Hair Loss
Consultation
What Constitutes A Thorough Hair Loss Consultation?
A doctor who is familiar with hair loss conditions should be conducting the consultation. A medical questionnaire will be handed out to you to answer as accurately as possible as this helps the medical professionals pinpoint the issue.
Some possible rather unexpected questions may be asked in great detail, for example, the age of your parents, their siblings or grandparents and whether or not they have experienced hair loss.
Other sensitive questions may also be asked including how your hair loss affects you socially and psychologically, as well as what are your expectations from treatment at Terra Medical Clinic.
Hair Loss Consultation
What Constitutes A Thorough Hair Loss Consultation?
A doctor who is familiar with hair loss conditions should be conducting the consultation. A medical questionnaire will be handed out to you to answer as accurately as possible as this helps the medical professionals pinpoint the issue.
Some possible rather unexpected questions may be asked in great detail, for example, the age of your parents, their siblings or grandparents and whether or not they have experienced hair loss.
Other sensitive questions may also be asked including how your hair loss affects you socially and psychologically, as well as what are your expectations from treatment at Terra Medical Clinic.
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of Male Pattern Hair Loss
FAQs
At Terra Medical, our doctors take a structured and thorough approach to diagnosing hair loss. Your first visit is designed to understand your concerns, assess your scalp accurately and guide you toward the most suitable treatment options.
- Detailed medical and hair loss history — you will complete a medical questionnaire covering your general health, family history of hair loss, lifestyle factors and any symptoms you have noticed. These details help the doctor identify potential causes such as genetics, stress, nutrition or hormonal changes.
- Discussion of your concerns and goals — the doctor will ask how hair loss has affected your confidence or daily life and what outcomes you hope to achieve. This ensures that recommendations are aligned with your expectations.
- Visual and physical scalp assessment — a gentle “comb-through” allows the doctor to observe general hair density, patterns of thinning and any signs of inflammation or irritation.
- Microscopic examination of the scalp — using high-powered magnification, the doctor examines the condition of your follicles and scalp. This helps identify empty follicles, miniaturised hairs, sebum congestion or features that point to specific conditions like androgenetic alopecia, telogen effluvium or alopecia areata.
- Hair pull test (if needed) — a 360° hair pull test may be performed to determine whether excessive shedding is occurring, which is an important marker for telogen effluvium or stress-related hair loss.
- Review of findings and personalised plan — the doctor will explain the diagnosis clearly, discuss contributing factors and outline suitable treatment options. You will also learn what results to expect and how long improvements may take.
- Recommendations for further testing (if required) — if your assessment suggests hormonal imbalance, nutritional deficiency, thyroid issues or other medical contributors, blood tests or TrichoLab analysis may be advised to provide a more accurate diagnosis.
Your first visit aims to give you clarity, not only about what is happening, but also about how to treat it effectively and confidently.
We perform a comb through of your hair to generally assess the status of the hair loss and sometimes this alone can achieve a diagnosis.
Then a careful and detailed microscopic examination of the scalp is done to assess the hair, scalp and roots – looking specifically for empty follicles, miniaturized or thinning hair, excessive sebum and scalp irritation.
A 360-hair pull test may be performed to assess if you are having a condition that involves excessive hair shedding.
Ask your doctor if he can, at that moment give an accurate diagnosis and staging / grading of your hair loss condition. There may be situations where the hair loss condition is a mixed condition, or the diagnosis remains unclear, which will require further testing.
Usually, a straightforward consultation to come to a diagnosis can take half an hour. Usually during the same consultation, a treatment plan will be discussed with you and that can a further half hour.
It is estimated that by the time you realize that your hair is thinning, you have already lost 50% of your hair volume. That would be that it is time to seek help from a medical professional promptly. There are various methods that doctors use to correct hair loss conditions but stopping further hair loss should be the first target.
It is great if you have taken the first step in finding a medical diagnosis to your hair loss. While some hair loss conditions are complicated to understand, do discuss your suspected diagnosis with the doctor.
This can help to clear the air about some misconceptions and misinformation that is presented by untrained hair treatment centres or by online sources that are not medical in nature.
As technology advances, more and more methods are available to rescue patients suffering from female and male hair loss. You may have consulted that doctor some years ago and if you do not seek another opinion, you may be missing out on a potential method to rescue your hair loss.
At Terra Medical Clinic, we discuss a variety of treatment options with our patients according to the diagnosis that is made and explain clearly, what results to expect in terms of treatment processes and outcomes.