Recording hair growth and shedding

Increased body or facial hair is one sign NICHD names when it describes high levels of hormones called androgens. Shedding, and hair that feels thinner at the scalp, are separate observations. A hair note records what you notice. It does not measure a hormone, and it does not assign you a diagnosis.

The sentence the public page actually uses

NICHD says women with PCOS usually have at least two of three features. One feature is high levels of androgens, or signs of high androgens. The sign it names in that passage is increased body or facial hair.

Later, in the symptom list, NICHD again includes increased hair growth among examples that may seem unrelated to ovaries. Both sentences are about possibility and recognition. Neither is a counting tool you can apply alone in a mirror.

Growth and shedding are different notes

Write them apart.

• Where new hair is visible: chin, jaw, chest, abdomen, or another place you can name.
• Whether it is new, darker, or simply the same as last month.
• What you notice at the scalp, if that is the change: more hair in the brush, a wider part, no change. Say what you see, not "my androgens are high."
• Hair removal, if you would forget that it changed what is visible.
• The date.

A single bad lighting day is a weak note. A few dated lines are easier to trust later. The general method is in How to keep a PCOS symptom record. The definition those notes sit beside is in What PCOS is.

What the notes cannot settle

NICHD says some women diagnosed with PCOS have other features and do not have growths in their ovaries. Hair notes do not tell you whether that description fits you. They also do not explain a cause. Increased hair growth can have more than one explanation, and this page does not sort them.

Questions to take with the notes

• Are you treating this as a possible androgen sign, or as something else?
• Which of these changes matter for the next visit, and which can stay in the notebook?
• What would you want photographed or measured, if anything, rather than described?

Alula can keep the descriptions with your other logs. It does not measure hormones and it does not diagnose PCOS.

Where this leaves the evidence

The public description names increased body or facial hair as a sign tied to androgens, and lists increased hair growth as a possible symptom. That is the whole claim this article is willing to carry. The rest is record-keeping, so a conversation can start from what you actually saw.