Premature Greying of Hair
Some people start greying even during childhood or early adulthood. The term ‘premature grey hair’ is used for persons who begin having grey hairs before the age of 25 or 30 years. We have seen premature greying starting at the age of three years even. Premature greying is often seen in families. If a parent has grey hairs at an early age, the children also tend to have grey hairs at an early age. It seems this tendency is hereditary. Surveys have indicated that premature greying of hairs is far more common among the Punjabis and Gujaratis than others.
The pattern of developing grey hairs varies from people to people. In most individuals, the greying is maximum at the top of the scalp, while in some others it is maximum at the frontal line or the sides of the scalp. Occasionally, the greying ofhair may involve the eyebrows and eyelashes too; the moustache and the beard are relatively less affected.Once the greying starts, it progresses, as time passes. In a few individuals however, the process reverses even without any treatment and the grey hairs disappear on their own.
Premature Greying of Hair Treatment
Studies have shown that an intake of calcium pantothenate in a dose of 200 mg per day can reverse the process of greying in some individuals. Calcium pantothenate is available as 50 or 100 mg tablets and one or two tablets taken twice a day has been used for the treatment. Studies have been undertaken only in persons with premature grey hairs and therefore, it is not known whether calcium pantothenate can be useful in senile grey hair as well.
The effect of calcium pantothenate is noticed in the form of appearance of converted hairs. A converted hair is a hair which is grey in its distal part but black at its proximal portion, indicating that a hair-root which was earlier producing a grey hair has now started producing a black hair. Since the average rate of growth of hairs is 1 cm per month, one will have to wait for a few months before the effect of this treatment can be evaluated. This effect is not Uniform in all the grey hairs; some hairs get converted earlier than the others. The appearance of the converted hairs may be easily missed out by an individual unless he/ she has been trained to look for the converted hairs. To judge the effect of the treatment we generally advise the patient to clean the hair thoroughly with a shampoo and not to apply any hair oil.
The hairs are examined from one end of the scalp to the other to look for the grey hairs with a proximal black portion. The grey portion ofthe converted hair is snipped with scissors to remove the grey part of the hair. The number of converted hairs thus removed is counted, and the process is repeated at two-to- three month intervals. If a person develops a significant number of converted hairs after the treatment, it indicates a good response. About one-third of the patients with premature grey hairs show a good response while others reveal a poor response or no response at all. Depending upon the number of premature grey hairs at the time of starting the treatment, the person may take two to five years to show a reasonably discernible effect. The treatment is quite safe and can be continued indefinitely.
A quicker method of concealing the grey hair is dyeing. The hair can be stained with any suitable water-soluble hair dye but most of these dyes get washed off when the hair are washed. These are, therefore, called ‘washable hair dyes’. Females in the glamour world often dye their hair with a washable hair dye for a particular occasion to match their dress; they then wash off the colour for the next occasion.
The hair can also be dyed with vegetable dyes, which, with the exception of henna, are temporary hair dyes. Henna consists of the dried and powdered leaves f he plant, called ‘henna’ (Lawsoniaalba).The powder is made into a paste with water and applied on the hair to be left for three to six hours. The hair are then washed with a shampoo. The longer the paste is applied, the darker is the colour. Henna imparts a golden red colour to the hair which is almost permanent and is not washed off.
Many persons however, do not like the reddish tinge, especially when the proportion of the grey hairs is too large. Some people add tea, coffee or some other components to the henna paste to obtain a darker shade of the colour, but so far it has not been possible to match thenatural black colour of the hair. Henna is a very safe dye, though occasionally it has been noticed to produce an allergic reaction in an individual. Such a person develops itching and dermatitis in the areas where henna is applied; and this recurs whenever the application is repeated.
Filed under: Diseases and Conditions