How Can I Tell Whether My Hair Is Thinning?

There are two ways your hair can look thinner. The obvious one is that your partings look wider due to two causes: more space between each hair fiber because the strand is becoming finer, or fewer hairs in number on your head.

The usual places for the hair to look thinner are on the crown of your scalp, the frontal hairline, and in the middle of your scalp (the area between the frontal hairline and the crown of your head). When you part your hair, more space than there used to be may indicate that your hair is thinning.

Thinning may also occur at your temples (also called recession), or it may occur in a diffuse manner, which means that it is evenly spread over the entire scalp. In addition, there can be circular areas that are devoid of hair and feel smooth or stubbly.

A slightly different version of hair thinning is one where the ponytail is thinner; that is, you can wrap a band around the hair of your ponytail more times than you could previously. Often, your partings are similar in density to what they were previously. This could mean that your hair is breaking more, or it could mean that more long hair is falling out than is being replaced by regrowing shorter hair.

Different types of hair thinning or thinning in different areas of your scalp can indicate that a different factor is causing your hair loss. Thus, it is important to have an expert examine your condition to identify which type of hair loss you have.

Hair Thinning & Hair Shedding

Thinning hair is often, but not always, the result of excessive hair shedding. For example, Barbara, a thirty-three-year-old music store manager, was astonished to see the back of her head in a mirror at a local restaurant. "I first noticed my hair loss when I was sitting in a restaurant. It was raining, so I got drenched on the way; and I saw my scalp in one of the mirrors. It was very upsetting for me."

While waiting for her friends to arrive, she noticed that she could see through her hair, right down to the crown of her scalp. Usually her hair was carefully blow-dried and styled, but due to the rain, her wet hair hung limp and exposed the thinning area.

It was a shock for Barbara because she hadn't noticed any of the common warning signs, such as excessive hair shedding, before she saw that her hair had thinned. Although her hair had likely been thinning for some time before she noticed, the lack of excessive hair in the brush kept it from her attention. How many of us have had similar experiences?