What women need to know about hair loss

London, Ont.-resident Marcy Gallant began losing her hair when she was around five years old. 

The alopecia advocate says she woke up one morning and noticed hair on her pillow. Her mother investigated and found a bald spot, and Gallant was soon diagnosed with alopecia areata, a condition sometimes called spot baldness. 

Over the course of the next decade or so, Gallant embarked on a journey that included numerous doctor visits. Her alopecia areata grew into alopecia universalis, and she eventually lost all the hair on her body. 

"When I was a kid, whether it was at school or at soccer, I was always constantly thinking about it," said Gallant, who co-ordinates youth engagement and special projects at the Canadian Alopecia Areata Foundation (CANAAF). 

She spent years receiving treatments ranging from lotions to steroid injections, with her hair even growing to shoulder length at one point in her teens. 

Now 24, Gallant has fully embraced her condition, and is an advocate for those living with partial or full hair loss. 

While hair loss is usually believed to happen mostly in men, experts say that women can also experience it, for a variety of reasons. 

According to the Canadian Dermatology Association, roughly 40 per cent of women will have some form of thinning hair by the age of 50. Research suggests that those numbers increase during menopause. 

While there are treatments that can slow down the process, there is no cure. 

Here's what women should know about alopecia. 

Alopecia is a medical term that denotes any kind of hair loss, according to dermatologist Dr. Renee Beach, who runs a clinic in Toronto.

Alopecia can be either scarring or non-scarring. Non-scarring alopecia is the most common form, says Beach. 

With the scarring condition, hair follicles are replaced with scar tissue, which can be harder to treat, she says.

"Scarring alopecia is the minority of circumstances, but it's troubling because there tends to be more of an inflammatory component," Beach told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC podcast The Dose.