Daily Hair Loss: What is normal?

Assessing daily hair loss

Ah, the drain catcher. To fully understand hair loss problems, one must be able to interpret what patients explain about their hair loss in the shower. Normally, we lose 50-65 hairs per day. But what if it's 88? What does it mean? What if they are mostly short hairs? mostly long hairs? Hairs with a white bulb? What if the patients shampoos weekly not daily?

I pay particular attention to changes in the daily rate of hair loss. If a patient normally loses 50 hairs per day, but now is losing 100, this may be abnormal. If a person's normal rate of loss is 35 hairs per day but now loses 85, this may be abnormal.  Changes in the daily shedding rate are important.