Although hair loss (alopecia) is common for men, a significant number of women also suffer from it. However, there are differences between the types of hair loss for men and women. These differences require different approaches for hair transplant procedures. Before talking about them, let’s take a look at the common causes.

Common Causes of Alopecia for Men and Women

First, bad-maintenance of hair is a cause for hair loss for both men and women. Deficient sleep habits, severe malnutrition and such will have harmful effects on your hair. You must take care of your hair as well as your other body parts.

Second, tightly bonded hair. If you often use braids or buns or other hair-styles and thus apply stress on your hair follicles too much, it makes it easy for your hair to fall off. Although hair follicles are rather strong fibres, they can’t resist that much stress.

Third, the overuse of chemically produced hair conditioners. Yes, you must take care of your hair, but any wrong choice might be the death sentence of it. 

Be careful while choosing what you use on your hair, otherwise your hair might become weaker and then it is a matter of time to lose it.

Different Types of Alopecia

None of the causes above is genetic obviously. When genetic factors are the case, although the result is the same, the processes are different between men and women. Androgenetic Alopecia is the name of the hair loss that has a genetical reason. Furthermore, we also call it the male pattern baldness. It is an inherited sensitivity to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Unlike men, women suffer from it in three distinct ways.

First of them is the diffuse (progressive) hair loss. In this process, hair falls progressively. The second one is localized (stable) hair loss. During this one, hair loss is localized and non-progressive. Third and last one is the same pattern that most of the men patients complain about. As usual, hair falls progressively by forming an M or V-shaped pattern.

Hair Transplant

Different methods for hair transplant are used for men, such as FUE (follicular unit extraction), FUT (follicular unit transplant) and other alternative methods. In FUT, doctors take a strip of tissue from the back of your scalp and then graft the hair follicles from it to your thinning or already bald areas. In FUE, they extract the hair follicles one by one.

For women, however, it is harder to find a stable site. It is also the name for the areas that haven’t been affected by DHT. Unlike men, the back of the scalp is not always a stable site for women.  Hence, women who lost their hair due to mechanical reasons, such as the ones listed in the “common causes” topic, and the ones who have the similar hair loss pattern with male pattern baldness are more suitable candidates for hair transplantation. That doesn’t mean the others can’t have hair transplantation of course, but they need a carefully done diagnosis and a specially carried operation.