Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Pulling out gray hairs?

Some people have said that if you pull out a gray hair, more gray hairs will grow in it’s place...

In other words, they are trying to dissuade you from doing it by saying you are only going to make the problem much, much worse.

The truth is, that eventually, more gray hair is inevitable but in the meantime you are pulling your hair out prematurely which may or may not result in immediate problems but with time, can cause other problems.

What’s happening is that the follicle, a little cove in your skin where the root or bulb of the hair grows from, matures to the point where melanin (pigment/colour) is no longer produced by the melanocytes (cells which produce pigment/colour). The follicle is part of your scalp and goes through a pattern of growth, cessation of growth and then a resting phase which allows the hair to fall out, followed by a phase of growth again (Hopefully! Unless it gives up the ghost).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/

If you pull the hair out in the growth phase of the follicle, then a new hair will begin to grow out again but it won’t grow as long as it would have as it is closer to it’s non-growth/fall out phase. If you damage the follicle when pulling out the hair, it may cause the hair to grow back differently or even not to grow back at all, leaving you with permanent hair loss.

When two to three hairs do grow from the same follicle, this is actually not the norm, but it may be provoked by hormones, genetics and stress (which causes an imbalance in the hormones). This is known to occur with body hair but I’m unsure how true it is of the hair on your head as they are different types of hair.

So essentially, it is unlikely that more than one gray hair will grow where you have pulled a single hair out, but most likely a gray hair will begin to grow again in that same spot. You may however unwittingly damage the follicle permanently and cause hair loss or cause a mutation in how the hair is formed.

Pulling out hairs is also a sign of stress and anxiety which are linked to hair loss, so my recommendation would be to deal with the underlying thoughts and feelings that you have instead of potentially causing more problems and stress with a ‘solution’ that isn’t really a solution at all!