The Loss of Body Hair in Women

While many women spend a lot of time and money to remove excessive body hair with waxing, depilatories, shaving and laser treatments, other women experience unwelcome hair loss. Sudden or gradual, patchy or universal, loss of body hair is often symptomatic of an underlying health problem.

Causes

• Body hair loss usually indicates internal health complications resulting from hormonal imbalance, medical drug treatment or chronic disease. Alopecia universalis, the type of hair loss that affects the entire body, is an autoimmune disease often to blame for total body hair loss.

Skin conditions

• Eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, or trauma to the skin such as severe burns or wounds can damage hair follicles and retard hair growth. In some cases, cell damage is irreversible, leading to permanent hair loss.

Hormone imbalance and thyroid problems

• Hypo- or hyperthyroidism, the underactive or overactive production of hormones by the thyroid gland, can lead to body hair loss. Women are four times more likely to develop thyroid problems than men, according to mentalhealth.com. Hair loss may be reversed with proper thyroid or hormone treatment.

Trichotillomania

• Trichotillomania is a chronic psychiatric disorder in which sufferers compulsively pluck their hairs out, including but not limited to eyelashes and eyebrows, consciously and subconsciously. Among adults, more females are diagnosed with the anxiety disorder than males, according to emedicine.com.

Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer will cause hair to fall out during treatment because the drugs are so powerful. They attack healthy hair follicles as well as the rapidly growing cells that cause disease. Hair loss is usually temporary, with growth resuming weeks after treatment has ended.