Millions of men and women look in the mirror every day only to notice they seemed to have a little less hair than they had yesterday.
Perhaps a few lost follicles are being noticed on the pillowcase after a restful nightly slumber.
Perhaps your hair seems to be having a party around the shower drain or accumulating more rapidly than normal in your hair brush.
But still in spite of the obvious signs that something is happening somehow most of us want to write it off as simply a temporary event.
Maybe it was all a bad hair day, or some stealthy balding man or woman snuck into our shower while we weren't looking.
Or maybe the hair belongs to one of our teenagers.
Could our cat or dog be losing their hair instead of me? I suppose I thought this way and hoped that by simply changing the type of shampoo and conditioner I was using, as my balding hair stylist had suggested, it would solve my hair loss problem once and for all.
Of course those of you with male or female pattern balding know how badly this worked out! The thing about male and female pattern baldness that separates it from other types of hair loss is that it attacks the hair just below the scalp in a very permanent and progressive way by shrinking once vibrant hair follicles to a point where they can no longer support new growth.
Additionally, any hair you may have left will start to become thinner and less healthy looking due to what is occurring just below the scalp line.
The culprit is the androgen hormone dihydrotestosterone which binds to the hair follicle, eventually causing follicle death and of course those dreaded bald spots.
Once this occurs it is very, very, difficult to re-grow hair and even if you are lucky enough to see a new sprig or two it may not be the type of healthy looking hair you were anticipating.
Minoxidil might be a good option for some For some minoxidil can be a big help in restoring at least some of their lost hair.
For others it is simply too harsh, and will produce scalp redness, scaling, dandruff, along with itching and general scalp discomfort.
Unfortunately for me I fell into the second group and was forced to look for other solutions.
Natural remedies for hair loss can help There are a number of very good natural remedies for hair loss but I can tell you from experience that some will work better than others, and different hair re-growth products produce different results for different people.
My experience both as a fellow hair loss sufferer and a long time advocate for the use of natural remedies in general suggests to me that optimal results can only be achieve when both a topical and oral treatments are combined.
The oral homeopathic or herbal hair re-growth formula will work internally to slow dihydrotestosterone accumulation and improve circulation while the topical will act as a hair and scalp conditioner.
The topical may also contain certain herbs which have antibacterial properties just in case an unknown fungal or bacterial infection might be lurking just under the radar.
In conclusion, when battling progressive hair loss conditions such as male and female pattern baldness the most important thing is to accept that you have a serious progressive problem, recognize that something needs to be done now, and take action to find a hair loss treatment before it is too late.