Medication and Your Hair
While these medicines are often life-saving advances in the areas they treat, they can sometimes have side effects that affect our hair. Let’s take a look at some common complaints and the medications that are known to cause them.
Hair Loss
Hair loss is the most common complaint cited when encountered as a side effect of medications. That’s not to say that it’s the most common side effect to medications, but rather that when a medication causes hair loss as a side effect, it tends to have a major impact on the individual and is listed as most troubling.
Telogen Effluvium
The most common form of hair loss caused by medications is called telogen effluvium. It refers to a diffuse shedding of the hairs over a large area of the head and is generally the result of stress or some serious systemic shock that causes a percentage of the hair follicles to shift into the dormant phase and then be shed.
Medication types that are known to cause telogen effluvium are retinoids, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, antidepressants, and NSAIDS (including ibuprofen). (Source: American Osteopathic College of Dermatology) Such an abruptly occurring diffuse hair loss is often not noticed until weeks and months after the event that caused the incident to take place. This could mean that the cause may be overlooked or confused, particularly if there are many things going on with an individual.
The good news is that telogen effluvium does not require any treatment to be corrected. The loss of hair is a result of new growth pushing the old hairs out of the follicle. So, given time, the new hairs will emerge and grow back to hopefully return the scalp to normal.
Anagen Effluvium is hair loss that occurs during the growth phase of the hair’s growing cycle. It prevents the matrix cells in the follicles from dividing normally and producing new hairs. Anagen Effluvium typically occurs within a few days or weeks of taking a medication and is commonly caused by drugs used in chemotherapy treatments.
As with many other reactions, the level of hair loss and the severity of the anagen effluvium is related to the strength of dosage and specific drugs taken and one's sensitivity to said medications.
Specific Medication Types Thought to Cause Hair Loss:
• Acne medications containing vitamin A (retinoids)
• Antibiotics and antifungal drugs
• Antidepressants
• Birth control pills
• Anticlotting drugs
• Cholesterol-lowering drugs
• Drugs that suppress the immune system
• Drugs that treat breast cancer
• Epilepsy drugs (anticonvulsant)
• High blood pressure medications (anti-hypertensives), such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and diuretics
• Hormone replacement therapy
• Mood stabilizers
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
• Parkinson's disease drugs
• Steroids
• Thyroid medications
• Weight loss drugs
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