You may restore a receding hairline with both over-the-counter and prescription treatments.
While it's normal to lose around 80 hairs each day, a gradual thinning of your hair, accompanied by hair fall and a receding hairline is indicative of abnormal hair loss. Unlike women, who retain hair at the hairline, men often experience a receding hairline in the shape of the letter M, states the Mayo Clinic. By diagnosing the causative factors and remedying them at an early stage with the help of a variety of treatments, you can increase the chances of arresting your hair loss and restoring lost hair.
Causes and Diagnosis
If your parent or sibling has a receding hairline, then you could have hereditary hair loss, a common cause of hair loss in men. Your dermatologist can look at your hair loss pattern and confirm. A number of other factors, including hormones, illness, medications, nutrition and hair products, can cause a receding hairline. Your dermatologist can diagnose the cause by assessing your overall health, examining your scalp and hair, and performing a scalp biopsy or blood test, if required.
Non-Prescription Treatments
You can use minoxidil, a topical solution, to prevent your hair from thinning and stimulate hair growth. This over-the-counter treatment is approved by the FDA to remedy hair loss. Apply it daily on the area of the scalp where you want your hair to grow back. While it can take up to 12 weeks for hair to grow, you can experience a faster or slower rate of growth. Discontinue the use of minoxidil if you experience scalp irritation or hair growth on the side of your face or forehead.
Prescription Medicines
Talk to your dermatologist about prescribing finasteride, another FDA-approved drug that treats hair loss in men. Finasteride stimulates hair growth and suppresses the production of dihydrotestosterone, a male hormone that shrinks your hair follicle and eventually leads to baldness. If your receding hairline is caused by a bodily inflammation, your dermatologist will inject a corticosteroid in your scalp to stop the swelling and encourage your hair to grow back.
Surgical Procedures
If you experience excessive hair loss, you can opt for surgical hair replacement treatments to restore your receding hairline. Popular hair replacement procedures include hair transplants, in which plugs of hair from your scalp are removed and transplanted into the bald sections of your scalp; and scalp reduction treatments where hairless scalp is removed and replaced with hair-covered scalp. You must consider that these surgical procedures are costly, even painful and may cause scarring and infection.
Tips Warnings
Hair loss treatments take time to work. Make an effort to give whatever form of treatment you use at least 3-6 months of regular use before determining its effectiveness.
Although Rogaine was not FDA-approved for treatment of receding hairlines, it has shown positive results in the treatment of receding hairlines for a number of men
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