The condition may also occur during periods of fluctuating androgen levels such as pregnancy and menopause. Changes in hormone levels caused by certain medications, such as steroids and oral contraceptives, can also lead to hirsutism.
Hypertrichosis is very rare. Based on the diagnosed cases, it seems to affect both biological sexes equally with the exception of hirsutism which only occurs in females. If the abnormal patterns of hair growth are quite severe and begin in childhood, it can be fairly easy to make a diagnosis of congenital hypertrichosis—particularly if there is also a family history of similar symptoms.
In cases of acquired hypertrichosis that occur later in life, it may require more work to figure out the cause and determine the appropriate course of treatment. Blood tests can be useful to identify abnormal testosterone levels or other hormonal imbalances. If a doctor suspects an underlying health condition like thyroid disease or cancer, imaging tests like ultrasounds may be necessary. There is no cure for hypertrichosis, but knowing whether it's congenital or acquired can help doctors choose a treatment.
If hypertrichosis is being caused by a medication, adjusting the dose or stopping the medication may be enough to resolve the hair growth. It may also be possible to give a person a medication to prevent or slow down hair growth. Topical medications called depilatory creams can also be prescribed. People with severe hypertrichosis may find it difficult, overwhelming, expensive, and painful to have abnormal hair growth routinely plucked, shaved, bleached, or waxed.
Even for people who do not have abnormal hair growth, these measures are only temporary. They usually last, at most, a few weeks. Laser hair removal is a longer-lasting option but typically requires more than one session, can be expensive, and may not work well on certain types of hair.
Electrolysis is the FDA-approved treatment for permanent hair removal. While the method does remove the hair permanently, electrology treatments can be painful and expensive. People who have widespread hypertrichosis may need to use more than one hair removal method and may need to use them repeatedly for treatment to be effective. The hair on one area of the body may not be removed well—or safely—using certain methods. Certain areas of the body may also be too sensitive for some methods or more likely to become infected.
Since there have been so few cases of hypertrichosis diagnosed, the research on treatments for severe forms of the condition is limited. People with milder forms and hirsutism can usually find a hair removal method that suits their needs and preferences, though it may take some trial and error. People with hypertrichosis may experience anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and poor body image as a result of their condition. If they have a form that began in childhood, they may have endured many years of bullying by their peers.
As a result, people with hypertrichosis can feel insecure around and isolated by those who do not have the condition even friends and family. Hypertrichosis can have a detrimental effect on a person's social life. People of any age with the condition, but particularly children , may resist activities such as swimming or changing in the school locker room due to anxiety about their appearance.
The anxiety may result in these children missing out on special events with their peers both at school and in the community, such as birthday parties and team sports. In a physician in London, where Warren Zevon tells us werewolves are prevalent, ascribed lycanthropy to the very rare blood disease congenital erythropoietic porphyria. With its attendant hairiness, reddish teeth, pink urine, and aversion to bright light, porphyria would later explain vampires too, although that idea has been discredited.
Some physicians suggested that hypertrichosis causes lycanthropy, but others argued that the genetic condition was too rare to account for the many werewolves loose on the streets of Europe.
The name Ambras comes from Petrus Gonzales, who at age 12 in was brought as a slave from Tenerife in the Canary Islands to the court in France. He had a strikingly hairy face, married young, and had 4 children, 3 of whom were born hairy. His daughter Tognina and son Arrigo passed on the trait. Shwe-Maong was another noted person with Ambras syndrome, from Burma. Born in the hill country outside the capitol, people encouraged Shwe-Maon to whoop like a monkey and act dumb. Like Petrus, he became a royal favorite, given a wife at a young age.
They had 4 children, including a girl whose entire body was covered in a pelt of long, silky grey hair. Her name was Maphoon. She married and had two hairy sons, one of whom passed on the trait.
Charles Darwin mentioned Maphoon in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex , but it was his readers who brought up that the striking hairiness was atavistic, a turning-on of an ancestral trait silenced through evolutionary time. Jo-Jo played along, barking on cue for PT Barnum, although he was very intelligent and made quite a good living from his genetic misfortune. Most of the body is covered with lanugo hair, which is an unpigmented, fine, soft and silky hair that covers the fetus and which is usually shed at around 8 months gestation and replaced with fine vellus hair and terminal scalp hair in preparation for birth.
In congenital hypertrichosis, lanugo hair continues to grow and this excessively long fine hair persists throughout life. Congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa Hypertrichosis. This is a variation of congenital hypertrichosis. This condition involves all over body hair growth, but the hair is fully pigmented terminal hair and the condition is almost always associated with gingival hyperplasia teeth defects.
People with congenital hypertrichosis are often referred to as wolf men, werewolves and ape-men and back in the 19th century and perhaps even today, are crowd-drawers at sideshow acts. Congenital hypertrichosis terminalis Congenital hypertrichosis terminalis. This is an unusual form of hypertrichosis where a solitary circumscribed area of terminal hair growth occurs.
It is not usually associated with any other diseases, except if it arises as a faun-tail on the lower back, when it may indicate underlying spina bifida. Naevoid hypertrichosis can occur at birth or appear later in life. An example of naevoid circumscribed hypertrichosis is the presence of a solitary and very bushy eyebrow.
Naevoid hypertrichosis Hypertrichosis. Hypertrichosis may also be a feature of congenital melanocytic naevi , vascular malformation , Becker naevi and less frequently, other birthmarks. Xue Zhang, a professor of medical genetics at the Peking Union Medical College, tested the man and his family and found an extra chunk of genes on the X chromosome.
The researchers then returned to the Mexican family and also found an extra gene chunk which was different from that of the Chinese man in the same location of their X chromosomes. The extra DNA may switch on a hair-growth gene nearby, resulting in runaway furriness.
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