BODY SIGNAL ALERT: HAIR LOSS, SUDDEN
Description and Possible Medical Problems
Gradual hair loss is a normal sign of aging. But if your hair begins to fall out in clumps, a serious health condition is probably causing it and you need to seek medical attention immediately.
Frequently, during an illness that is serious enough to require hospitalization, hair growth will cease altogether for a few months. After the initial onset of the illness, the hair will fall out and then begin to grow back when the illness has disappeared. Though everything from emotional stress to surgery can cause this type of baldness, called telogen efuvium, the hair loss is temporary. Some diseases that can cause telogen efuvium include kidney disease, diabetes, and certain skin diseases. And a low-calorie diet can cause temporary hair loss. In rare instances, when the illness is particularly severe, a person can lose all the hair on her body, including the eyebrows and eyelashes and even the pubic hair.
Chemotherapy for cancer will often cause a person to lose all of her hair over the course of several days. Then, when the therapy is over, the hair will usually begin to grow back.
Alopecia areata is the term for when hair falls out in clumps all over the head. It is frequently used to refer to women who have a severe, sudden hair loss that is due to a serious illness and for which there is no other apparent cause.
Treatment
Hair loss due to aging is basically irreversible, hair loss caused by a disease is almost always temporary. Though this is the good news, the bad news is that you need to treat the underlying disease before your hair can grow back. Since one of the causes, kidney disease is life-threatening without proper treatment, if your hair is suddenly falling out in clumps, you need to see your doctor to determine the cause right away.
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