Help! My hair parting is getting wider, what should I do? In this case, you need to treat it immediately

As they grow older, many people joke that they dare not look in the mirror because they are afraid that if they look down they will see the "Great Rift Valley" above their heads.

Screenshot of the network platform

Many netizens even posted photos of their "split hair partings" on social media platforms, worrying that they will become balder and balder, and anxious whether they are sick. So, what is the reason for the widening of the hair parting? Can the hair grow back and turn the "Great Rift Valley of East Africa" ​​into a "forest trail"? Today, let's have a good chat.

Image source: Reference [6]

How can I tell if my hair parting has widened?

The widening of the parting is a subjective concept. Some people think that it is "baldness on the top of the head", while some people feel anxious when there is a slight parting, thinking that they are not far from baldness. In fact, to judge whether your parting is widening, you can consider the following 3 ideas:

Idea 1: Look through your old hair photos, choose the same hair-exposing pose, and compare the width of your hair parting before and now.

Idea 2: If you are a woman, you can recall and see if there is much difference in the thickness of your previous ponytail and your current ponytail.

Idea 3: See if there are other more objective indicators that also indicate hair loss, such as abnormal amount of hair loss per day, obvious upward movement of the hairline, obvious thinning/softening of hair, and an increasing number of short hairs.

So, how many hairs are considered abnormal to lose every day? The answer is that less than 100 hairs are considered normal, and some people believe that less than 150 hairs are also considered normal. Therefore, if the number of hairs lost every day is far more than 100 or 150, it is considered too much.

There is a trick to calculate the amount of hair loss every day:

Try to collect all the fallen hair for one week, including those in the washbasin, next to the floor drain, next to the pillow, and on the collar. Then calculate the total number and divide it by 7 to get the average amount of hair lost per day.

Netizens collected lost hair and stuck it on tape, a screenshot of the online platform that records lost hair

A cruel truth:

Your hair parting may be getting wider because you are getting older

Many people worry that the widening of their hair parting is due to health problems. In fact, in most cases, aging is the main reason for the widening of hair parting. Of course, this is also a heartbreaking truth.

Hair grows from follicles, which, like other tissues and organs in the body, will show signs of aging. This is just like when you get older, your athletic ability will decline, your face will have wrinkles, and your collagen will be lost.

The manifestation of aging hair follicles is that hair growth is not as good as that of young and middle-aged people. This has many manifestations. One is that the amount of hair will decrease and the hair will become sparse; another is that the quality of hair will also decrease, such as the toughness is not as good as before, the structure is not tight enough, and the melanin will decrease, and the number of white hairs will begin to increase.

Therefore, it is natural for the parting of the hair to widen as you age, just like the crops that grow from poor soil will become inferior.

So, at what stage does the effect of age begin to show up? Research shows that our hair is most abundant between the ages of 30 and 35, and the amount of hair is relatively stable before this age. Unfortunately, after this age, the hair gradually becomes thinner, grows slower, loses gloss, and loses elasticity.

However, this downward trend varies from person to person, with some people growing faster and some slower. In addition, the initial changes are sometimes imperceptible. Most people realize that they have lost more hair and their hair parting has become visibly wider by the time they are in their 40s.

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

The good news is:

1 situation that causes wide hairline can heal itself

As mentioned above, the widening of the hair parting may be due to age, but what is worrying is that many young people also face the problem of wider hair parting. It can be seen that in addition to age, there are other reasons for the widening of the hair parting, among which telogen effluvium is one of the causes.

Telogen effluvium may sound strange to you, but it is actually very common. Simply put, it means that the body encounters some temporary problems, which causes the normal growth rhythm of hair to be interrupted. The medical explanation is that too much hair enters the resting phase from the growth phase, and then falls out.

The characteristic of telogen effluvium is that hair falls out all over the scalp, and the hair parting becomes wider in the short term. If the cause is eliminated, the hair loss will be cured without treatment in the future.

To elaborate, the following factors can cause telogen effluvium:

1

Having children

Many women who become mothers for the first time will experience postpartum hair loss, which is a typical form of telogen effluvium. Fortunately, most women will return to normal within 9 to 12 months.

2

Diet

If you don't eat well, the normal activity of hair follicles will also be affected. Many people who diet excessively to lose weight are prone to this side effect - telogen effluvium after 2 to 3 months. Similarly, if you have anemia, it is also easy to be accompanied by telogen effluvium. To improve this situation, you need to eat a balanced diet and correct nutritional deficiencies.

3

Serious illness

After a high fever, a severe cold, or a major surgery, you may experience telogen effluvium after a while. When the COVID-19 outbreak occurred two years ago, many people felt this reaction, and this is the reason.

4

High pressure

Emotional stress can also have an indirect impact on hair follicles and hair. Sometimes, due to high academic pressure and 996 work, this kind of hair loss will occur. From a causal point of view, this can be regarded as an occupational injury.

Telogen effluvium usually does not require active medication treatment (the effectiveness of the drugs themselves is limited). The key to treatment is to find the cause and try to avoid it. Over time, new hair will grow back.

The following conditions may cause the hair parting to widen

Pay attention and treat promptly

Data from the "Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Androgenic Alopecia in Chinese" show that 21.3% of men and 6.0% of women in my country suffer from androgenic alopecia, which is a high proportion.

One of the manifestations of this type of hair loss is the widening of the hair parting. However, to diagnose androgenic alopecia, you cannot just look at the hair parting, and men and women have different characteristics.

The following table is a preliminary judgment table we have summarized for reference.

Common features of androgenetic alopecia

Below is a diagram of androgenic alopecia in men and women. The extent of androgenic alopecia in most people is not too serious, especially for women, who rarely lose all their hair and turn into a "Mediterranean" style.

Pattern diagram of male androgenic alopecia (from reference material)

Pattern diagram of female androgenic alopecia (from reference material)

Androgenic alopecia has no impact on health, and there is no need to routinely check hormone levels. However, if you feel that hair loss has reduced your quality of life and is very troubled by it, you can consider seeking medical treatment in a timely manner and receiving standardized treatment.

If it is a man, the classic treatment is topical minoxidil and oral finasteride; if it is a woman, the classic treatment is topical minoxidil. However, for each individual, more targeted and individualized treatment may be given, such as hair transplant surgery for some people, and if drug treatment is too difficult for some people, they may be advised to give up medication and use wigs instead... So specifically, it is recommended to go to the hospital first, and professional doctors will give a reasonable treatment plan after diagnosis.

Seeing this, it is not difficult to find that there may be many reasons behind the phenomenon of "widening of the hair parting", and each person's situation may not be the same. When the hair parting becomes wide, the first thing we should do is not to find a way to treat it, but to first see what the specific problem is, and then take corresponding measures. How to evaluate and how to treat it is best done under the guidance of a dermatologist to avoid detours.

References

[1]TurnerGA,BhogalRK.Hairandaging.Skinmed.2016; 14(5): 338-343.

[2]TajimaM,HamadaC,AraiT, etal.CharacteristicfeaturesofJapanesewomen's hair with agingandwithprogressinghairloss.JDermatolSci.2007; 45(2): 93-103.

[3]WilmaBergfeld.Telogeneffluvium.https://www.uptodate.com/contents/telogen-effluvium.UpToDate.Dec07,2020.

[4] Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery Branch, Hair and Cosmetic Surgery Committee. Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of androgenic alopecia in Chinese. Chinese Journal of Cosmetic Plastic Surgery. 2019;30(1):1-5.

[5]Classificationandscoringofandrogeneticalopecia(maleandfemalepattern).https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-32383-1_101

[6]https://www.philipkingsley.co.uk/

Planning and production

Author: Tang Jiaoqing, attending physician of dermatology department

Review | Feng Jun, Deputy Chief Physician, Dermatology Department, General Hospital of Datong Coal Mine Group Co., Ltd.