I was recently contacted by someone who had suffered severe hair loss. The person was very hopeful that they would improve soon and expected that they would start to see new growth in the next few days. The problem was, they had read that when hair starts to grow back, it is normal to experience itchiness, tingling, and tightness during the process. This person did not feel any of these things. His scalp felt totally normal and he wondered if he should be concerned about this. He wanted to know if the fact that he was not feeling itchy or other bothersome symptoms meant that his hair was not growing back. I will tell you what I told him in the next article.

It may be normal to feel itchy when regrowth begins, but it doesn’t always happen, and its absence doesn’t always mean something is wrong: The truth is, it is quite common to experience some discomfort as new growth begins, especially if you have had a large amount of hair loss that needs to be replaced. When a large number of follicles have been affected and are now going through different parts of their cycles, this can manifest itself physically. This can result in inflammation that can manifest itself in all kinds of ways, such as the appearance of a pink or red scalp, itching, burning, tightness, tingling, or other strange sensations.

And, as hair begins to grow back and comes into contact with these follicles, these responses can become even more intense and noticeable. However, not everyone has this inflammation or experiences these responses. There are some people who don’t have as many follicles at stake or they are some of those lucky people who escape this process. And sometimes the itching and tingling are not due to regrowth at all. They are due to inflammation and androgens that contribute to hair loss in the first place.

So the absence or presence of itching is not always good or bad. It could mean that it grows back (which is good). Or it could mean inflammation and androgens (which could be bad). And there are other ways to tell if your hair is growing back or if androgens are at play besides the fact that your scalp is giving you trouble.

Other things besides itchiness that can tell you that hair is growing back: You can take a look at other things to determine if the hair is growing back. You can pull the hair back (along the fringe line) to see if there are new baby hairs there. You can part your hair in the opposite way that you normally would to see if any new hair comes out. And you can put powder or dry hairspray on your hair (on dry hair) just before you wash it anyway to see if there are any loose short hairs in the spotlight. (Tiny hairs can sometimes be hard to see, so the white color makes it easier.)

Another thing you can do is observe the health of that regrowth. If it is dark in color and matches the texture of the rest of your hair, then there is a better chance that you are not dealing with androgens (because the hair could potentially be miniaturized in that case). And shorter, healthy-looking hairs indicate that what you’re seeing is more likely a regrowth of telogen effluvium or some other aggressive hair loss that doesn’t involve androgens.