most hair loss sufferers would like and, hence, do not hold your breath for it hitting the market anytime soon. NEOSH101 is mainly expected to replace minoxidil and other, presently used hair growth stimulants.

Another promising field of development is the telomerase research. Telomerase is an enzyme that puts natural caps on telomeres and thus protects them from shortening. Telomerase thereby maintains the genomic integrity. Shortened telomeres are associated with causing the premature aging processes. However, the uncontrolled activation of telomerase can cause tumour. Cancer research is the main focus of the telomerase study but scientists are also looking for other applications, such as anti-aging drugs and drugs against hair loss and grey hair. Although still under development, there are already some products available on the market that seek to emulate the mechanism of telomerase action but they have no scientific backing and should be avoided. Telomerase research could really change the world of medicine but its commercial application might be a good decade away.

Hair multiplication, often called hair cloning or follicular neogenesis, is the next hopeful treatment option being developed. This technique involves extracting the hair follicles from the back of the patient’s scalp, culturing and multiplying them in vitro and injecting the newly-grown, hair cells into the bald scalp. Among several teams of scientists on three continents exploring hair multiplication, the UK healthcare firm Intercytex appears to be the frontrunner. Intercytex reported results of the latest stage of the clinical phase II study of ICX-TRC (a suspension of a patient’s own dermal papilla cells) in March 2008 and they were largely positive. The next release is expected soon. This therapy might hit the market in 2011 at the earliest. The main benefit of hair multiplication would be solving the shortage of donor hair that is the main limiting factor in hair transplantation.

Generating hair follicles in hair-free skin wounds is an utterly new approach to regrowing lost hair. It was discovered accidentally as wounded skin in mice started producing new hair. This technology is currently being developed by the US medical device company, Follica, which licensed this technology from the University of Pennsylvania. Though this method may sound weird it only uses common medical instruments and drugs that have already been approved and thus it might not take too long for it to become available to the public.

This is the list of only a few promising treatments for baldness that are being currently developed but several others are in the pipeline. It appears that becoming bald will soon be by choice rather than destiny.

Hair loss is a wide spread phenomenon that often makes you feel very bad about yourself. Nothing could enhance your looks as better as healthy hair. For most of the people hair loss happens to be a miserable experience and they take a long time to accustom themselves with this new condition. But I would suggest all folks who feel traumatized because of their partial or complete hair loss to better search for remedies instead of feeling bad about it for the whole of their life.

There is a wide range of remedial options which claim to offer permanent cure to hair loss. Herbal remedies are the best treatment options available though. There are two advantages with herbal hair loss treatment, first it is cost effective and secondly it doesn’t give way to side effects that you may experience with other hair loss treatments. Herbal hair loss remedies are of two types, either it could be in form of herbs meant to be ingested or there could herbs to be massaged or applied on scalp.

In this article I would restrict myself to relate only external use herbs for hair. There is a good number of external use herbs which are applied on the scalp but only a few of them have the proven record of bringing back hair on scalp.

Following are some of the easily available herbs:

1.Carthamus Tinctorius: It is popularly known as Safflower oil. This oil happens to be very useful in making hair follicles work again. It tends to increase blood circulation towards follicles making follicles enriched with essential elements to combat any disruption in its functioning. It could be applied twice on scalp in a day. A consistent and long term use would give positive results.

While there are certainly a number of medical treatments that offer great results, experts say that natural hair loss treatment can yield some of the best benefits for anyone concerned about the health of their hair. Most people choose to treat their hair loss with medications or surgery, such as Minoxidil or hair transplantation. However many people fail to realize that medication and surgery are costly and may carry some harmful side effects and risks. The safest and most cost efficient form of hair loss therapy is natural hair loss treatment, which includes healthy dieting, herbal remedies, exercise and proper hair care techniques. Natural hair loss treatment has become the “Lost Art” of hair repair and is often neglected as a form of treatment among the very pricey alternatives.

A fundamental principal in natural hair loss treatment is that the same foods that are good for your health, are good for your hair. Although hair loss can be caused by many other variables, lack of proper nutrition will cause hair loss in most people. Foods that are high in protein, low in carbohydrates, and have reduced fat content can help in maintaining healthier hair and preventing hair loss. For example, essential fatty acids, found in spinach, walnuts, soy, tuna, sardines, sunflower seeds and canola oil, are important dietary essentials useful in keeping hair healthy. The omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids contain anti-inflammatory properties that are useful in maintaining healthy hair. Insufficient levels of these essential fatty acids could lead to quicker hair loss.

People stricken with the agony of hair loss have been often found desperately switching over from one course of treatment to another in order to check hair loss and bring back hairs on scalp. However it should not be so, because all different ways for treating hair loss need some time to show results. All hair loss struck folks must keep patience. They should opt for one line of treatment and stick to it till the required time to see the desired results.

There are various treatment options. From natural remedies to high powered drugs- all are available to treat hair loss. There also exist a nutritional way to curb hair fall. If you don’t want to take hair loss pills, a host of liquids and chemicals are also there to apply directly on the scalp.

Among all these treatment options what remains a favorite of all is home treatment option. These options are rather based on natural products and hence are also termed as natural remedy. From egg yolks to various oils there could be n-number of natural products to be used to treat hair loss at home.

Natural measures also include nutritional supplements such as iron pills, iodine supplements and Vitamin B rich products.

Coming to medication option, only a few drugs have been approved as hair loss remedy. Precisely, there are only two medicines that have got approval of FDA. These are Minoxidil and Propecia. But these medications must be checked against side effects and reactions before being brought in regular use. Baring these medications there are also a good number of other medicines that are efficient in treating loss of hairs but not without disastrous side effects. So check in these details before trying any of these.

In extreme cases of hair loss when you are sure to remain bald for the whole life, you are left with only one option. This is hair transplantation through surgery.