Tis the Season for Shedding Hair
It begins around the Fourth of July and stops around Labor Day each and every summer. My office phones ring off the hook! No, it’s not because my patients are wishing me a happy summer (though many do because they know it is my favorite season of all). It’s because they are seeing more and more of their hair shedding.
If they have been on effective medical therapies such as Rogaine Foam or Propecia or if they are undergoing low level laser therapy, they have been happily used to seeing less hair in the shower drain, on their towels, in their brushes, and on their clothes.
And now it’s falling out again! What I explain to them is that this is a normal yearly phenomenon for which we really do not have a good answer as to it’s cause, but it is real. In the 25 years I have been specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of hair loss, it has been something that has to be addressed each summer.
I counsel my patients that there is nothing that is going wrong with their treatment nor is there very much else that we can do to stop it except, sometimes, increasing the frequency of their laser therapy, I have observed, can slow it down a little sooner.
The good news is that it is self-limiting and will stop in early September; the bad news is that there is yet another, even more significant shedding season during the months of November and December. More on that in the fall…
In the meantime, have a fabulous, fun, sun-filled summer!
Doc