Better Skin and Hair

Your skin and hair are trying to tell you something about your hormones!

Paying attention to changes and/or chronic symptoms affecting the health and appearance of your skin and hair can give you insight into the health of your hormones.

Here’s an introductory guideline to better understand what’s going on beneath the surface.

1. Cystic acne around the jawline – painful, deep pimples affecting the lower half of the face, jaw, & neck typically indicates an excess of our androgen hormones: testosterone and/or DHEA. Other symptoms may include shedding or thinning hair. This acne affects men and women, especially women with PCOS.
2. Acne & congested skin around the mouth – again these symptoms could mean an excess of androgenic hormones and/or excess estrogen or too low of progesterone. This type of acne, tends to be cyclical, often flaring 1-2 weeks before a women’s period.
3. Acne along the sides of the face/ around eyebrows – this indicates a sluggish liver, which is struggling to properly detoxify hormones, leading to excess circulating hormones, congested pores, and propensity towards breakouts around the sides of the face and brows.
4. Thinning frontal hairline and eyebrows – thinning hair could be mean many things; but with regards to hormones, it could indicate low thyroid function. We especially suspect this if someone is also struggling with fatigue, excess weight, depression, constipation, and dry skin.
5. Oily skin, enlarged pores, and breakouts of your mid-face – overactive adrenals, the glands which regulate cortisol, our primary stress hormone, can manifest as skin problems around the mid-face and cheeks. High stress = excess cortisol => oily skin and clogged, enlarged pores.
6. Hyperpigmentation – patches of darker, brownish pigmentation, especially above the upper lip and often affecting the forehead, can indicate an excess of estrogen. This is a common manifestation for women on the birth control pill and/or women going through peri-menopause.
7. Fine lines & wrinkles- a decrease in moisture and general thinning of the epidermis (top layer of skin), lead to the formation of fine lines, creases, wrinkles, and overall unfavorable changes in skin texture and an aging complexion. This often suggests too low sex hormones, estrogen & progesterone, which decline during the menopausal transition. Chronic stress and hormonal birth control can also cause impede sex hormone production, leading to prematurely aging skin.

If you struggle with any of these symptoms, get your hormones checked out! Addressing hormonal imbalances can help stop the underlying cause of many of these problems.

Systemic vs Local Hormone Therapy

Nowadays, there is a lot of men and women can do to keep their skin and hair healthy. As we age, we all want not only to feel better but also to look better and live better.

Our wellbeing comes from the inside out. Systemic bio-identical hormone replacement treatment is definitely the first step to keep our body healthy but there is more we can do.

In terms of skin & hair health, we also need to work locally. When we take bio-identical hormones systemically, our body distributes the hormones to all our organs and only a small, nominal amount actually gets delivered to the skin and to the hair.

Therefore, it is important that we integrate into our wellbeing journey two further steps: a medical-grade home skin and hair care regime, containing various types of different molecules and hormones to apply locally and, eventually, regenerative and corrective procedures.

Playing the long game results in success

There are numerous medical procedures for menopausal and andropause-related skin and hair changes. Treatment should be tailored to suit the person’s individual needs.

In addition, a skin and hair improvement plan is a journey, not a one-off event. We can compare starting a skin and hair improvement plan to joining the gym- we wouldn’t just go once and assume we will be fit for the rest of our life – we need to keep going.

Clinical Evaluation – Talk to A Doctor!

A laboratory workup for hair loss is commonly performed. Additional questions that you may be asked to help narrow down differential diagnosis are:

• When did the hair loss start? Sudden onset of hair loss may be suggestive of a disruption of the hair cycle.
• Where is the hair loss most prominent? Hair loss can be patchy, diffuse, or patterned. Diffuse shedding may indicate disruption of the hair cycle, while patterned thinning could be attributed to hormonal dysregulation.
• What is the normal hair care routine? Certain hair care practices can have a tremendous impact on the loss of hair health.

In your turn, questions that you can ask when visiting a dermatologist are as follows:

• What foods should I avoid to clear my skin?
• What type of ingredients in products will upset my skin?
• Where is my acne coming from?
• How should I check if my skin problems are caused by hormones?
• Should I start hormone replacement therapy?

With proper evaluation and appropriate testing for hormonal imbalances or nutritional deficiencies, help is on the way!

Get in touch with our team to get a free consultation!