Hair Loss - It’s not just physical!

Statistics! We love a statistic here at MHR Belfast but we promise we won’t go on and on!

35% of men and 20% of women experience a hair loss event in their lifetime and the physical impact of hair loss can be far reaching. It can take its toll mentally, emotionally and psychological factors can impact on lives as well.

Detection of thinning or patchy hair can cause considerable distress and trauma to some people, not just when they look in a mirror or see their reflection but it can be a cloud that follows them around all day, every day, 24/7, impacting their mood, life, relationships and mental health.

Hair loss itself does not cause a functional problem for our body, but it can be visually important to many males and females. The loss can cause several psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, anger, fatigue, low self-esteem, embarrassment, self-consciousness and social withdrawal. Triggers for this type of hair loss can be work related, family or relationship related or could even be down to financial issues. 

The vicious cycle involved with these psychological triggers are the very factors that exacerbate further hair loss and accelerate it from the development of these emotional stresses. Trauma sends our hair follicles into a resting stage, driving hair growth to pause.

Unfortunately, hitting the restart button can take slightly longer than it did to push that pause button. But no one should ever feel alone upon detecting hair loss and it is worth noting some forms of hair loss are in fact temporary and a return to a full head of hair can be achieved with modern treatments.

Before any course of treatment is actioned, it is important for triggers such as these mentioned, to be explored to get to the root cause of the hair loss episode.

People respond to hair loss in very different ways and the type of treatment can vary on the person, the extent of hair loss and the trigger for their hair loss.

That is why at MHR Belfast, we don’t consider ourselves just to be all about making better the physical loss (of course we do actually that part really well!), but we look at the whole picture like how you are feeling, why you feel this way, have your experienced a trauma in the short to medium term, would it be possible that it contributed to your hair loss.

To get to the root of a hair loss event and to start the regrowth journey back to hair health, we explore more than just the physical, as many, many times the emotional, mental and psychological factors actually play the biggest part, with hair loss just being the tip.