The reason for this is the following：
● First of all, what are the current methods for treating alopecia areata?
At present, there are many methods and drugs to treat alopecia areata in China. If you elaborate, each method can be lengthy. So, Francis Shengfa wrote a tweet in official website, detailing these methods one by one! Limited to space, here is a brief summary of the commonly used treatment methods for alopecia areata. I generally divide these methods into five categories:
(1) General treatment is auxiliary treatment, such as popular science for alopecia areata, fully understanding the healing situation of alopecia areata and restoring the confidence of hair growth; Eating foods rich in high protein and trace elements or vitamin B drugs is helpful for hair growth; Take sedatives as appropriate to help sleep;
② Traditional Chinese medicine treatment adopts Chinese medicine decoction or Chinese patent medicine for oral administration and Chinese medicine for external use. On the basis of syndrome differentiation and treatment, prescribe the right medicine, eliminate the syndrome factors that hinder hair growth in vivo and around hair follicles, stop hair loss and grow hair.
③ Western medicine immunotherapy glucocorticoid, glycyrrhizin, cyclosporine A, contact sensitizer and other hormone drugs regulate human body, prevent alopecia areata from developing and promote hair growth. There are many ways of administration, such as external use, subcutaneous injection and oral administration.
④ External treatment of western medicine (minoxidil, etc. ).
⑤ Other treatment methods include acupuncture and massage in traditional Chinese medicine, physical therapy and tissue therapy in western medicine; Try photochemical therapy, cryotherapy, or minimally invasive surgery for a few qualified people.
● There are so many treatments for alopecia areata, why do I recommend Chinese medicine?
As for me, I am a clinical worker, and the result is the priority. I'll use whichever therapy is good, and I don't stick to one school. The patient is practical. The patient only wants to see if you can cure his alopecia areata. No matter how advanced and advantageous your therapy is, it's no use! For this reason, basically I have tried all the above treatments. To sum up, mild, moderate and severe alopecia areata can be treated by general treatment (including general drug treatment), internal and external treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, or physical therapy and tissue treatment. Intralesional injection is only suitable for mild to moderate alopecia areata. Systemic and local immunotherapy is suitable for moderate and severe alopecia areata. However, due to the dependence of immunotherapy on human body, it is easy to relapse and has great side effects after drug withdrawal, and the treatment is limited to some extent. In moderate and severe alopecia areata with poor therapeutic effect, photochemical therapy, cryotherapy or minimally invasive surgery can be tried. In contrast, because Chinese medicine is a natural medicine, it is safe and independent, and it is not easy to relapse. So as far as my experience is concerned, I think the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine are relatively exact curative effect, few side effects, stable curative effect and not easy to relapse. The disadvantage is that compared with western medicine, it takes effect slowly because of its gentleness!
Especially for recurrent alopecia areata, which is difficult to treat, Franciscans found that because recurrent alopecia areata has the characteristics and difficulties of slow cure and long course of disease, if it is treated by western medicine system for a long time, it is easy to produce side effects, which will burden organs such as kidneys. Especially in hormone therapy, patients with severe alopecia areata often take glucocorticoid orally for a long time during the treatment, which leads to a series of adverse reactions, and it is easy to relapse after stopping the drug or reducing the dosage. As long as the compatibility of traditional Chinese medicine is reasonable, long-term use not only has no side effects, but also has great advantages in curative effect. Francis Shengfa made a special research summary on this practice, and formed the "Research Report on the Treatment of Recurrent Alopecia Areata with Plum Blossom Needle and Shengfa Formula" for Francis Shengfa to publish as a tweet for your reference. The above understanding of recurrent alopecia areata was also formed in this practical research process.
Of course, because the cause of alopecia areata is still unknown, it can only be temporarily determined that it is the synergistic effect of genetic factors, stress, autoimmune and allergic reactions of immune system, skin barrier, pathogen infection and other factors. So far, there is no unified and clear treatment method. There are many methods above, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For patients with alopecia areata, it is particularly important to choose a suitable treatment method to improve the curative effect because of the different causes and symptoms.
Therefore, for doctors, the treatment of alopecia areata should be based on the specific situation of patients, or adopt appropriate single therapy, or combine traditional Chinese and western medicine, or combine internal and external treatment, or combine general treatment with special treatment, and the curative effect should be observed for at least 3~6 months or longer. For patients, it is necessary to actively cooperate with doctors, actively popularize alopecia areata knowledge, fully understand the healing situation of alopecia areata, establish firm confidence in the success of alopecia areata treatment, and persist in treatment to achieve good results.