Issue 03 · Summer · Skin school
Which tests should I do before treating hair fall?
Four blood markers that change the entire plan, and why clinics skip them.
5 min readHair Restoration
Ferritin, thyroid function, vitamin D and a haemogram, at minimum. Diffuse shedding in an otherwise healthy scalp is far more often a systemic signal than a scalp problem, and treating the scalp while ferritin sits at 12 wastes both the money and the months.
Shedding versus thinning
Shedding is a volume of loss; thinning is a change in the hair itself. Strands on the pillow with normal calibre suggests a systemic trigger; strands getting finer at the parting suggests androgenic miniaturisation. They are different treatment paths.
The three-month lag
Hair responds to an insult roughly three months after it happens. The illness, crash diet or surgery that caused today's shedding is usually a season back. Worth reconstructing before assuming it is genetic.
General information, not medical advice. What applies to your skin is decided by a doctor after an assessment.
