Androgenic Alopecia (AGA) Vs Telogen Effluvium (TE) In Women - How Are They Different? I"ll Tell You

One of the main themes that I hear from women who are experiencing hair loss is questions about how can a person determine which type of loss they have.
This can be very important because it can tell you how long you are going to have to deal with this and it can tell you how to best treat it so that you get some relief sooner rather than later.
And, I find that women are often most concerned about whether they have androgenic alopecia (AGA) or TE (telogen effluvium.
) At first, most women hope for telogen effluvium because, optimally, this condition should resolve on it's own.
AGA, on the other hand, often requires early treatment to get a good result and outcome.
However, sometimes as TE lingers on and lasts seemingly forever with no real treatment, some women tell me that they would actually rather have AGA because at least then they would know what they were dealing with and they know that there are treatments for it rather than having to take the "wait and see" approach that is often recommended with shedding.
The truth is, there are many similarities and differences with both of these conditions and sometimes, the recommended treatments over lap so that you can at least try something, even if you have shedding.
I will discuss this more in the following article.
Causes Of Telogen Effluvium Versus The Causes Of AGA: Generally speaking, temporary shedding is caused by some disruption to your system or some kind of stressor to your body.
Often for women, this can mean hormones, illness, or medications.
And what can sometimes make the two over lap or tricky to diagnose is the fact that hormones (and androgens) are often also the culprit in androgenic alopecia also.
Now, medical issues and changes to your medication are pretty easy to pinpoint.
Anything that could have caused changes to your body or could have been a trigger seemingly points to temporary shedding rather than genetic thinning.
And, in the case of shedding, this is usually things like giving birth, going off of contraceptives, or the fluctuating of hormones that comes with aging and changes in your body.
(These things are also typically pretty easy to notice.
) However, hormonal changes that happen with aging or body changes can also give way to more androgens taking their hold because there is not as much protective sex hormones like estrogen offering resistance to the androgens.
And this in turn gives way to androgenic alopecia, even if you have no relatives that you know of who had this same condition.
And to make things even more confusing, in some instances for people who were already genetically inclined, hormonal TE can eventually give way to AGA.
Some Key Differences Between Shedding And Thinning: So, with all of these similarities, how can you tell the differences? It used to be that you were told that if you were losing a lot of hair (over 100 or more per day) that you were more likely to have TE.
And this is certainly accurate sometimes.
But, it is also possible to have a less severe bout of shedding.
And it's possible to have a very aggressive bout of AGA where you are also losing over 100 hairs per day.
As you can see, while the amount of hairs lost is one way to tell one from another and this most definitely should be considered, you can't always count on this as there are not always text book cases of either.
One of the best ways to differentiate between to two is to look at the regrowth.
Because if you see miniaturization (hair that is coming in finer and more thin) than that can be a good indication that you are looking at AGA.
This condition shrinks and compromises the follicles (due to the androgens) so that hair that grows back in will likely begin to just look different.
It is often lighter in color and noticeably more fine in texture.
Regrowth that appears after temporary shedding (TE) should look like the rest of your hair with no miniaturization.
In fact, as this happens, you may have to play with different styles to blend this in as your hair regrowing as the new strands may stand out.
This new growth is often as dark and as healthy as the rest of your hair.
Similarities In Treatments For Both: People often ask me if there are things that they can do in terms of treatment if they are not sure which of these is to blame for their hair loss.
Well, one thing that both of these conditions share is inflammation.
You will often see an angry looking scalp (or even feel a tight and painful scalp) no matter which one of these you have.
So, anything that you can do to soothe the skin and lessen inflammation (without clogging) is going to offer some relief and is going to help with regrowth.
There are many topical treatments that work for this, but until you know for sure that you have AGA, you want to avoid treatments that affect your hormone levels because this can sometimes only worsen the process as your body gets out of whack again, develops another trigger, and gives way to a new round of shedding.
Additionally, both conditions can benefit from scalp stimulation meant to make regrowth more healthy and vigorous.
Again, you want to focus on the things that you can do internally and via the scalp rather than on things that are internal and can bring about more triggers.