However, because all the required chemical reactions to stimulate growth are dependent on the free flow of blood to the capillaries supplying each follicle, anything that interferes with the flow or changes the composition of the blood can cause hair loss. Taking physical interference first, arteriosclerosis is the slow loss of volume through the blood vessels. One of the more common causes is high levels of cholesterol in a poor diet as excess platelets build up as deposits on vessel walls. Heavy smoking has the same effect. This will be accompanied by high blood pressure and possible symptoms suggesting heart problems such as angina. As to the chemical composition of the blood, many conditions can affect the hormone balance. An overactive or underactive thyroid gland may cause hair to fall out. The standard treatments for thyroid disease usually restore hair growth. In women, excess levels estrogens may need to be corrected to stop the hair loss. If oral contraceptives are being used, different dosages or a different method of birth control will often restore growth.

In more serious cases, people may be looking at hair loss as a first symptom of cancer. This may be a malignant tumour or cancer of the blood including lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma. Ironically, the treatments using chemo- and radiotherapy remove the rest of the body hair. In slightly less serious cases, the problems may be liver or kidney disease, skin diseases such as lupus and major infections like syphilis. In all these cases, you must either bear with the hair loss or, in combination with any other medication prescribed by your doctor, take propecia. This will help to maintain the status quo except for the more radical treatments which cause stress and hair loss. Whether you do decide to take this drug depends on how important your physical appearance is while you are sick. In many cases, you may be too sick to care. However, there may be situations in which you feel the need to keep up appearances. In those cases, propecia is for you. It is quite slow acting but its effects are reasonably reliable.

Chronic pain can be caused directly by an injury or disease, or it may be a side effect or complication following surgery, caused by drug interactions, etc. Always liking to produce lists, doctors have classified pain into the following categories:

Nociceptive where you feel a sensation in a specific location. This may be somatic and so felt in the joints, bones, muscles and ligaments, or visceral which is felt in the internal organs such as the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. The latter can be more difficult to localize because the pain simply comes from inside the body.

Non-nociceptive may be neuropathic, i.e. pain generated by the nervous system and not tied to a specific location in the body. When the nervous system is damaged, the messages become more difficult to interpret and the brain is often confused by random effects. The result is unpredictable feelings of tingling, numbness, pins and needles and other unpleasant symptoms. Alternatively, there may be sympathetic pain where the skin and tissue around an injury become unusually sensitive and restrict movement.

No matter which variety of pain you may have, there are a range of analgesics or painkillers available to relieve any suffering. The less powerful drugs are the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) which reduce swelling and inflammation in the joints and elsewhere. The more powerful deal with moderate to severe pain with tramadol being the most commonly prescribed because it is less likely to cause dependence than the opiates. Tramadol works by changing the way in which the neurotransmitters carry messages in the nervous system. Because of this, it is equally effective no matter what the cause of the pain, i.e. localized or arising from the nervous system itself. The messages are not carried to the brain or not clearly interpreted as being pain messages. Thus, you can have a reasonably good quality of life even though the source of the pain remains active in your body.

What should everyone see when they look in the mirror – apart from someone “good looking”, of course? Whether consciously or not, people monitor their appearance. It results from the way parents bring up their children and how children relate to each other. Parents impose their choice of clothes on their children, directing the choice of hairstyle, dictating the “look”. The children compete with each other to break the parental mold, to impose their own choices and assert their individuality. The majority retain this interest in their appearance as they advance into adulthood. Those who are most into style and fashion are the most vulnerable to unexpected changes.

Most people will notice any change in their hair when they look in the mirror. They may also start finding more hairs caught up in a comb or brush. When hairs turn up on the pillow overnight or on the favorite chair, the list of symptoms is complete. There is a problem. For women, the first question is whether this is no more than damage caused by the excessive use of heat through curling tongs or the drier. Perhaps there have been too many applications of chemicals to dye or straighten hair. The style may also be slowly pulling the hair out by the roots so allowing the hair to be free rather than under traction may be the answer. For men who do nothing more than run a comb through their hair once every morning, the cause is most likely androgenic alopecia and the remedy is propecia. This applies regardless of race. The earlier men start taking this drug the better. It slowly restores the balance of hormones and prevents further loss. Over time, some hair will regrow. Propecia helps to maintain the same look over the years until age makes loss unavoidable.