How much hair shedding is normal for a woman?
Losing 50 to 100 hairs a day is normal turnover; alarm arrives with visibly thinning parts, shrinking ponytails or handfuls in the shower.
The workhorse causes in women: iron deficiency, thyroid problems, crash dieting, and the dramatic but self-limited shed that follows childbirth, major illness or severe stress by two to three months.
Ferritin and thyroid blood tests find the treatable causes; hair regrows on a three to six month delay once they are corrected. Pattern thinning at the crown has its own effective treatments, started earlier rather than later.
Source: NHS, hair loss
See a doctor promptly if
- Iron deficiency in any man, or in any woman past the menopause, without an obvious bleeding cause
- Black tarry stools, visible blood in stool, or vomiting blood or material like coffee grounds
- Iron deficiency with unintentional weight loss, a change in bowel habit lasting over three weeks, or a family history of bowel cancer
- Breathlessness at rest, chest pain, fainting, or a resting heart rate persistently above 100
- Periods needing hourly pad or tampon changes, passing clots larger than a coin, or flooding through clothing and bedding
- Pica. Craving and eating ice, clay, chalk or raw rice
Try the result lookupone number, free, nothing to installType the number you are holding and it lands in a band, with what usually happens next.
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
For flakes and an itchy scalp
Dandruff is a scalp condition, not a hygiene problem, and shampoos with ketoconazole, zinc pyrithione or selenium sulfide treat it. Leave it on the scalp two to three minutes before rinsing; that contact time is most of the trick.
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