Dr. Dow Stough: Hi! I'm Dr. Dow Stough, a volunteer physician with The Hair Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness and information of hair loss, hair care, and overall hair health.

Today, I'm talking about hair diseases and their treatments. Now many of us lose hair on daily basis, in fact, it's normal to lose up to a hundred hairs a day just from brushing and shampooing your hair. However, there are other causes for hair loss and they may need to be addressed by a physician.

Abnormal hair loss maybe caused by disease, maybe caused by trauma or injury to your scalp. This hair loss can occur very slowly or can occur rapidly. Usually as physicians, we categorize this into a scarring process or a non-scarring process. Now non-scarring hair loss can be temporary or permanent, but the scalp always remains intact and usually it will allow for the hair to re-grow.

Scarring diseases can be caused by injury to the scalp, directly from a physical trauma or by a subtle disease. The injury can result in a complete destruction of the hair follicle and scarring on the scalp. It causes permanent hair loss when you have a scarring hair loss process.

Now that I've explained the difference between these two, let's take a look at the various treatments. After a medical evaluation by a physician and a determination that you do have hair loss, there are several options available to you to help. Number one, slowing the rate of hair loss is an option that you can achieve by medical means.

Number two, camouflaging your hair loss can be done by many products on the market. Most men don't know about these products but they actually work quite well. Many men try to accept their new appearance or some try to disguise their hair loss.

Depending either on the severity or type of hair loss and your lifestyle, there are medical and non-medical treatment options. Surgical treatments are available that include hair transplantation. Non-surgical treatments are available that include laser hair therapy, medical treatment, hair systems, and wigs, and as I mentioned before, the camouflage products, spray on camouflage products and thickeners that you might use.

For more information on this, please check out our website hairfoundation.

org.