Reasons for Facial Hair Loss

For many people, facial hair loss can be even more embarrassing than hair loss on the head or on other parts of the body.

If you lose hair on your head, you can hide the fact with hats or different hairstyles and you can also disguise the loss of bodily hair by covering up. But what about facial hair loss? Not having a beard or moustache might not sound like a big problem but losing your eyebrows is impossible to hide unless you wear long bangs which not everybody wants to do.

Causes of Facial Hair Loss

Many of the factors causing hair loss on the face are the same as those causing other kinds of hair loss. Alopecia areata, for example, is a disorder which is an autoimmune illness causing hair loss. Alopecia barbae can affect the way hair grows on the face. This condition can affect men or women and is thought to affect between 1 and 2% of the population. Alopecia does not destroy the hair follicles so the hair can start to regrow at any time.

If you are taking a medication which can stop hair growth, such as chemotherapy, this can affect the hair on the face. A skin disease or skin condition can cause hair loss, especially if you have a skin condition causing skin inflammation or one in which foreign cells or tissue push the hair out. Some endocrine or hormonal conditions cause hair loss on the face and autoimmune conditions and infections can do likewise.

Stress can also cause hair loss, which is a problem because hair loss causes stress. Worrying about your hair loss can actually aggravate the problem.

How to Prevent Facial Hair Loss

Since most types of facial hair are caused by outside factors, the question really should be how to treat the hair loss. Options include switching medication if you believe that your loss of facial hair is being caused by the medication you are taking or seeing a doctor about other underlying causes.

Facial Hair Transplants

Facial hair loss restoration is another option and surgical hair restoration can work just as well on the upper lip and eyebrows as it does on the crown of your head or hairline. With this type of treatment, the donor hairs are harvested from the thick, permanent hairs on the back of your head. This hair is slightly different from the hair on the face but it does blend well and give natural results.

Facial hair grows at more or less the same rate as scalp hair but eyebrow hair reaches a certain length and then stops, which means you will have to frequently trim eyebrow hair which has been transplanted.

Between a hundred and a hundred and twenty hair grafts or follicular units are usually all that is needed to replace the eyebrows. If you want a hair transplant for a moustache, beard or goatee, you will probably need between two hundred and six hundred follicular units. It can take up to three months for the hair to start growing.

Facial hair loss can be an embarrassing problem and the best thing to do if you notice hair loss from the face is to visit your doctor to find out what is causing it and whether the underlying cause can be treated.

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