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Daily Healthy TipsMonday, May 7, 2007
Anxiety Disorders
Medically Reviewed On: July 11, 2006
Summary
Anxiety disorders are conditions that cause patients to feel anxious or distressed for no logical reason. Normally, anxiety is part of the body’s alarm system, alerting a person to danger or providing extra energy to help accomplish a task. However, people with anxiety disorders are nervous for no particular reason or experience fear that is out of proportion with the actual threat that is present.
Anxiety is also a symptom of other mental health disorders, physical conditions and a side effect of some medications. An anxiety disorder is diagnosed when anxiety is the main symptom that requires help from a mental health professional.
More than 19 million Americans are affected by anxiety disorders, making them among the nation’s most common mental disorders, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. There are five major categories of anxiety disorders, including:
- Generalized anxiety disorder. Diagnosed when a person worries excessively about all types of life issues (e.g., health, family, money, work) for more than six months.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Diagnosed when a person is unable to control intrusive and unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or to stop performing ritual actions (compulsions), such as repetitive hand washing.
- Panic disorder. Diagnosed when a person regularly experiences panic attacks –sudden episodes of fear and anxiety that usually last for between 10 and 30 minutes and cause physical symptoms such as racing heartbeat, heavy perspiration and shortness of breath.
- Phobias. Diagnosed when a person has extreme and irrational fear of objects or situations that in actuality pose little or no threat to them.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder. Diagnosed when a patient who has experienced an extremely traumatic event such as war, rape, child abuse or a natural disaster later begins to have nightmares, flashbacks, depression and/or other symptoms.
About anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders are conditions in which patients feel anxious or distressed for no logical reason. People with these disorders may feel chronic, intense and irrational anxiety on a regular or even daily basis. As a result, anxiety disorders can seriously diminish quality of life, hampering a person’s ability to work, travel, and form and maintain interpersonal relationships.
Normally, anxiety is part of the body’s alarm system, alerting a person to danger or providing an extra energy to help accomplish a task. However, some people experience anxiety for no particular reason, or that is out of proportion with the actual threat that may be present. Some of these individuals may have an anxiety disorder. Others may experience anxiety in conjunction with another mental disorder, such as depression, or as a side effect of prescribed medications.
More than 19 million Americans are affected by anxiety disorders, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. They are among the most common mental illnesses inmental health bill in the United States, according to the National Mental Health Association.
Anxiety disorders can affect all aspects of a person’s overall health. For example, patients with anxiety disorders are three times to five times more likely to visit a physician than those without anxiety disorders. They are also six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders.
In addition, depression is often associated with anxiety disorders. Symptoms of depression include feelings of sadness, hopelessness and low energy. For more information, see Depression.
Despite the fact that anxiety disorders are highly treatable, just one-third of those who experience symptoms actually visit a physician, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. Patients who have previously undergone treatment for an anxiety disorder but did not find it effective should not be discouraged. Most cases of anxiety disorder that do not respond to one form of treatment will respond to another. In addition, new approaches are emerging all the time. Patients should tell their physician details of the previous treatment regimen (including types of medications or psychotherapy) and the apparent effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the approach.Types and differences of anxiety disorders
There are five major categories of anxiety disorders. All share the quality of excessive and irrational fear. The fear may be of a specific object or situation, or it may be generalized fear that the patient feels without being able to identify a specific source of that fear. Each anxiety disorder has its own distinct features. They include:
- Generalized anxiety disorder. Diagnosed when a person worries excessively about all types of life issues, including health, family, money and work, for more than six months. Patients with this disorder may find themselves unable to relax, even when there are no signs of trouble in their lives.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Diagnosed when a person is helpless to control intrusive and unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or to stop performing ritual actions (compulsions), such as counting, hand washing or repetitively checking locks.
- Panic disorder. Diagnosed when a person regularly experiences panic attacks – sudden episodes of fear and anxiety that usually last for between 10 and 30 minutes and cause symptoms such as racing heartbeat, heavy sweating and shortness of breath. In some cases, panic disorder may be accompanied by agoraphobia, a condition in which patients fear being caught in a place or situation in which escape might be difficult, or being trapped in circumstances in which medical help might not be available during a panic attack. In other cases, panic disorder actually causes agoraphobia.
- Phobias. Diagnosed when a person has extreme and irrational fears of something that in actuality poses little or no threat. Social phobia (also known as social anxiety disorder) involves a fear of being judged by others, whereas people with specific phobias suffer from intense fear of certain objects (such as fear of spiders) or situations (such as fear of heights). Agoraphobia is a phobia closely related to panic disorder (see above). People with phobias avoid objects or situations that they view as threatening.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Diagnosed when a patient who has experienced a traumatic event such as war, rape, child abuse or a natural disaster begins to have nightmares, flashbacks, depression or other symptoms for more than a month. Stress disorders that occur within a month of the traumatic event are known as acute stress disorders.
Risk factors and causes of anxiety disorders
The exact cause of most anxiety disorders is unknown. However, a combination of psychological, biological and environmental factors may be responsible. Heredity is also believed to play a role in many anxiety disorders. The combination of heredity and the anxiety experienced may vary. For example, many people may experience the same trauma during combat, but only a few of them develop post-traumatic stress disorder.
Research is ongoing into how the brain creates feelings of anxiety and fear. Scientists believe that an almond-shaped structure called the amygdala serves as a central location that coordinates messages between the parts of the brain that process incoming sensory signals and the parts that interpret those signals. The amygdala signals the body when a threat is present, triggering anxiety or fear.
Another brain structure called the hippocampus also helps process threatening signals and changes information into memories. Research shows that people who have experienced severe stress (such as child abuse or combat experience) appear to have a smaller hippocampus.
Most anxiety disorders begin in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. In many cases, anxiety disorders affect women more often than men. However, in other disorders – such as generalized anxiety disorder – the percentages are nearly equal.Signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders
Symptoms related to anxiety disorders may differ slightly depending on the nature of the disorder affecting a patient. For example, patients with panic disorder may experience panic attacks that include rapid heartbeat, heavy sweating and shortness of breath. Meanwhile, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder may find themselves unable to stop thinking certain thoughts or to stop performing rituals repetitively, to the point that the rituals become time-consuming.
Patients diagnosed with one form of anxiety disorder often are also diagnosed with a second anxiety disorder. In addition, many patients with anxiety disorders also are diagnosed with other disorders, such as depression, eating disorders or substance abuse.
Some of the symptoms associated with major anxiety disorders are as follows:
Condition | Symptoms |
Panic disorder | Recurrent episodes of panic attacks which feature rapid or pounding heartbeat or palpitations, heavy sweating and shortness of breath |
Phobias | Extreme and irrational fears of something that in actuality poses little or no threat. Includes social phobia and specific phobias. |
Obsessive-compulsive disorder | Recurrent and persistent thoughts or impulses – examples include excessive hand-washing or checking repeatedly to make sure the stove is off |
Post-traumatic stress disorder | Flashbacks or nightmares, emotional numbness, headaches, dizziness, chest pain |
Acute stress disorder | Anxiety, dissociation and other symptoms within a month of exposure to trauma |
Generalized anxiety disorder | Excessive anxiety and worry, irritability, restlessness, fatigue, trembling |
Diagnosis methods for anxiety disorders
In many cases, patients will be unaware that they have a anxiety disorder and will visit a physician because of physical symptoms that they experience. For example, a patient with panic disorder may visit a physician believing that symptoms such as chest discomfort, heart palpitations and shortness of breath indicate a heart problem rather than an anxiety disorder.
In such cases, a physician will have to rule out the possibility of an underlying medical illness such as heart disease before suspecting that an anxiety disorder may be causing physical symptoms. Blood tests such as a complete blood count or tests such as an echocardiogram (an image of the heart produced by ultrasound) may be used to rule out certain heart conditions.
In other cases, patients may not experience acute physical symptoms, but may instead report feelings of unease or anxiety. These patients may find that anxiety is interfering with their lives and that they require medical treatment to help alleviate the problem.
In all cases, a physician will perform a complete medical examination and compile a thorough medical history. Once other conditions have been ruled out, the physician may diagnose an anxiety disorder if certain criteria are present.
All anxiety disorders have their own, specific criteria as defined by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). For example, panic disorder is diagnosed when the patient has recurrent, unexpected panic attacks, and when for a month or more after at least one attack, the patient has one or more of the following:
- Ongoing concern about future attacks
- Concerns about the significance of future attacks and their potential consequences
- Change in behavior to reduce the likelihood of future attacks
In addition, to diagnose a panic disorder, symptoms should not be caused by a general medical condition or the use of substances, and cannot better be explained by another anxiety disorder or mental condition.
A patient who appears to have an anxiety disorder may be referred to a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Experts in mental health care can establish a diagnosis for one or more anxiety disorders or another problem such as depression.Treatment options for anxiety disorders
Patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders have a number of effective treatment options. In many cases, a combination of psychotherapy and medications may be the best treatment. In other cases, one form may be more beneficial than another. For example, certain phobias respond only to psychotherapy.
Antidepressant medications such as sertraline, paroxetine and fluoxetine are usually effective in treating anxiety disorders, even in patients who are not depressed. These drugs sometimes take several weeks to become effective, so patients should not become discouraged if they do not see immediate improvement.
Patients should be aware that a physician may need to adjust the dosage or change medications to achieve the best results with minimal side effects. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking in some patients and all people being treated with them should be monitored closely for unusual changes in behavior.
Anti-anxiety medications (e.g., clonazepam or alprazolam) also may be prescribed. They generally are prescribed only for short periods of time, because patients tend to develop a tolerance to them. This means that over time, it takes increasing dosage levels to achieve the same effect from the drug, which may lead to drug dependency. However, patients with panic disorder may take the drug for as long as six months to a year.
Patients should not stop using antidepressant or anti-anxiety medications unless under close supervision of a physician, because this may cause withdrawal symptoms.
Beta blocker medications – which are typically used to treat heart conditions – are effective in treating some anxiety disorders, particularly social phobia. Patients who know that they soon will be in an anxiety-provoking situation – such as giving a speech – may be prescribed beta blockers to reduce symptoms such as a pounding heart or trembling hands.
Psychotherapy is particularly effective for anxiety disorders such as social phobia and panic disorder. It is likely to take the form of behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy, or a combination of the two (cognitive-behavioral therapy). In behavioral therapy, the patient learns to change specific actions and to use different techniques to stop harmful behavior. The patient may learn relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and may be gradually exposed to situations that are frightening and in which the patient can test new coping skills.
Cognitive therapy involves learning new skills to react differently to situations that typically trigger anxiety. Patients also learn more about negative thinking patterns that increase anxiety and ways to redirect such thinking.
Psychotherapy for those with anxiety disorders is likely to last around 12 weeks. It may be conducted one-on-one or in a group setting. Patients also may be treated for other psychological or physical conditions while they receive treatment for an anxiety disorder.Prevention methods for anxiety disorders
While anxiety disorders cannot always be prevented, they can be more effectively managed by taking steps that can reduce symptoms. Relaxation techniques such as meditation, muscle relaxation, breathing techniques and guided imagery may help people feel more relaxed.
Taking time to engage in leisure and recreational activities can help restore balance to patients’ lives, leaving them less vulnerable to anxiety, stress and panic. Eating a healthy diet, exercising and avoiding certain substances – such as some types of medications, caffeine, amphetamine and marijuana – can reduce the likelihood of symptoms related to anxiety disorders.
Support groups can also help patients relieve their anxiety. These are sessions in which people with anxiety disorders share their own experiences and offer encouragement and understanding to one another.Questions for your doctor on anxiety disorders
Preparing questions in advance can help patients to have more meaningful discussions with their physicians regarding their conditions. Patients may wish to ask their doctor the following questions related to anxiety disorders:
- How can I tell the difference between normal worry and an anxiety disorder?
- What is causing my anxiety disorder?
- Is it possible that I might have several different types of anxiety disorders at the same time?
- Is my anxiety disorder medically dangerous?
- What are my treatment options?
- Will I have to take medication every day, or only when symptoms are especially severe?
- How effective are the treatments you’re recommending?
- How long will my treatment take?
- Will I ever be cured of my anxiety disorder?
- How can I prevent symptoms associated with anxiety disorders?
Labels: anxiety disorders, mental health, stress
A Hard Day's Night: Coping with Sleep and Anxiety
Medical Reviewer:
Vikram Tarugu, MD
Medically Reviewed On: April 29, 2004
During a long day, you often daydream about the moment when you can crawl into bed and quickly fall into a deep sleep. But once under the covers, you may find yourself being kept wide awake by anxieties that seem to rush into your brain all at once. Anxiety is one of the most common causes of insomnia, and more than 19 million Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder. Unfortunately that means that stress and anxiety are likely to be responsible for the daytime drowsiness many Americans experience at the office or school. Below, Dr. Richard Ross, a professor of psychiatry at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, discusses strategies for coping with stress and anxiety so that you can get the sleep you need. What is the impact of everyday stress on sleep? Fortunately the majority of time people are able to cope with everyday stressors, and they do not affect sleep. But if the stressor occurs right before you're going to sleep, it's possible that the release of stress chemicals could affect your ability to fall asleep. Very severe stressors can lead to nightmares and cause you to wake up. How does your mental state affect sleep? On the other hand, anxiety and anxiety disorders are more commonly associated with a difficulty in falling asleep and staying asleep. What anxiety states can disturb sleep? Panic disorder is an interesting form of anxiety disorder. It's characterized most specifically by unanticipated, spontaneous attacks of severe anxiety. These attacks build to a crescendo in a very short period of time, and they can be associated with a variety of physiological and psychological difficulties. A person feels their heart rate going up and they start to sweat. Psychologically, a person may feel so anxious that they are concerned about dying. Probably about two-thirds of people with panic disorder will have panic attacks at one time or another during sleep. So a person typically awakens from what's called a nocturnal panic attack feeling quite anxious, and it can be quite disturbing. Does it ever happen that people fear sleep? People with post-traumatic stress disorder, who have been traumatized psychologically by some terrible event, can be very hypervigilant, very aware of the environment, and therefore actually uncomfortable about going to sleep in the nighttime. How are anxiety disorders treated? For example, a person might have the idea that death could occur when sleeping. A person might have read that heart attacks occur at a certain time during the night and might actually be afraid to go to sleep. A cognitive behavioral therapist could challenge that idea and educate the person. There are many pharmacological treatments for the anxiety disorders. Currently, psychiatrists are likely to use drugs that were originally introduced as antidepressant drugs, but have since been appreciated for their anti-anxiety effects. Interestingly, though, sometimes the antidepressants can interfere with sleep as a side effect. Oftentimes a psychiatrist will recommend taking an antidepressant drug early in the day to avoid this. And there are anti-anxiety medications such as clonazepam and alprazolam. What are some strategies to help people sleep? You may find it very relaxing to have a phone conversation with a particular person before going to bed. That person might be able to provide some reassurance and help the sleeper feel calmer. On the other hand, it wouldn't be a good idea to have a phone conversation with someone with whom you're having a disagreement. What medications can help with sleep problems associated with anxiety? There are newer medications that act a little bit differently from the old-time benzodiazepines, and seem to have a shorter duration of action. So you can get help with sleep, but then not feel very tired, hung over or drugged the next day. Why do worries often surface at night? Historically, Freud and other psychoanalytic thinkers thought that there was something about dreaming that enabled a person to work out certain internal conflicts. So it's probably worth saying that it may be that conflicts are worked out at night in our sleep.
Stress triggers a physiological response. If a human being or any organism is stressed, he or she wants to be able to cope with that stress, and it's important to be vigilant and aroused. This causes certain neurochemicals to be released in your brain, which can have a tremendous effect on your level of vigilance and arousal.
Most experts associate depression with middle-of-the-night awakening and early morning awakening. Early morning awakening is when you have to get up before you want to in order to get to work or school.
Generalized anxiety disorder is a common anxiety disorder characterized by exaggerated arousal. It can be manifested during sleep, particularly if a person lies awake worrying when he or she should be sleeping.
People can become afraid of going to sleep for a variety of reasons. There are times when people develop a concern that their bedroom is no longer a good place to sleep. So they begin to associate the room with not being able to fall asleep, and then they become fearful of trying to go to sleep in that room because they know they can't. So a vicious cycle begins to develop.
The treatment of anxiety disorders typically is either pharmacological or psychotherapeutic. In terms of the psychotherapy, there are many very effective treatments. There's a lot of evidence that what is termed cognitive behavioral therapy can be very useful. “By cognitive behavioral, I mean gently challenging the ideas that a person has about sleep and their sleep disturbance,” says Ross.
In general, it's very important to avoid stimulating behaviors before bedtime and to emphasize good sleep hygiene. These behaviors are going to vary from person to person but in general it means avoiding caffeine after 5 p.m., and not just coffee but also tea and caffeinated soda. It means not smoking shortly before bedtime because nicotine is a stimulant. It means not going to bed and lying awake for a long time. Instead, it's better to get up after a short while, go to a different part of the house, do something relaxing and then try to go back to sleep.
There are several medications for insomnia. In the past, psychiatrists typically used drugs of the benzodiazepine class, such as Valium and Librium, to help people with sleep. There's agreement among psychiatrists that in the short term that a benzodiazepine is useful. However, there isn't yet a consensus that long-term treatment with benzodiazepines is helpful.
“The question of why worries often surface at night is an interesting one, and I have to say at the outset that I don't have the answer to that,” says Ross. “In this modern day, when we're all trying to do so many things and balance so many activities in our lives, I think there's a tendency to use the bedroom as a place to accomplish things other than sleep.”
Do You Know Your Early Warning Stress Signals?
Medical Reviewer:
Laurence Fine, MD
Medically Reviewed On: January 17, 2005
Despite the unavoidability of stress, there are ways that you can tune into your body and pick up its stress signals, such as problems sleeping, headaches and bossiness. Once you can recognize how your body responds to stress, you can work on catching yourself in the beginning of your "stress cycle." Mind/body researchers say you can prevent the worsening of your symptoms, and sometimes prevent them from occurring at all, by using relaxation techniques, such as meditation or physical activity.
The goal of relaxation techniques, according to Dr. Herbert Benson, president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, is to elicit a relaxation response from your body. Relaxing can counteract the consequences of stress by slowing your heart rate, breathing rate and lowers blood pressure. Below, Benson talks about common stress signals, and ways to relieve stress.
What is stress?
Stress is any circumstance that requires behavioral adjustment. Any change is, therefore, stressful. And when under stress, people evoke what’s called the "fight or flight” response. “And that is when adrenaline is put forth in the body,” says Benson, “and we experience increased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate.” In essence your body is preparing to run or to fight.
“Our species wouldn’t be here today without it because it is necessary for self-protection,” says Benson. “Our modern society, however, turns on our stress response when we don’t need it.” So when you don’t run or fight when stressed, those same hormones can lead to a number of different disorders, such as anxiety, depression and high blood pressure. Stress can also lead to cardiac irregularities, heart attacks and insomnia. It worsens PMS and hot flashes from menopause, and affects ovulation and infertility. Stress has the ability to disrupt more than just your vacation.
Do people usually know when they are under stress?
There are a number of stress warning signals. There are physical symptoms, behavioral symptoms, emotional symptoms, cognitive symptoms and spiritual symptoms. Physical symptoms include headaches; indigestion; stomachaches; sweaty palms; sleep difficulties; back pain; tight shoulders, neck; racing heart and tiredness. Behavioral symptoms include excessive smoking; compulsive gum chewing; bossiness; being very critical of others; grinding one’s teeth at night; overuse of alcohol and compulsive eating. Emotional symptoms include crying; nervousness; boredom; edginess; feeling powerless to change things; anger; loneliness; unhappiness for no reason and being easily upset. And cognitive symptoms involve trouble thinking clearly; forgetfulness; lack of creativity; memory loss and loss of your sense of humor. Spiritual symptoms might include cynicism; doubt; martyrdom and a loss of direction. And in relationships, stress might play out as an inability to get along with others, getting angry too easily, clamming up or having a low sex drive.
How can people distinguish between stress signals and medical problems?
Different people have different organs that are targeted by stress. Some people become anxious, other people have stomachaches, others headaches. And some people who already suffer from certain conditions, such as migraine headaches, may find that stress will trigger or worsen their headache. You should ask yourselves if these symptoms or feelings are caused by or made worse by stress. And if so, then it’s stress related. If you are concerned about a particular symptom, however, you should always go to a doctor first to exclude any underlying medical problem.
What can people do to relieve stress?
There is no good drug or surgical procedure to treat stress. So if you possibly can, try to alter the stressful situation. “But just as we all have within us the ‘fight or flight’ or stress response,” says Benson, “so we also have within us an opposite response, which is called the relaxation response.” And a person should elicit that on a regular basis.
The stress response comes about automatically. The relaxation response requires two steps. Step one is a repetition- repetition of a word, a sound, a prayer, a phrase or even a repetitive movement. And the second step is to ignore other thoughts when they come to mind while you’re doing the repetition. The technique should be used once or twice a day for 10 to 20 minutes. So a person could sit quietly and choose an appropriate repetition. Or one can do a repetitive exercise such as yoga, tai chi, or jogging. Other repetitive activities are knitting or crocheting.
When you break the train of everyday thought by doing this type of repetition, you become calmer and better able to cope with the stressors. And not only that, it’s protective because there is a carryover effect that lasts throughout the 24-hour period. But it has to be done regularly.
How does the relaxation response affect the body?
What happens is that levels of certain hormones in your body, such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, literally change, and you’re calmer. In addition, the wirings in your brain, your brain chemicals, actually change. All of this has been scientifically proven. As a result, you’re less likely to be upset by a stressor, and certainly less likely to have the stress’s harmful effect occur.
Does stress reduction reduce risk of disease?
Certain heart attacks have been proven to be directly related to stress. By counteracting the harmful effects of stress, these types of heart attacks could be prevented, though this has not yet been studied. “We know that one can effectively treat insomnia, high blood pressure, PMS, the stress-related symptoms of fertility, the hot flashes of menopause and all sorts of pain that is worsened by stress, by relieving stress,” says Benson.
What is your advice to people when it comes to stress relief?
People should view health and well-being as akin to a three-legged stool. One leg is medications, the second leg is surgery and procedures. They are absolutely of essence in modern medicine. But they don’t effectively treat stress and its harmful effects. “That’s why we need a third leg and that is self-care,” Benson says. In that self-care leg, people have the relaxation response, nutrition and exercise and the belief system. So people should be aware that there are scores of techniques that they can use to counteract the harmful effects of stress.
Labels: relaxation, stress, stress signals
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Is Stress Causing Your Hair Loss?
Medical reviewer: Medically Reviewed On: March 31, 2006
Published on: June 16, 2006
That's right, stress may make you want to pull out your hair, but extreme stress may cut out the middle man.
Usually, it's not mild job or life stress that triggers hair loss, more likely it is extremely serious stress to the body that causes hair to stop growing and fall out. These types of stress can be initiated by some types of medications, diabetes, thyroid disorders and even extreme emotional stress, but also can be caused by commonplace life events like childbirth, miscarriage and surgery.
"The biggest cause of all is pregnancy," says Dr. Michelle Pelle, assistant professor in the division of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego.
In fact, it is estimated that up to 45 percent of new mothers experience some degree of hair loss from the stress of having a baby. Since this type of hair loss is caused by such common triggers, many may suffer from it without realizing its cause. Most of the time, hair will grow back within six months, but sometimes this kind of hair loss can be the start of a more long-term problem.
How Stress Causes Hair Loss
Hair grows in repeating cycles. The active growth phase lasts around two years and is followed by a resting phase that spans three months, after which the hair falls from the scalp. Normally, every strand of hair in your head is at a different point in this cycle, so the shedding is barely noticeable: a few strands in the shower drain, some more on your brush, a hair or two on your pillow. A normal head sheds at most 100 strands of hair a day.
However, when the body undergoes extreme stress, as much as 70 percent of your hair can prematurely enter the resting phase, called the telogen phase. Three months later, these hairs begin to fall out, causing noticeable hair loss called telogen effluvium.
The person will not become completely bald and the thinning will be fairly unnoticeable. However, it's this three month delay and the fact that the trigger seems so unrelated that causes confusion on the part of the patient concerned about hair loss.
Fortunately, in most cases hair will begin to grow back within six months. In a very small percentage of people, however, telogen effluvium may be only the trigger for more long-term hair loss.
Ensuring a Covered Scalp
Whenever a patient has sudden hair loss, he or she should see a board-certified dermatologist, preferably one with experience in this area. Even when the doctor is able to determine the source of the stress, such as with a mom who just gave birth, a father coping with the recent loss of a child or a young woman who stopped taking birth control pills, additional testing should be done, says Pelle.
These tests will check for iron and certain hormone levels and thyroid function. Any abnormalities may slow the re-growth of hair. Low iron levels, for example, is particularly common in young women, says Pelle, and by taking an iron supplement or increasing the amount of red meat in one's diet, a young woman can reduce the amount of time she has to worry about her hair.
Unfortunately, telogen effluvium may also reveal a woman who has a genetic predisposition to lose her hair. Much like male-pattern baldness, these women will lose their hair from the top of their heads and not be able to re-grow it without more extensive medical interventions.
But if you notice a clump of hair in your drain, the worst thing to do is worry about this extreme case of hair loss. If you do have telogen effluvium, worry only causes more stress, possibly making your hair loss worse.
"There's such an anxiety about losing hair," says Pelle. "I tell my patients, the worst thing to do about losing your hair is to be worried about it."
©2007 Healthology, Inc.
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