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Re: How much hair is abnormal
From: anonymous (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Mon, 12 Nov 2001 14:54:14 -0600 (CST)
Wow.....thank you so much for this terrific and well-articulated
information. This is obviously a great forum, and I'm glad I found it.
Thanks again Jodi.
At Mon, 12 Nov 2001, jodi wrote:
>
>Hey there anon
>
>I don't know if anyone can give a definitive answer to how much hair is
>normal. Blonde fuzz on the upper lip, with an occasional darker/coarser
>terminal hair toward the outer edges of the lip is normal. (Weird body
>fact - for the most part, terminal hairs appear first closest to the
>midline of the body, then work their way outward. That's why when you
>first develop pubic hair, it's sort of centralized, then it spreads out.
>That's why the chin is such a hot spot for terminal hairs. The line
>under the belly button is another place hair likes to grow. As
>hirsuitism worsens, you get more and more hairs away from the midline...
>jaws, sideburns... etc. For the upper lip, though, the opposite seems
>true... the outer corners are most likely to develop terminal hairs
>first. Weird... but what about the human body isn't weird? heh...)
>
>I think it's pretty accepted that many normal women have to remove an
>occasional coarse chin hair (or two or three...) as well as the
>occasional stray nipple hair.
>
>I don't think hair growing from a mole has anything to do with
>hirsuitism...
>
>As for hair on the rest of the body, you are right that almost every
>woman goes to great lengths to remove it. This does in deed make it
>hard to tell what it normal and what is not. And of course there are
>ethnic variations in what amount of hair is normal and what isn't... an
>Indian or Hispanic girl might have a faint moustache which is of no
>concern to her because her mother, grandmother, aunts, and sisters all
>have moustaches, it is accepted in women of her culture, and her health
>is otherwise OK. A blonde Polish girl who begins developing a dark,
>coarse mustache, however, could very well be freaked out by such an
>occurrance.
>
>I feel there are a few factors to determine whether or not any given
>woman's hair growth is abnormal.
>
>- Is it truely typical of her ethnicity AND not indicative of underlying
>health issues? (My father is 100% Polish, and I favor him physically in
>just about every regard other than the chin I inherited from my mother.
>My mother is of almost 100% German stock with a tiny bit of Italian...
>for years, doctors told me that my hairiness was caused by my "Italian
>ancestry." I would have been able to believe this is I was not blonde
>and blue eyed and in every other visable physical respect clearly not
>Italian. I would have been able to accept this if there was just one
>other woman in my family who was battling excessive chin and body hair.
>i would have been able to accept this if my lack of periods clearly
>pointed to the fact that hormonally, something was obviously wrong with
>me. i think that sometimes hair can be explained by ethincity, but that
>doctors also often use ethnicity as a scape goat when they don't know or
>don't care to investigate what is really wrong.)
>
>- Are normal hair removal methods innefective, and is hair removal
>causing an undue amount of distress in the woman's life? (The vast
>majority of women in America shave their legs and armpits. Many pluck
>the occasional chin hair. For many women, these methods work, they are
>carried out for a brief time every few days, and these women do not
>spend their remaining time obsessing over hair removal. If I shave, the
>results are inneffective. The coarse, dark hairs are still noticable -
>painfully noticable - just beneath my fair skin. The hair is so coarse
>that shaving results in nasty red bumps and ingrown hairs that other
>women do not get. [believe me... I scrutinize the inner thighs of
>every woman I see in a bathing suit or short shorts. I KNOW these red
>bumps and ingrowns are NOT the norm.] When I pluck my chin, I can not
>pluck once a week and let it go - I carry tweezers with me at all times
>so I can pluck as needed. I am nervous wearing my hair pulled up
>because what IF someone figures out my hair problems? Etc...)
>
>I think those are the key questions to ask in deciding if hair growth is
>abnormal or not.
>
>In the case of PCOS, we often ARE talking about "real, noticeable hair
>growth that if left unchecked would be unsightly or masculine." For
>normal women, if they don't shave their legs they will have hair... but
>it won't look manly. Some of us PCOSers, however, can put the manliest
>man to shame with our hair growth.
>
>Not all women with PCOS have the hair problem, though. For hirsuitism
>to be present, you usually have to have both an excess of androgens and
>a skin hypersensitivity to those androgens. There have been cases of
>women who were hirsuit without androgen excess - in this case, these
>women were simply overlysensitive to the normal level of androgens that
>was present. In this case, the hirsuitism can be thought of as a
>"cosemtic" problem. This is not to say that the problem is not a real
>problem - regardless of the cause, excess hair can lead to terrible
>mental anguish in our culture. However, these women are unlikely to
>have other health problems in addition to the hair. When menstrual
>irregularities present as well, the problem is obviously running a
>little more than, shall we say, skin deep.
>
>- Jodi
>
>At Mon, 12 Nov 2001, anonymous wrote:
>>
>>I'm wondering — don't all women have hair on upper lip and face? Do
>>blond, fine hairs on upper lip count as hirsutism? What if you have one
>>dark hair growing from a mole. Does this count? Do normal women not
>>have any hair at all? Or is some hair normal. I'm getting confused
>>about evaluating this because the criteria seems to be that if you have
>>to remove it, it's too much, but almost all the women I know in a quest
>>for hairless beauty ala fashion magazines, remove any hair at all. So
>>I'm just wondering what is normal, and what is hirsutism. No hair, some
>>hair, blond hair, fine hair, 2 black hairs?.... Or are we talking about
>>real, noticeable hair growth that if left unchecked would be unsightly
>>or masculine. Can anyone provide some specifics? Thanks
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