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I am a 19 year old female, who has spent the last 3-4 months battling with hair loss. It has easily been the most, stressful, upsetting, scary and all round depressing experience I have gone through. Thankfully mine has cleared up, and I understand that the length of time I have gone through this is very minimal in comparison to most cases, but I thought it important that I share my success story as I realise that it is stories like this that women going through this terrible condition will cling to!
I finished my 1st year of university in june and it was when I came home I started to notice a problem. My hair has always been very long and VERY thick, the thickest hair my hairdresser said she had ever seen. My hair started diffusely thinning all over, I was able to twist 20-30 strands round my hand and with a gentle pull the whole lot would come out and each strand had the characteristic white bulb at the top. Every time I ran my hand through my hair 10-20 strands would come out. I was loosing around 200 -300 strands a day. One night I went out with my family and 3 or 4 people asked if I had had my hair cut short, I felt like bursting into tears as it was obviously noticeable. My mass began decreasing very quickly and I started wearing it up for fear others would notice, my ponytail was probably 50 percent thinner than normal, I was very very worried. I cried solidly for around 3 weeks, terrified to go back to uni the following year in case people would notice and breaking out in a sweat every time it came to brushing or washing my hair.
At this point I was seriously concerned, I didn't know what to do or what was causing it. I decided to sit and think what had changed over the past few months that could have caused this, how my hair had gone from thick and healthy to incredibly thin and brittle. Before I started university I ate very healthily at home, vegetables and meat every day, yes I would eat biscuits, cakes and drink alcohol at the weekends but not ecsesively. At university however, like most students, this changed, I went out almost 4-5 nights a week, drinking a bottle of wine, some vodka and tequila shots on most of these and needless to say this left me with no money for sensible food. I was sleeping most days and going out at night, getting hardly any sunlight, and the hours that I wasnt sleeping or partying I was cramming uni work in. I also went through a painful sort of breakup in April, which emotionally seriously affected me, temporarily changing my normally giggly, happy demeanour. My periods also changed and I had 1 or 2 really really MASSIVE bleeds, (my friends called them the mother of all periods hahhaaha), I was soaking through 2 pads a super absorbant tampon, my pants and trousers in minutes, when normally I was extremely light. As you can imagine by this point I was a wreck. :')
I needed to take action. Firstly I went to the doctors, they did multiple blood tests for lots of hair loss conditions and to check my hormones.After an ultrasound and multiple trips back and forth I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, not a hairloss condition but one associated with the bleeding. I was put on iron tablets 3 (210mg) a day. I went to the hairdressers and she was shocked at how much hair I had lost, I asked her to cut off as much as it needed and she chopped it to shoulder length, it looked immediately healthier. I decided to change my diet, I stopped drinking, cut all cakes, sweets and chocolate and dairy (i get a painful stomach with dairy products). I introduced lots of spinach, brocolli, fish, red meat,eggs, walnuts, blueberries etc. I ate fruit and veg with every meal focusing primarily on the green ones stocked with iron. I tried to de-stress with colouring in books and listening to music. I also tried to drink 4 or 5 pints of water a day and took up running daily. I took a multivitamin, selenium supplements and cod liver oil every morning, all in the hope of regrowing my hair.
It was by no means easy, and the weeks still went by and my hair was still falling out, I felt like i was getting no where, |I was trying so hard and nothing was changing. It was all I could think about day and night.
THEN
FINSLLY
I started to notice a small difference, rather than 10 or 20 hairs coming out with each gentle tug, it was more like 5. Thank goodness for small mercys, I started to believe I wouldnt be returning to uni looking like Phil Mitchell. 1 month later I am overjoyed to report that my hair has stopped falling out and is getting progressively thicker and longer again. (right as I wrote that I ran my hand through my hair and 2 came out fs hahha).
I genuibnelly believe my hair loss was down an emalgamation of things. Primarily stress and loss of iron. But I dont think my lack of basic nutrition and over use of alcohol can have helped anything. I believe the health of your hair really does work like a garden, you will only see results once you start treating whats inside with care and bnutrition.
I understand that there will be people battling with this condition which has gone on for a lot longer than me and I can only offer my genuine support and admiration for fighting something which is so so emotionally draining. I just thought it was important that I wrote this in case there was someone else in the same position that I was in, maybe having made the same lifestyle choices as me. Believing that, that was it, their hair would never come back, and feeling at such a loss! Hair loss is a horrendous thing to have to go through BUT YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT!!!! KEEP GOING IT WILL END!!!! ANY CHANGES YOU MAKE ARE POSITIVE ONES AND NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES THEY WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!! <3
I finished my 1st year of university in june and it was when I came home I started to notice a problem. My hair has always been very long and VERY thick, the thickest hair my hairdresser said she had ever seen. My hair started diffusely thinning all over, I was able to twist 20-30 strands round my hand and with a gentle pull the whole lot would come out and each strand had the characteristic white bulb at the top. Every time I ran my hand through my hair 10-20 strands would come out. I was loosing around 200 -300 strands a day. One night I went out with my family and 3 or 4 people asked if I had had my hair cut short, I felt like bursting into tears as it was obviously noticeable. My mass began decreasing very quickly and I started wearing it up for fear others would notice, my ponytail was probably 50 percent thinner than normal, I was very very worried. I cried solidly for around 3 weeks, terrified to go back to uni the following year in case people would notice and breaking out in a sweat every time it came to brushing or washing my hair.
At this point I was seriously concerned, I didn't know what to do or what was causing it. I decided to sit and think what had changed over the past few months that could have caused this, how my hair had gone from thick and healthy to incredibly thin and brittle. Before I started university I ate very healthily at home, vegetables and meat every day, yes I would eat biscuits, cakes and drink alcohol at the weekends but not ecsesively. At university however, like most students, this changed, I went out almost 4-5 nights a week, drinking a bottle of wine, some vodka and tequila shots on most of these and needless to say this left me with no money for sensible food. I was sleeping most days and going out at night, getting hardly any sunlight, and the hours that I wasnt sleeping or partying I was cramming uni work in. I also went through a painful sort of breakup in April, which emotionally seriously affected me, temporarily changing my normally giggly, happy demeanour. My periods also changed and I had 1 or 2 really really MASSIVE bleeds, (my friends called them the mother of all periods hahhaaha), I was soaking through 2 pads a super absorbant tampon, my pants and trousers in minutes, when normally I was extremely light. As you can imagine by this point I was a wreck. :')
I needed to take action. Firstly I went to the doctors, they did multiple blood tests for lots of hair loss conditions and to check my hormones.After an ultrasound and multiple trips back and forth I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, not a hairloss condition but one associated with the bleeding. I was put on iron tablets 3 (210mg) a day. I went to the hairdressers and she was shocked at how much hair I had lost, I asked her to cut off as much as it needed and she chopped it to shoulder length, it looked immediately healthier. I decided to change my diet, I stopped drinking, cut all cakes, sweets and chocolate and dairy (i get a painful stomach with dairy products). I introduced lots of spinach, brocolli, fish, red meat,eggs, walnuts, blueberries etc. I ate fruit and veg with every meal focusing primarily on the green ones stocked with iron. I tried to de-stress with colouring in books and listening to music. I also tried to drink 4 or 5 pints of water a day and took up running daily. I took a multivitamin, selenium supplements and cod liver oil every morning, all in the hope of regrowing my hair.
It was by no means easy, and the weeks still went by and my hair was still falling out, I felt like i was getting no where, |I was trying so hard and nothing was changing. It was all I could think about day and night.
THEN
FINSLLY
I started to notice a small difference, rather than 10 or 20 hairs coming out with each gentle tug, it was more like 5. Thank goodness for small mercys, I started to believe I wouldnt be returning to uni looking like Phil Mitchell. 1 month later I am overjoyed to report that my hair has stopped falling out and is getting progressively thicker and longer again. (right as I wrote that I ran my hand through my hair and 2 came out fs hahha).
I genuibnelly believe my hair loss was down an emalgamation of things. Primarily stress and loss of iron. But I dont think my lack of basic nutrition and over use of alcohol can have helped anything. I believe the health of your hair really does work like a garden, you will only see results once you start treating whats inside with care and bnutrition.
I understand that there will be people battling with this condition which has gone on for a lot longer than me and I can only offer my genuine support and admiration for fighting something which is so so emotionally draining. I just thought it was important that I wrote this in case there was someone else in the same position that I was in, maybe having made the same lifestyle choices as me. Believing that, that was it, their hair would never come back, and feeling at such a loss! Hair loss is a horrendous thing to have to go through BUT YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT!!!! KEEP GOING IT WILL END!!!! ANY CHANGES YOU MAKE ARE POSITIVE ONES AND NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES THEY WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!! <3
