Hair loss in women is caused by a combination of factors that continue to accumulate.

“Director, what is the cause of my hair loss? If I just solve it, will it get better again?”

This is the first and most earnest question asked by many female patients who come to me for hair loss treatment. But I have no choice but to answer this question: “There is more than one cause.” Because when you come to my clinic, your hair loss is not a recent problem. In most cases, numerous causes are complicatedly intertwined in a chronic process that lasts for as little as 2 to 3 years and as long as 10 years or more.

Patients want to find a definitive 'event' that caused hair loss, but when we look into the patient's symptoms and life through treatment, hair loss does not progress that easily. Hair loss in women is more like a ‘vicious cycle’ in which various causes accumulate and influence each other over a long period of time.

1. Vicious cycle: How do the causes of hair loss accumulate?

If you look at the progression of hair loss in women, you can often find a pattern in which various aggravating factors continue like a chain reaction and accumulate. Let me give you an example. This is not the case for everyone, but it is intended to help you more easily understand the cumulative process of various causes through examples.

1. A woman frequently perms, dyes, or bleaches her hair for a short period of time. This damages the scalp barrier, causes contact dermatitis, and temporarily increases hair loss.
2. Before your scalp has even recovered, you may experience severe stress at work or at home. Stress causes us to have trouble sleeping at night, and as our body's hormonal balance is disrupted, hair loss continues without stopping.
3. Just when you think, “Is everything going to be better now,” you get infected with a virus like COVID-19. As your body weakens due to high fever and immune response, you will again experience telogen effluvium, a sudden loss of hair several months later.
4. Even if the effects of the virus wear off after a few months, your scalp and hair follicles are already exhausted from the repeated attacks.
5. Afterwards, I felt like I had gained weight, so I tried to lose weight. As you eat less and exercise more, your supply of nutrients such as protein, iron and zinc, which are essential for hair growth, gradually decreases. The hair follicles fall into a state of ‘malnutrition’ again.

As these processes repeat and accumulate over many years, hair loss becomes a chronic disease rather than a temporary problem. However, from the patient's perspective, as hair loss progresses slowly and steadily, it is difficult to clearly recognize what was the decisive cause and what was the aggravating factor. What is clear is that all of these causes accumulate in our bodies, ultimately making it impossible for hair to recover on its own.

2. The deepest root: weakening of ‘hair growth function’

A more serious problem in all of this is that beyond the mere ‘falling out’ of hair, the function of ‘producing’ hair itself is damaged. I define this condition as “a condition in which the hair growth function is weakened, making it difficult to produce healthy hair.”

At first, hair loss temporarily increases due to external factors, but as various causes continue to accumulate and affect the hair follicles for a long period of time, the ability of the hair follicles to produce hair on their own weakens. In other words, the production line of the ‘hair factory’ called the hair follicle begins to age and break down. Once the 'hair growth function' is weakened, it is difficult for the already weakened function to recover to its former state on its own, even if the cause of stress is resolved and nutritional supplements are taken. Although you may be able to maintain the current condition by reducing hair loss, it is difficult to expect new, thicker hair to grow back in abundance.

3. Parable of a stopped car: Why is integrated treatment necessary?

This situation can be compared to a car that has been left idle for a long time. Let's imagine that a car has been sitting in the garage for several years. Now, if you just fill up the gas tank to drive again, will this car be able to run as smoothly as before? There are probably more cases where this is not the case. While your car is stationary, your engine oil may have hardened, your battery may have been discharged, and your tires may have lost air.

• stopped car= Scalp and hair follicles with chronic hair loss
• gasoline refueling= Solve single cause such as stress management, nutritional supplement intake, etc.
• Broken engine, old parts= Weakened ‘hair growth function’ and damaged scalp environment
• comprehensive car maintenance= Comprehensive hair loss treatment including scalp inflammation treatment and blood circulation improvement

Ultimately, to get a stopped car running again, comprehensive maintenance, including engine repair and battery replacement, is necessary. The same goes for female hair loss treatment. Only when fundamental treatment is combined to control scalp inflammation, improve blood circulation, and directly restore the 'hair growth function' of weakened hair follicles, can our scalp grow healthy hair vigorously again.

Therefore, the most important first step in treating female hair loss is to understand that it is not a piecemeal approach to find and solve a single cause, but an integrated and steady process of resolving complex problems that have accumulated in the body over the years one by one.