Reversing PCOS Hair Growth
One of the most unwanted and uncomfortable symptoms of PCOS is hirsutism, or excess hair growth.
Hirsutism is the excessive growth of facial or body hair on women seen as coarse, dark hair that will usually appear on the face, chest, abdomen, back, upper arms, or upper legs. Hirsutism is a symptom of excessive amounts of androgen hormones in the female system. PCOS is the most common cause of hirsutism.
Understanding Hair Growth
Understanding how normal hair grows will help you better
understand hirsutism. Each of your hairs grow from a follicle deep in
your skin. Hair follicles cover just about all areas of your body except
the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands. You have
approximately 50 million hair follicles covering your body, and 20% of
them are located on the scalp of your head.
Adults have two types
of hair, vellus and terminal. Vellus hair is the soft, fine, generally
colorless, and usually short form of hair. On the other side, terminal
hair is long, coarse, dark, and sometimes curly. In most women, vellus
hair covers the face, chest, and back and gives the impression of
“hairless” skin.
Excessive amounts of androgen hormones in the
female system has the power the turn vellus hairs into terminal hairs.
This is the root driver of hirsutism in women with PCOS.
Your
hair grows in a cycle with the actual hair growing about 0.3mm to 0.4mm
each day, which adds up to around six inches per year. However, not all
of the hair follicles are growing new hair at the same time. Hair growth
occurs in a cycle. At any given time, each strand is in a different
part of the cycle. It’s a good thing that each of our hair’s cycles are
not in sync, otherwise we would shed all of our hair at once!
This
means throughout the year your hair is in a constant cycle of growing
and replacing hair. It’s why when you brush your hair some will fall out
and get stuck on your brush but, because you are always growing more
you don’t notice hair loss on your head.
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