Positive Health Online

Introduction

It is estimated today that around 25 to 50 per cent of women will suffer a spell of hair loss in their lives. These statistics are not far behind those of men. Hair loss is increasingly becoming a problem and it is no longer a consequence of old age.

Younger and younger men and women are affected, and even though it is not a life-threatening condition, it can be emotionally devastating.

I should know because it happened to me. At the age of 14, I discovered a small bald patch on my head which slowly became bigger. Doctors and dermatologists did not seem to know why it was happening or what could be done. UVA treatment didn't help. A professor of dermatology prescribed steroid tablets which made me put on a lot of weight, but hairwise, nothing happened. After a year or so, I went on to have steroid injections into the scalp which made my hair begin to fall out really fast. I quickly developed more bald patches all over my head which I could no longer cover with my remaining hair.

Alopecia areata                                                    Alopecia areata on the mend

I was devastated when I realized that I had to start wearing a wig to cover my baldness. I could not believe what was happening to me, and nothing seemed to stop the hair from falling out. Within another few months, I had lost all the hair on my head. Within another six months, the hair on my entire body had fallen out.

To this day, I don't know how I got through the first few years of losing all my hair. I tried more medical treatments with irritants which produced a bit of hair but this fell out immediately once the treatment was stopped. The doctor explained to me that the risk of infertility as a side-effect of the irritants was too great to warrant further treatment. It later turned out that I was indeed unable to conceive, which was possibly a side-effect of that treatment.

I had tried every medical treatment that was available at the time, none of which worked, but all of which had major negative side-effects. For the next thirty years I was to try and recover from the medically-induced health problems I had developed.

Thirty years later, while I was training to become a health kinesiologist, a fellow student worked on me to see if my hair growth could be restored. Using my arm muscle as biofeedback, she found out what it was my body needed to rebalance itself and to become healthy again. Holding acupuncture points, applying magnets to various parts of the body and a number of other interventions were aimed at sorting out those health issues that had made my hair fall out in the first place. After 16 sessions, I noticed that something was happening on my head. I looked at my scalp and found that tiny hairs had started to grow. It was the happiest day of my life and, for weeks, I spent hours in front of the mirror just to see whether it was all still there!

Since my own hair started growing back, I have spent endless hours researching alopecia and have been able to help numerous clients regrow their hair using Health Kinesiology, self-hypnosis and natural supplements. My findings, together with many self-help methods, resulted in my book Regrowing Hair Naturally.

Different Types of Hair Loss

The three most common types of hair loss are alopecia areata, alopecia androgenetica and telogen effluvium. None of these conditions has to be permanent. Hair can regrow if you can find out why it fell out in the first place and then treat the underlying cause in a way that does not compromise the body's normal functioning.

Alopecia areata usually starts with one small round patch where hair falls out. This can happen overnight. The bald patch mostly shows itself on the head, but it can also occur in a man's beard or anywhere else on a person's body where hair grows.

This bald patch can stay the same size and then gradually begin to grow hair again, or it can become bigger, with more bald patches turning up. A sign that this type of alopecia is active and expanding are the so-called 'exclamation marks' on the borders of the bald patch. Exclamation marks are hairs that look like they have broken off.

In about 30 per cent of cases, the bald patches become worse to such an extent that all the hair on the head falls out. In rare cases, such as mine, all the hair on the entire body can be shed.

Alopecia areata can last for many years. With some people, hair regrows in one place only to fall out in another. In some people, the hair all grows back only to fall out again in round patches a few months or years later.

Alopecia androgenetica is also called 'male pattern hair loss'. It shows itself in men as gradually receding temples and thinning of the hair on the crown. Depending on the individual man's disposition, the thinning temple hair recedes all the way to the crown, and the hair on top of the head recedes all the way down to the back of the head, leaving a horseshoe shaped fringe around the back of the head.

In women, alopecia androgenetica commences by thinning hair in the crown area which slowly spreads over the top of the head. In women, there is usually no total hair loss on the crown area. Instead, hair grows only very finely so that the scalp can be seen through the hair.

In both men and women, this condition is thought to be caused by genetic factors and/or hormonal imbalance.

Telogen effluvium is a condition that affects women only. Telogen is the resting phase in the hair cycle where hair becomes loose in the hair follicle and is shed. The word 'effluvium' means 'flow out' and is used here in the sense of 'shedding'.

Telogen effluvium is different from alopecia androgenetica in that hair is shed evenly over the whole head and sometimes also over other parts of the body. Normally, only about 10 per cent of hair is in the resting stage at any one time whereas most of the hair is in the growing stage. Clearly, if there is a higher percentage of hair falling out compared to hair growing, this will make your head of hair look thin and unattractive. We speak of telogen effluvium if a significantly increased percentage of hair follicles are in a resting phase than would normally be expected.

Causes of Hair Loss

There are a great number of reasons why your hair can start falling out. Pinpointing the underlying cause is crucial but can be tricky as the body sometimes shows a delayed reaction to a noxious substance or a traumatic event. It is also possible that hair loss problems are triggered by a combination of causes.

The body is an extremely finely tuned mechanism which is geared towards keeping equilibrium. If, for example, you are getting too hot, the body starts cooling you down by producing sweat which evaporates on the skin's surface and so returns the body temperature to normal again. Or if you get frightened, the blood drains from your head and face to provide all the blood for the muscles of the lower body so that you have the energy to fight or flee. Once the frightening situation or thought is over, the adrenals send out cortisone to counteract the adrenalin and calm the body down again.

Problems start occurring when this ability to adapt is overstretched and the body can no longer right itself and consequently remains in a permanently unbalanced state. It is at this point that you start noticing symptoms of illness or disease.

Unfortunately, we often overlook or ignore the initial warning signals that the body sends out, and we tend to only take action when the symptoms become acute or slow us down so much that we can't function normally any more. Worse still, conventional medicine often treats the symptoms only by switching them off so that we no longer get the warning signals. Often, this makes matters worse. Not only has the underlying cause been ignored, but now we are also likely to have side-effects from the drugs so that the underlying cause for our initial symptom gets obscured even further.

Once the body is struggling or unable to return to its natural equilibrium, the immune system is compromised and bacteria, viruses, fungi and other parasites have easy access.

Hair loss problems, just like any other health problems, are a sign that the body's equilibrium has broken down. In order to help the body function properly once more, it is necessary to check very carefully what has disturbed the body's balance. This can be a complex task because by the time your hair is starting to fall out, a lot has already gone wrong. The hair problem is usually only the tip of the iceberg.

The table below shows reasons why your body is shedding hair.

Reasons for Hair Loss.

Physical causes
Lack of vitamins and minerals
Hormonal imbalance
Under- or overactive thyroid
Extreme blood loss
Severe or chronic illness
Overactive immune system
Parasites
Incorrect bite

Emotional causes
Prolonged stress
Emotional trauma
Sudden shock

Other factors
Accidents or falls
Operations and scars
Dental substances
Infected oral cavities
Vaccinations
Prescription drugs
Smoking
Common metal poisoning
Hair products and dyes

What Can You Do?

Hair loss, whether it is alopecia areata, alopecia androgenetica or telogen effluvium shows that your body is not working as it should. The main reason for an imbalanced system that I have found in my practice is that there is some form of toxicity in the body, two of the most common ones being toxic metals and parasites. In addition, dietary deficiencies and allergies can create over-acidity in the body which can lead to an overactive immune response and/or a compromised gut. In many cases, several factors are involved.

In order to help yourself, you should check the following areas:

Do you have any silver-grey amalgam fillings in your mouth? These leak mercury vapours into the body, which are known to cause a number of serious health problems, amongst them hair loss. You will need first of all to go on a heavy metal detox to rid the body of the mercury and ideally, at a later stage, have the amalgam fillings replaced. Also have root-canal fillings checked as they can also be at the bottom of hair loss. Spirulina is a particularly relevant remedy in this context, together with other supplements such as amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Do you have a problem with parasites? Have a health kinesiologist or bioresonance practitioner check this out. Parasites can cause a host of illnesses because they destroy body cells faster than they can be regenerated which can send your immune system into overdrive and produce allergic reactions, pain and inflammation. In addition, parasites can also obstruct the intestines and the pancreas. Important remedies for fighting off parasites are wormwood, cloves and black walnut.

Are you drinking enough water? You should have at least eight large glasses of still filtered water a day. This is absolutely essential if you want to help your liver, kidneys and gut to work well. A dehydrated body is easy prey for parasites, and toxins stay in a dried-out body in their undiluted form.

Are you frequently stressed? Sort out any emotional problems by going to an analytical hypnotherapist or counsellor. Stress is a big factor in hair loss – I have had clients who regrew their hair simply by getting rid of emotional baggage. Alternatively, learn self-hypnosis to help your emotions back onto an even keel. (Regrowing Hair Naturally comes with a self-hypnosis CD.)

With any supplements you are taking it is crucial to take the right amount. If you take too little, you spend a lot of money and the supplement doesn't work. If you take too much, it can be dangerous as in the case of iron. Your best bet is to have a hair or nail analysis done or go to see a health kinesiologist or a bioresonance practitioner.

About Health Kinesiology (HK)

HK is a combination of traditional Chinese medicine and western style muscle testing. An HK practitioner uses acupuncture points on a client's body to establish where the client's energy system is blocked. By touching an acupuncture point and at the same time exerting gentle pressure on, say, the client's arm muscle, a biofeedback is established. If the arm muscle weakens, it tells the practitioner that there is a problem relating to that particular acupuncture point. If the arm muscle stays strong, the practitioner knows that the energy is flowing freely through that particular acupuncture point. He or she can then move on to test various other acupuncture points in the same way.

Each acupuncture point is related to a particular meridian. Meridians are energy pathways that flow through the body, just below the surface of the skin, with every meridian serving a particular organ or gland. If the energy cannot flow freely through the meridian, the related organ or gland will not get the energy it needs to be fully functional. In the long run this can lead to ill health or disease.

HK can help with a great number of psychological and physical problems. It is an ideal tool to discover whether you have an allergy or intolerance to certain foods, additives, common metals or other substances. It can also test whether you have bacteria, fungi, parasites or moulds in your body as well as finding out which remedies or supplements are necessary to get rid of them.

HK stimulates energy flow and encourages detoxification, and as the body gets rid of accumulated waste, nutrients can get to the cells and help heal the body. With a number of my clients I found that their body doesn't recognize certain nutrients and is therefore unable to utilize them. Even though these clients were taking all the right supplements, their cells were unable to metabolize the supplements. This could be remedied with a variety of HK procedures

Don't Give Up

Hair falls out easily but regrows slowly. If you notice a problem with your hair, deal with it as soon as possible. You can get your hair back without chemicals that compromise your health. Make sure you find out what your body needs to regrow healthy hair and start looking after yourself physically and emotionally. As you start to look after your body's needs, you may well find that other health problems disappear as well as your hair loss problems. And if you are feeling particularly low, remember that my hair regrew after 30 years of not having a single hair on my body, so your chances are pretty good too!

Case Histories

Case History 1

A young woman in her early thirties came to see me with total hair loss on the entire body (alopecia universalis). This had occurred after part of her thyroid had been destroyed in a medical procedure which was supposed to cure her overactive thyroid. As a consequence, she now had an underactive thyroid and had lost all her hair overnight. We started Health Kinesiology (HK) treatment and found that her body was unable to recognize and metabolize a number of important nutrients. We corrected this through a number of HK procedures, and after ten sessions, her hair started growing again.

Case History 2

A male Asian client came very distressed because his formerly full hair had been reduced to half the volume he had before. His hair was coming out when he was washing it, and he would always find hair on his pillow in the morning. He couldn't understand why this was happening – nobody in his family had problems with their hair. In addition, he also suffered from irritable bowel syndrome. On checking with my foods test kit, I found that he had multiple allergies and had to stay away from some foods of which he ate a lot. He had already stopped smoking and now also stopped drinking as he proved to be allergic to every kind of alcohol. Once he had made these adjustments, the hair stopped falling out. With a couple more health kinesiology sessions, his hair quality started improving and the hair started looking denser again.

Case History 3

A client of 60 came with a number of health problems. She suffered from diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel, panic attacks, anxiety and alopecia areata. With Health Kinesiology treatment, the hair started growing but kept falling out again and again. She had a great number of crowns in her mouth which had been put in a long time ago. Initially, my client was very reluctant to go to a dentist as this would have meant financial outlay for having to have the crowns with the amalgam inside removed and replaced. However, I was finally able to persuade her to see the dentist I work with who specializes in amalgam removal. He found that there was an area of serious inflammation in her jaw, and on removing one of the crowns found that it had amalgam inside. Gradually, she had all the crowns with amalgam replaced and the difference in her hairgrowth became quickly apparent. The hair started growing better and more quickly, without it falling out again.

Case History 4

A young man of 24 came to see me. He had had problems with his hair since the age of 14 when he had developed thinning hair on his crown. He was eating a lot of junk food, drank lots of diet coke and was also very dehydrated. We started with a little tidy-up of his diet by reducing the junk food somewhat and increasing water intake. At the same time, eight sessions of Health Kinesiology were necessary to allow his body to rebalance itself and allow nutrients to get into the cells. At his last session, he came back, sporting a shorter hairstyle and showing off a clearly denser hairgrowth than he had had before.

References

Vera Peiffer. Regrowing Hair Naturally. Peiffer Press. London. www.hairgrowthUK.net
Jane Thurnell-Read. Health Kinesiology. Life-Work Potential. Penzance. 2002. www.lifeworkpotential.com
Lynne McTaggert. What Doctors Don't Tell You. HarperCollins, London. 1996.
Dr F. Batmanghelidj. Your Body's Many Cries For Water. Tagman Press. 2000.