Causes of Excessive Hair Growth
There are a wide variety of causes of excessive hair growth patterns throughout the body. Identifying the cause of your specific unwanted growth is essential for ensuring that laser hair removal is the right treatment option for you and to maximize its effectiveness.
The most common causes of excessive hair growth are:
- Heredity, whereby the trait of excess growth is passed down genetically from a parent,
- Overreliance on short term, temporary hair removal by using plucking, tweezing, waxing, creams and so forth,
- Normal development as a result of the aging process,
- A side effect of pregnancy,
- Undesirable reaction to particular medications or drugs,
- Insulin resistance,
- Hormonal or glandular imbalance, often caused by certain diseases.
PCOS
In women, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the main disorders that leads to hirsutism (excessive female hairiness). The condition is thought to afflict nearly 10% of women between 12 and 45 years of age. Excess hair growth patterns caused by PCOS usually arise on places such as the chin, cheeks, upper lip and other facial areas, though excessive body hair is not uncommon. If you are a woman with PCOS experiencing such excessive growths, it is important to consult an endocrinologist so that they can take the necessary hormonal tests.
Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance is typically provoked over a long period of time due to a poor or unbalanced diet that is high in sugar and carbohydrates. Such a diet neglects proper nutrition and can leave the body with an inadequate ability to process glucose, which is one of insulin’s properties. The glucose levels remain high because insulin can no longer lower the sugar. In turn this creates a state in which the body is powerless to correctly balanced hormones such as estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. Imbalance in these areas can lead to excessive hair growth. You can request a test for insulin resistance from your doctor.
Why do I need to know about the cause?
You need to find out the cause of your excessive hair growth because it may affect your treatment otherwise. If you suffer from any of the hormonal imbalances described above, or other diseases that cause unwanted growth, this means that an abnormality in the body’s processes is causing the hair growth. The laser will eliminate current hairs and achieve reduction, but the body will continue to produce new hairs at a rapid rate. Therefore laser treatment will appear ineffective because it will not get to the root of the problem.
Please speak to your doctor if you think an underlying condition may be causing the excess growth. This should be done before commencing laser hair removal, so that the underlying cause can be treated or controlled before hair reduction is attempted.