Hirsutism

Hirsutism – General Information

Hirsutism – Symptoms

Hirsutism – Treatment

The diagnosis of Hirsutism is made by considering the patient’s medical family history. The doctor can perform several tests which can help diagnosing the medical condition, and can include the physical exam, in which the patient’s face, neck, chest, breasts, back, abdomen and pelvis are checked for hair growth, but he can also exam other signs of androgen excess or diseases based on hormonal imbalance. The second test that the doctor can apply to diagnose this medical disorder is the blood test, which can help measure the levels of certain hormones in the patient’s blood, such as testosterone; this helps to determine if the condition is caused by a high level of androgen hormones. The treatment for Hirsutism consists in certain combinations of hair removal therapies and medications. There are two major therapies which can be applied to remove the hair. The first therapy is called electrolysis, which is a therapy that consists in inserting a little needle into each hair follicle followed by an emission of a pulse of electric current to damage and destroy the follicle. This kind of therapy achieves permanent hair removal, but it can cause pain during the operation. The doctor can recommend some numbing creams to be applied on the patient’s skin to relieve the pain. The therapy also causes some side effects such as lightening or darkening of the patient’s skin and, in rare cases, scarring.

The second major hair removal therapy is called laser therapy, which is a procedure that consists in producing a beam of highly concentrated light, which is eventually passed over the patient’s skin to destroy the hair follicles and prevent the hair to grow. A session of a laser therapy can last for several minutes to few hours, depending on the area that have to be treated. Usually, after the procedure, the patient’s hair stops to grow in long periods, but there are cases in which the patient can still observe some hair growing in certain areas. This kind of therapy is considered very uncomfortable because the patient can experience a cooking sensation of the skin, causing redness and swelling, and there are also cases in which the therapy caused burns and color changes of the patient’s skin. In addition to the uncomfortable side effects, the laser therapy is also very expensive. There are certain medications used to treat Hirsutism and can include oral contraceptives, anti androgens and topical creams. The oral contraceptives or other hormonal contraceptives, that contain the estrogen and progestin hormones, act by inhibiting the production of androgen from the ovaries. These medicines are a common treatment option for Hirsutism in patients who do not want to carry a pregnancy. Anti androgens are medicines that act by blocking the androgens to attack their receptors in the patient’s body. The most common type of this medicine used to treat the condition is spironolactone or Aldactone. The most common topical cream prescribed to treat Hirsutism is eflornithine or Vaniqa, which is used especially recommended for facial hair.