Why does my hair loss vary and fluctuate so much from day to day?

Why does my hair loss vary and fluctuate so much from day to day?

I recently heard from someone who had been experiencing excessive hair loss and hair thinning over the past few months. She asked, in part, "Why does my hair loss and shedding vary so much from day to day? One day I may lose about 250 hairs, but the next day I may only lose 50 hairs. These variations give me hope." The day I shed less that things will get better. But a few days later the shedding occurs again. Why is this happening? Does this mean that I improved but something stopped the improvement? Is it normal? How do I find out how much hair I'm really losing and whether it's too much? I will try to answer these questions in the following article.

It is normal for hair loss to vary from day to day, but you must pay attention to the averages:It's not uncommon to lose a large amount of hair one day and much less the next. There are many variables that affect this. Typically, the day you shampoo or wash your hair, you experience more hair loss and shedding. And you typically see less hair loss on days you skip washing. This is because manipulating your hair follicles can pull out hair that was already in the dormant or shedding phase.

So manipulating and caring for your hair may cause more hair to fall out, but the hair that comes out will fall out at some point in the near future anyway. If you see more hair on these days, it doesn't mean you should stop or reduce caring for your hair or scalp.

Knowing that these fluctuations are normal, how do you know how much hair you are really losing and whether your hair loss is a problem? You can usually just look at your averages. In the above scenario, this person lost about 300 hairs in two days. The average of this would be 150 hairs per day, which is well above the supposedly “normal” 100 shed hairs per day. I'm not suggesting that you count your hair every day to get an accurate average. In fact, I think this will do you more harm than good because it creates stress, which can worsen your hair loss. But once you've done an initial count, you should be able to monitor your loss in the coming days to see where you are.

Is my hair loss or treatment causing these dandruff fluctuations?:People often ask me if it's logical to blame their regimen when they notice big fluctuations in hair loss. An example would be someone trying a new topical or hair loss treatment one day and then noticing a huge dandruff the next day. This person may blame the new regime and want to abandon it. The problem is that it is almost impossible to point to a causal connection between the two in such a short time.

It takes a while for the hair to change phases and then fall out. This process does not happen overnight. Unless you have an immediate inflammatory or allergic reaction to a therapy product, it is unlikely that the hair you see afterwards is the direct result. Because most of the time when you see a hair falling out or falling out, that same hair has been in the resting phase for much longer than a day.

The bottom line is that even with hair loss conditions like TE, AGA, or AA, it's not uncommon to see large swings and fluctuations in the amount of hair you lose each day. And there isn't always a specific reason for this. Sometimes it just depends on where your hair is in the hair loss process or what its life cycle is. And sometimes the hair has recently been manipulated or is negatively affected by hair loss, so you may see increased and more noticeable loss on select days.

Inspired by Ava Alderman