Trying to look your best can take a lot of routes across your life. For some people, this has resulted in entirely plucking their eyebrows and then painting them back on. This trend is nowhere near as popular as it once was, but it does still exist. It leads to a few problems when people try to give up the trend and return to their normal look. They’ve typically damaged their eyebrows permanently simply because the roots of the hairs were handled so roughly. It can lead to patchy or thin eyebrows. There’s a clear cause for it though. What about those of us who start experiencing thinning eyebrows when all we’ve ever done is the occasional maintenance plucking to keep our eyebrows shaped properly? There are potential medical reasons behind the problem that you might want to know about. Don’t expect anything dire necessarily, but some of these might mean you’ll want to talk to your doctor just to ensure you’re taking care of your health.

Stress
This is one of the good old fashioned reasons that almost all of us lose a little hair over eventually. Life can build up until the point that is so overwhelming that we don’t know what to do. Chronic stress puts strain on your entire body and the stress hormones released have a way of playing havoc with your body’s systems to the point that it is difficult to really know where the stress begins and the illness caused by the stress ends. Stress’s impact on the body shifts so much that it can literally start to cause hair to thin. This includes your eyebrows. You can have a hard time controlling this as it often feels like the sources of our stress are beyond our ability to affect them, but thinning eyebrows might be the sign to talk to your doctor about options if you’ve been under strain for a while now. You’ll want to address the stress before the problems get worse. It is worth noting that this isn’t always purely physiological as some people will unconsciously pull eyebrow hairs when they get stressed.

Skin Conditions
Fortunately, not every potential cause of eyebrow thinning is related to lifestyle. They’re often just something entirely beyond your control. Various skin conditions can actually result in eyebrow thinning. This generally less a direct result of the condition and more a secondary effect. Many professionals like to highlight that comparatively common skin issues such as psoriasis and eczema can surface in people’s lives at seeming random after a trigger. These conditions are both marked by the inflammation they trigger in the skin as much as the visible effects. This means that the areas near where the skin condition is manifesting are going to suffer the potential for ill effects. Inflammation and other issues can lead to a situation where eyebrows start to thin. You can generally work with a dermatologist to help stop this issue relatively easily as the thinning is seldom permanent in these cases and simply requires time to properly heal.

Internal Issues
There is no denying that this is among one of the more ominous seeming sources for eyebrow thinning. Don’t worry though as it isn’t always anything truly bad. In truth, something as simple as an infection of the eyebrow hair follicles themselves can be responsible for the thinning. This is relatively easy to treat once identified as there are medicines to help. Other issues can be a bit more complex though. Poor diet can be the cause for any kind of hair thinning. You’ll find this is especially true when it comes to vitamin deficiencies and similar issues. This isn’t terribly common though as it requires either an extremely unhealthy diet or an internal issue that makes absorption of particular nutrients difficult for your body. You’re more likely to experience thinning eyebrows from a thyroid issue or a hormonal disorder of some sort. Most of the time these, as with infected hair follicles, are easily identified and treated.

Thinning eyebrows isn’t a cause for panic, but it is a sign that you’re going to want to talk to a doctor. We’ve covered some of the main reasons it might be happening. All of these benefit from you talking to a doctor at some point as they can help you get all of the potential causes back under control. Treating the source of the problem is the key to ensuring that the thinning doesn’t become permanent.