Hair loss is a normal occurrence to any person. Normally, a person may shed 50 to 100 strands of hair a day. That is a negligible loss since a person has about 100,000 of hairs in the scalp and about 90% of that hair is growing continuously at one time, and only 10% of that is in resting phase. Resting phase is when a hair stops to grow and after 2 to 3 months, these resting hairs will fall out and new hairs will replace. However, when the rate of hair loss is greater than the rate of hair growth, a noticeable thinning of hair will occur. With old age, gradual thinning of hair is normal and expected, but when rapid hair loss occurs that’s a sudden hair loss.

There are symptoms for sudden hair loss that a person should look out for.

1. Excessive hair falls when you wash or comb your hair.

2. Receding hairline

3. Scalp easily seen through your hair

4. Patches of hair losses, with slight pain or itching in the area

Sudden hair loss may be caused by several reasons. Let’s start from the reason cause by our own body chemistry–hormonal change. This usually occurs to women who recently had given birth. During their pregnancy, the thyroid gland would produce high level of hormones responsible for keeping the hair from falling out. Sometime after child birth, the hormone levels will return to normal and those hair that were kept will fall out and the regular hair cycle will take place once again. Sudden hair loss due to hormonal change may also occur when a female starts or stops taking birth control pills, or when they begin menopause. This hormonal imbalance may be corrected by hormone therapy, or by taking medication to correct hormone imbalance.

Another cause of hair loss is poor nutrition or nutritional deficiencies. Lack of protein and iron in the body will caused hair fall. Crash diet and eating disorders can contribute to poor nutrition. This can be remedied by eating balance diet and taking supplements.

Stress can be a caused of sudden hair loss. A traumatic event, painful loss and depression can cause emotional stress and metabolic disturbances that leads to sudden hair loss. This also has something to do with the hormonal imbalance in the body cause by emotional stress. Physical stress, on the other hand is caused by nutritional deficiencies mentioned earlier. Once stress is alleviated, normal hair cycle should take place in your hair.

Certain medication can also cause sudden hair loss. Usually, medication for depression, arthritis, gout and circulatory system problems are the medicine that can cause sudden hair loss. So if you’ve taken a new medication lately, you have to consult your doctor what medicine would have caused your sudden hair loss and the doctor will be the one to prescribe you an alternate medication or a possible remedy.

Chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other medical treatments will also cause sudden hair loss. It is due to the abnormal chemical process undergoing in your body. There is no cure for this as this is inevitable in these kinds of treatment. However, after treatment, the hair should start to grow again.

Fungal infections, like ringworm, can infect scalp and will lead to sudden hair loss. This is associated with itching and slight pain in the infected area. Treating the infection with topical ointments or antifungal medicine will stop infection. If scalp is scarred due to infection, hair will no longer grow back to the scarred skin, but if scalp is unscarred, hair should grow back once infection is treated. Proper hygiene will prevent this from occurring.

Another cause of sudden hair loss is a mental illness called trichotillomania. People with this illness have an uncontrollable urge to pull out their hair off of any part of their body. This is a mental illness which can be caused by many different factors. Only a doctor who specializes in mental disorders can help a patient treat sudden hair loss caused by trichotillomania since the mental disorder itself must be treated first.