Table of contents:
- What is difficult to comb hair syndrome, anyway?
- What causes uncombable hair syndrome?
- So, how do you deal with hard-to-comb hair syndrome?
Luckily for those of you who have fine and beautifully dangling hair. You certainly will have no trouble combing your hair every day, right? But apparently, not everyone can be as lucky as you, you know. Yes, there are 100 people in the world who experience a rare syndrome that causes their hair to be fluffy, spiky, and difficult to comb. This syndrome is called uncombable hair syndrome or uncombable hair syndrome. How could that be?
What is difficult to comb hair syndrome, anyway?
Source: Livescience
Uncombable hair syndrome oruncombable hair syndrome (UHS) is one of the abnormalities in the hair strands that is experienced by many children. This condition makes sufferers have hair that expands like a lion, blonde like straw, irregular, dry, and of course difficult to comb.
Quoting from LiveScience, this condition was experienced by Taylor McGowan, an 18-month-old boy from Chicago. He has blonde hair, spiky, and difficult to comb like in the picture. In fact, he was dubbed the mini Einstein because of it.
Yes, you may immediately think of Einstein. If you pay attention, this famous character also has white hair that is fluffy, is not neatly arranged, and may be difficult to comb. However, experts are not quite sure whether Einstein also had this syndrome or not.
According to Regina Betz, a lecturer from the University of Bonn in Germany and author of a well-known paper in 2016, uncombable hair syndrome begins to appear in children from 3 months to 12 years of age. However, this condition generally gets better with age.
What causes uncombable hair syndrome?
Basically, until now there is no definite cause of difficult combing hair syndrome. Experts suspect there is a role for genetic mutations that cause a person to experience this one syndrome.
Children with difficult to comb hair syndrome generally have different hair strands from other normal children. Normal children usually have straight, wavy, or curly hair strands. Strand by strand of hair thrives downward and is generally easy to manage.
On the other hand, children with uncombable hair syndrome experience different things. They have the shape of strands that are stiff, not straight or curly, triangular, or even heart-shaped.
Betz suspects this is caused by mutations in one of three genes, namely PADI3, TGM3, and TCHH. This gene is believed to have come from one parent, either the father or the mother. So, if you or your partner has experienced this syndrome as a child, it is possible that your child will experience the same thing.
So, how do you deal with hard-to-comb hair syndrome?
Hair that tends to get tangled and difficult to comb can generally be overcome with regular hair care, either by regularly washing it, using hair vitamins, hair straightening, and so on. But in fact, this does not apply to people who experience uncombable hair syndrome.
Continuous hair care can actually make hair brittle and damaged. Because in fact, the problem of spiky and blonde hair can improve naturally when the child starts to enter adolescence, aka puberty. So, you don't have to do anything to fix your child's hair.
If you still want to do hair care for children, you can use conditioner and a soft comb. But remember, comb the child's hair slowly so as not to make their hair brittle or damaged.
In addition, you can also use biotin supplements to help soften each child's hair. A report shows that the use of biotin supplements can increase hair strength without damaging it. Hair also tends to be easier to comb after four months of supplementation.
