Dr. Yu’s Clinical Notes XIII: Simple Tricks to Solve Greasy Hair Problem | 脱发过程中头油过多？于博士教你几招轻松解决

In my practice, I find that most of the hair loss patients come for help are women. I think there are several reasons: 1. women are more fond of beauty, and hair is an important sign of female beauty---therefore most women would try their best to keep the hair perfect; 2. women are better at taking care of themselves, so they would seek treatment for hair loss; 3. When suffering from hair loss, women usually feel uncomfortable in other places, such as menstruation problem, emotional problem, bad sleep, etc.. Therefore they would usually try to find a solution for all these problems together.

In contrast, a few men come for hair loss, and I think the reasons are: 1. most men simply do not care about hair loss; 2. Men’s hair loss usually requires longer treatment then women’s usually two times longer; 3. Therefore, because of the long time to treat hair loss, most men, especially married men are not willing to spend too much on it.

Why is men’s hair loss more difficult to heal? The reason is men are more likely to have greasy hair---their scalp extracts too much “fat” causing hair to fall. This condition is called seborrheic alopecia. Typical seborrheic alopecia starts at the later stage of puberty, when the hair of forehead and side of head start to become thin and fall. The hair would become thin and long by the time, and the hair follicle would eventually shrink. The hair would become thinner and thinner until it stops growing at all. At the age of 40, the hair and bald skin would form a “M” on the forehead, and a “O” on the top. Some even only has hair on the back of the neck and back of the head. Many men have so much excessive scalp “fat” so that their heads are always shinny from the grease, must be washed daily, and some would have excessive dandruff and their hair is dry---these are all caused by the “fat”.

Today let’s talk about how to deal with the “fat”. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, these “fat” are also considered precious matter of the body. Just like cholesterol, these “fat” are also essential nutrients to the body. They only become excessive because some functionalities of the body are out of balance so that not all of these “fat” are used up. Personally, I think excessive hair “fat” is mainly associated with lung, gall bladder, and stomach. I come to this conclusion from the circulation of Qi. Excessive scalp “fat” is due to the blockage of Qi on the scalp, and gall bladder and stomach are two important places to circulate the Qi downwards. These two organs are also essential to food digestion, therefore in the end the food you eat are essential to excessive scalp “fat”. Therefore eating less oily and spicy food is always a good practice.

Here are some acupuncture points that are helpful to cure excessive hair “fat” problem:

Chi Ze: this is a major point on the lung median. Many problems of head and face can be treated with this point. The famous Dr. Xiuzhen Wang has frequent successes using the Chi Ze point for bloodletting to treat headache, high blood pressure, and skin diseases.I usually use this point to remove excessive “fat”.

Yang Ling Quan: this point is easy to find. It is on the gall meridian, with many functions. It is usually used to heal all the kind of painful problems. Actually, it is a major point to let the Qi circulate down. Therefore when piercing the point with a needle, it will cause a feeling of soreness and something going “down” on the point. We are using this function to let the excessive scalp “fat” fall back into the circulation again.

Besides these, keeping a healthy life style of routine exercises is also essential to healthy hair. Good sleep and good stress management play important roll too (please see the previous articles). In conclusion, a combined approach to this problem is the best.

Next time we will talk about more simple ways to cure hair loss.

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在我的临床实践中，女性来治疗脱发的占了绝大多数，男性只占少数。我个人认为主要有几点原因：

1.女性天生爱美，头发是女性重要的第二性征，一头秀发是一个女性魅力和吸引力的标志，因此不允许有半点瑕疵；

2.女性更擅长和习惯照顾自己，因此有脱发时会积极寻求治疗；

3.当女性有脱发时，身体常会有其他的不适，如月经方面的问题，情绪上的问题，精力不足，睡眠差等等。因此她们会吧这些情况联系在一起来寻求整体解决方案。

相对的，我总结男性较少来治疗脱发的原因有以下几点：

1.大多数男性对于脱发不以为然；

2.男性头发的治疗时间较长，一般为女性的两倍时间；

3.由于时间较长花费也更大，男性尤其是已婚男性不愿意为此花费太多。

那么，为什么男性的脱发较难治疗呢？这主要是因为男性头发油多而难以控制，造成脂溢性脱发。典型的脂溢性脱发表现为：在青春期晚期，从前额及侧面头颈部头发开始稀疏脱落，对称向头顶推进。毛发变细变长，毛囊逐渐萎缩，头发如绒毛状至完全不长。最后在40岁左右前“M”，顶“O”型头脱发，甚至仅颈部和头后两侧保留正常头发。很多男人的头发头油分泌很多，头腻发光，一天不洗就不行。亦有的人头发表现为污秽没有光泽，头发还可出现大量灰白色细小糠状鳞屑。头发干燥，缺乏光泽。这都是“油”惹的祸。

今天我们就来谈谈怎么处理这个“油”。中医认为，这“油”也是身体的精微物质，类似过高的胆固醇一样，其实都是人体必需的营养。只是由于人体某种机能的失调而没有给予充分利用，所以就变成多余的留了下来。我个人认为头发出油主要跟肺，胆，胃，有直接关系。其中肺最主要。因为中医认为肺主皮毛，一切于皮肤和毛发有关的问题都与肺有关。第二是胆，胃。这主要是从气的循环方面考查。头油过多就是气在头皮郁滞，而不能下行导致的。胆胃二脏是可以让气下行的最主要脏器。这两个器官又是用于消化食物的，因此食物是引起头油的主要原因之一，少吃油腻辛辣食物是治疗的一部分。下面我就介绍几个穴位来解决头油的问题：

1.尺泽：这是肺经的主要穴位之一，许多头面疾病都可以取尺泽来治疗。如著名的王秀珍老医生就经常取尺泽穴放血来治疗头痛，高血压，皮肤病等。我经常取此穴来去油。

2. 阳陵泉：此穴也很好找。是胆经的穴位，功能多样化，经常被用来治疗各种疼痛性疾病。其实作为胆经的重要穴位之一，具有引起下行的功能，但针刺此穴时会有明显的酸胀并向下引导的针感。我们取穴时就是利用这种向下引导的功能。把头油从头顶引入体内进行运化而被利用为有用的物质。

除此以外，坚持规律合理的体育锻炼，保持健康的身体也是头发的保障。因此可见只有综合调整才能得到理想的效果。

当然在治疗油性脱发时，病人必需还用调整睡眠时间（可以参考我们以前的文章），以及减少精神压力。

下次的文章，我们会继续跟大家谈谈有哪些简便的方法可以治脱发。