I wrote this hub to share with you my experiences and lessons learnt from combating hair loss for the past decade. I also hope that this information can help many people facing the same problem as me.

I am turning 30 this year and that means my hair loss problems occurred when I was in my early twenties. I was at a loss and extreme desperation to overcome my thining scalp and I resorted to using many hair loss products but it did not seem to correct my problem. It was only after repeated failed attempts that I started to study more deeply into the reasons for hair loss.

The four main reasons for hair loss are genetic hereditary, oily scalp, nutritional imbalance and stress. It turns out that other than the first reason, majority of the hair loss problems can be solved! Personally, I feel that even if its hereditary, you can still make the best out of your predicament by taking good care of your scalp.

We all know that hair grows from the hair follicles on our head and therefore taking care of the scalp is mandatory to achieving healthy hair growth. Five years ago, I consulted a trichologist about my hair loss issue and from the diagnosis, I was told that I have oily scalp problems. To my disgust, I could see shiny pockets of oil surrounding my hair follicles from the scalp examination. The implications of oily patches is that it will clog the hair follicles and lead to falling off of the existing hair strands and limit the growth of new strands. If this problem is not corrected, it will lead to thining of scalp and with time, baldness creeps in when the hair follicles are dead.

I signed up for their treatment package and it costed me around 7K for twenty rounds of treatment. It was financially draining but it did improve on my severe situation then. Basically, their treatment procedure comprise firstly of a deep hair root wash. They use medically prescribed shampoo and I felt an intense cleansing of my scalp. After that, they used an infrared light source on my scalp. I believe this is to penetrate the scalp and stimulate local circulation. Finally, they applied an ampule of hair tonic which stimulates hair growth. For best results, the hair tonic should be left in the scalp for 12 hrs.

Though it improved on my scalp problem, it was too painful on my wallet so I bidded them goodbye after the treatment course. I decided to go for other cheaper forms of maintanence but by following their basic principle of treatment, that is to Cleanse Well and Apply Hair Tonic.

I have tried numerous brand of commercially available shampoos and hair tonic before finding one that is suitable for me. The name of the shampoo that I am using is called Proteolait by the brand name Fauvert. It is a French product and it effectively cleanses the oil deposits without drying the scalp. I found out that by alternating the usage of this shampoo targeted on oily scalp, with my regular normal shampoo, my oily scalp problem is reduced up to 70%.

I can feel less oily hair for a longer period of time through the day and my head feels lighter. I am not trying to promote this shampoo to all as different people will find different shampoos suitable for them and there is no one solution for all. However, this shampoo will definintely be worth a try if you are also having oily scalp problems.

More importantly, I feel that its worth the time to find a suitable shampoo as it is the primary way of cleansing our scalp. The proper way of washing our hair is to wet hair first, then latter a small amount of shampoo evenly with water before applying to our hair. We mix and spread the shampoo gently on our scalp with our fingertips, akin to massaging manner instead of stroking vigorously. The water that we used to wash our hair should be preferably COLD instead of warm water.

For conditioners, I have experimented and found that the choice of conditioner is not that crucial so long as they are used correcly. Due to their richer formulation, a 50 cent coin-sized amount should be applied to the hair body focussing on mositurizing the ends, taking great care not to apply it onto the scalp.

I have also learnt that we should avoid combing hair when its wet to prevent pulling and tugging the fragile hair strands. If you are living in a hot and humid country, you should consider drying your hair with a cool hair blower as prolonged exposure of damp hair in a hot, humid condition will create heating of the scalp, activating the hair scalp oil gland production.

After the hair is washed and dry, I massaged a small amount of hair tonic onto my cleansed scalp. I found a good hair tonic from Japan by the name of ILGA 003. It is made from natural ingredients and it does not clog my hair scalp or trigger sebum production.

Hair is made up of the protein, keratin. In order for hair to form and grow well, its basic component: protein, is an essential nutrient that I would have thought more importantly to have in my everyday diet. However, as I gradually read in books, I learnt that the human body is actually not capable of absorbing big chunks of protein efficiently, therefore I started to shift my focus to keeping a balanced diet instead. Instead of consuming a diet high in protein composition, I changed to consider food high in its constituent amino acids. The amino acids are much smaller in size than protein and will be better absorbed into our system to form keratin. From my reading and experiences, consuming a diet high in fruits and vegetables would feed our dietary requirement for good hair growth. Conversely, we should avoid oily food e.g. deep fried chicken wings, as the extra oil in food will trigger sebum production in the scalp. I opt for steamed fish and seafood as my meat source as they are low in fat. I also included a hair supplement known as Hairiser under the brand REDSUN. This supplement contains ten essential ingredients for hair growth and so far, I am hapy with the product.

A balanced diet is key to good health and its only when our body is fed with its essential nutrients will it perform well and deliver the neccessary nutrients to our organs. In any case of nutrient deprivation, the body will prioritize survival and choose to deliver less to our hair follicles. Therefore, its important for us to consider our type of food intake when deriving a hair gain plan.

Stress has been the underlying reason for many medical conditions. When handled well, a small dosage of stress will drive us into better concentration state and achieving higher productivity in the things we do. However, when we are exposed to too much stress in our lives, it brings along many health problems. This is because when we are stressed out, our body overproduces the hormones andrenaline and cortisol. These hormones will increase our heart rate, blood pressure and metabolism. Over prolonged period of time, the fuel reserves in our body will wear out and we would feel depleted and overwhelmed instead. Our immune system is weaken and we become more susceptible to the invasion of the foreign bodies e.g. viruses and bacteria.

There was a time when I became very stressed out with facing my hair loss problem. It was as if my condition could not improve whatever way I tried. Now looking back, I realised that other than keeping a balanced diet and using a good shampoo, stress management forms a large part of my recovery course. It was only after I have learnt to better cope with anxiety and stress in my life, did my hair loss problem improved tremendously. Now I am feeling more confident and can appreciate and live my life better each day.