A couple of years ago my hair started falling out. Not in clumps, but I noticed more hairs than usual in my comb and in the bath drain. After consulting a number of NPR Books, I went to a trichologist (a hair specialist, not an M.D.) who tested my blood (all fine), told me some thinning was natural for a woman in her mid-40s and sent me home with expensive shampoo and a serum to use on my scalp. I used the potions. I took vitamins. I stopped brushing my hair. I was a wreck. If someone had told me there was a cure in a remote village in the mountains of Bhutan, I would have put on my hiking boots and boarded a plane. No one wants to lose their hair, but for women it is especially traumatic. Men can trim their tops close down close to the skin and look very modish, even sexy. Most women don’t want to be bald. Though it is more common — and visible — in men, many women lose their hair. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, 30 million women in this country have hereditary hair loss, compared with 50 million men. But many additional women experience thinning hair that results from menopause or health problems. If your hair is coming out, be advised that of the multitude of treatments on the market for women, few are worth your money, says Dr. Melissa Piliang, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Americans consumed an estimated $176 million worth of hair loss goods last year, and chances are some of that money was not well spent. Don’t let charming salon owners, seductive ads or fancy gimmicks convince you otherwise.

So why did my hair fall out? After doing some research on my own, I decided it was either a bad bout of stress or the antidepressant I was taking at the time to treat the stress. I’ll never know for sure, because both stress and certain antidepressants can cause hair loss. But after a couple of months, my hair stopped coming out and my life was back to normal.

Each day you lose about 50 to 100 hairs but, when all is well with your body, an equal number is growing back. Lifestyle letdowns, including severe stress (death in the family, divorce, job loss) and changes in your diet (crash programs, lack of protein), can cause your hair to shed more rapidly than normal. Besides antidepressants, beta blockers and anti-acne prescriptions can also temporarily disrupt the growth cycle of your hair. And take note: medications with testosterone, which women may take to increase their sex drive, can also cause hair loss. (Ask any balding man and he’ll be sure to tell you that his abundance of testosterone is to blame.) Certain medical issues can also impair hair growth. An overactive or underactive thyroid gland can cause hair loss. So can iron deficiency. When women go through menopause and their estrogen levels fall, their hair often begins to thin. Many women also lose some hair a few months after giving birth because of the hormonal changes the body experiences.