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What You Need to Know About Thyroid Hair Loss

By Andrea Douglas
Thyroid Loss

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Hair loss is something that can affect us all, including both men and women. Not only does it affect our appearance, but it can have a serious impact on our confidence and self-esteem.

Many different factors influence the growth and loss of hair, including the thyroid. In order to fully understand how this works and how to treat it, we’re going to walk you through what the thyroid is, how it works, how it relates to hair loss, and how you can resist these negative effects.

What Is Your Thyroid and What Does It Do?

The thyroid is responsible for producing hormones, which affects a wide range of metabolic processes in the body.

Most commonly, thyroid issues involve the production of hormones by the thyroid gland. This can manifest in two different ways: hyperthyroidism, which is the production of too much thyroid hormone, and hypothyroidism, which is the insufficient production of thyroid hormone.

Thyroid Hair Loss

Both of these can have serious impacts on other areas of your body, affecting your overall health. Because this helps with metabolic processes and growth, hair growth is sometimes affected by thyroid issues.

Your Thyroid and Hair Loss

Because the thyroid is responsible for producing hormones essential for processes of your entire body, problems with your thyroid are likely to cause other health problems and can even impact the health, growth, and loss of your hair.

Both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism can have negative effects on your hair growth, causing hair thinning and even hair loss.

Hypothyroidism is often responsible for poor health growth and hair loss, as this causes a nutrient deficiency.

Without the proper hormone production from the thyroid, your hair – and other areas of your body – will lack the essential nutrients they get and will not be able to grow to their full potential.

Thyroid Hair Loss

Although thyroid hormones do have an impact on your hair growth (and loss), this problem would have to be relatively consistent, regular, and severe for it to actually lead to full hair loss. More mild hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism is unlikely to lead to hair loss, although it could impact hair thinning.

Regrowing your hair is also often achievable by using the proper treatment for your thyroid disorder.

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis

Some studies suggest that about 90% of people that have hypothyroidism also suffer from Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, a thyroid autoimmune condition that causes the body’s immune system to wrongly attack the thyroid gland.

Because of the impact this has on the thyroid and the production of thyroid hormone, it can have an impact on hair loss, just as other thyroid hormone production issues do.

Although this can affect your hair loss, if this is an underlying condition of your hair loss, it’s important to make sure you address this problem first, as this can have a serious impact on your health. Be sure to address this before your hair loss.

thyroid hair loss

Autoimmune diseases, based on how they work, are likely to lead to and cause hair loss, since there are problems with growth, reproduction, and proper cell functioning. Instead, your immune system wrongfully targets and attacks developed and properly functioning cells in your body.

Because of this, the autoimmune aspect of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis can be just as – or even more – responsible for the hair loss related to this disease.

Thyroid Medications

Different drug interactions are often associated with hair loss, as various chemicals and chemical reactions can impact the health and growth of your hair. It’s important to understand how these function and why they impact hair growth and can sometimes lead to hair loss.

Studies have shown that thyroid medications may cause hair loss, as do many other drug interactions. Thyroid medications are known to cause hair loss as a potential side effect, so the thyroid issues you are having may not be actually causing the hair loss.

Instead, it could be the medication that you are taking.

If your hair loss worsened after starting the medication, there is a chance that it is at least a factor affecting your hair loss. Consider discussing this with a medical professional and inquire about alternative medications.

Depending on what medication you use, you may be able to minimize the hair loss symptoms that you experience.

How You Can Fight Hair Loss Related to Your Thyroid

Since hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism need to be relatively severe for hair loss to occur, it’s often temporary, going away when your thyroid issue is cleared up or controlled.

Even though you may have had progress with your thyroid issues, your hair will not grow back overnight. It will take a period of time, likely several months, for your hair to regrow and for treatment to work effectively.

hair loss thyroid

By taking good care of your hair, using products that help foster growth and fight hair loss, and by leading a healthy life overall, you should be able to help improve your hair growth.

Making sure you diet and exercise properly will help give you the best fighting chance against hair loss, keeping you in good health. This will help improve the health of your hair and will combat the negative effects your thyroid is having on your hair growth.

What You Should Do Next

There are a range of solutions to your thyroid-related hair loss. If possible, the best solution is to solve your thyroid problem, which will in turn (and over time) cause your hair loss issues to go away and your hair to grow back.

There are also ways of helping your hair growth and increasing the chances of maintaining hair growth while experiencing a thyroid disorder. To find out more, see tips about how to grow your hair and fight hair loss.

By taking the right steps in your regular daily life as well as more serious steps regarding your thyroid disorder, you should be able to fight the hair loss associated with your thyroid.

There are a number ways you can help counteract the negative effects your thyroid disorder is having on your hair loss, the most effective of which is trying to treat your thyroid issue.

In the meantime, there are a range of options for helping to monitor and manage your hair loss and help ensure that you can regrow your hair to be full and healthy.