This Weird Laser Headband Actually Helped My Hair Loss

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I’ve had long, thick hair for most of my life. Right up until my early forties, in fact, when large handfuls of my hair started falling out in the shower. “Why is this happening?” I asked my doctor at the time, as my front part began widening at an alarming rate.

My doctor ran thyroid tests, iron-deficiency tests, and pretty much every other test except for the estrogen and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) labs that, a couple years later, would ultimately indicate the problem: perimenopause. Fluctuating estrogen and progesterone hormones in the years right before menopause often cause a dominance of androgens, or male hormones like testosterone and androstenedione. In genetically susceptible women (like me, apparently), such androgens can shrink hair follicles and cause pattern baldness.

This was new information to me. I knew older women often wore their hair in a short, fluffy bouffant, but until I started shedding, I...

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