Recovering from the Great Hair Disaster of 2010

Hi my friends,

Wow, sorry for the big delay in posting. I have so much to share and plan to do more frequent updates this summer. First I wanted to share an update on my hair, after the Great Hair Disaster of 2010.

To give you a refresher... in May 2010, using myself as the usual experiment test-dummy, I took DHEA to see if it would help with my thyroid and adrenal issues. Whether it was the DHEA alone, or a perfect storm of stress combined with my flat iron, within three weeks I lost over half my hair volume. And what hair remained broke almost to the root. Devastating? Yes!

I had no idea how much I loved my long hair until it was gone. I've been sulking for a year now, enviously watching women with long hair. For a while I wore hair extensions, which was great and helped me through the early trauma of losing almost 8 inches of hair. Finally I've recovered, and now embracing the short hair while it grows out, sans hair extensions. 

That's the backstory, now the goods news! I've done tons of research on how to grow and maintain healthy hair, which I am excited to share with you all. Even if you have strong hair, you might know someone who has gone through a similar tragedy. And if you have hair care tips, please share!  

Here is low-down. In my research, it seems that growing strong and healthy hair has four key parts:

Hair Growth: Iron Supplements 

My first concern was speed of hair growth. Every morning in the mirror, I desperately willed my hair to grow. Apparently healthy hair grows about 1/2 inch a month. So 6 inches a year! But for us hypothyroid people, I read we often have low iron which means hair grows slower! My iron was very low, so I made sure to take my iron (25 mg/day). From what I've read it takes about 3-4 months to get iron levels up so it was important for me to be diligent.

Hair Strength: Zinc

My hair had inches of terrible split ends. So I had to work on strengthening my hair. I read that Zinc was good for hair strength (also supposedly good for thyroid) so I added Zinc 10mg a day. My hair is no longer splitting, and the new growth is getting stronger. Thumbs up for the zinc. Plus I noticed an added bonus of less acne, woot!

Hair Shine: Omega 6

I read that Evening Primrose Oil Omega-6 was good for strength and shine, so I've been taking Evening Primrose Oil 1350mg 2/day for a year. It's a little hard to tell if this made a difference with my hair, but it seems like it hasn't hurt. And the Evening Primrose Oil definitely helped with PMS and mood swings! That was a huge bonus. Can you believe I don't have any PMS now? (sorry to the guys if this is TMI).

Stress: Vitamin C

From what I've read, when the body is in stress it draws from the hair, skin and nails first. So the hair tragedy was a clue that my body was not happy with me last year. In the Adrenal Fatigue book by James Wilson, he talks about the importance of Vitamin C to help the adrenals deal with stress. And recently I read on Janie's blog on Stop the Thyroid Madness, how she feels she never had adrenal fatigue because she has always taken lots of Vitamin C. This was great info! For the past year, I upped my dose of Vitamin C to 2k units a day with 1k units of bioflavinoid (for absorption). When I take my Vitamin C, I feel really solid all around. And the great bonus, I wasn't sick at all this year. Sweet.

And now for the photo! This is from June, one year after the Great Hair Disaster of 2010. Doing pretty good I think. My next blog post is going to be about how I stopped using shampoo three months ago (zoinks!) and now just do "conditioning only"...  

xxoo

Lizzy

 PS - Thanks to the ladies at the Yahoo Grow Hair Forum who saved me many many times. xxoo!

Join My Experiment for Dry Hair

Hi friends,

I'm really excited about this... I am running a group experiment on the Conditioning Only method of cleaning hair. I read that conditioning only is great for dry hair (which is common for us hypothyroid folks!). I know conditioning only sounds really aweful, and it seems like your hair would be limp and lifeless. But I tried it yesterday and I have to say my hair felt amazing!!

So I invite you to join an experiment with me on "Edison The Experiementer's Journal" and try this method for a month (or at least once or twice). In addition to have beautiful, healthy, shiny hair, conditioning only means saving tons of money on hair products. Apparently the best conditions are the cheap ones like Alberto VO5 Clarifying conditioner for .99 cents. So please join the experiment and let's learn something together!

Lizzy

Hair Growth, Dry Hair, DHEA and Evening Primrose Oil

After my experiment-gone-wrong with DHEA in May, my hair has been in a terrible state. Dry, breaking, split ends that look like I singed them over an open flame, and major hair loss.  My thin hair is now even thinner and won't style into anything (think Straw Man from the Wizard of Oz). I've been horrified, as you can imagine. Even as I write this, my ponytail is no thicker than a pencil. It was never super thick, but a pencil? Come on. I want big, sexy Pamela Anderson hair! 

So it's been a journey to undo this mess, repair the hair damage, and promote hair re-growth. At the very least, using myself as a test dummy means hopefully we all get to learn something...

First step, I stopped taking DHEA, and I noticed the hair shedding is tapering off which is a good start.  Then I came across some info from thyroid guru Mary Shomon who suggested Evening Primrose Oil which contains Omega-6 Fatty Acid, claiming it would calm the hair within two weeks. So I started supplementing 1350 mg of Evening Primrose Oil 2 times a day, and it does seem to have calmed the wild straw-like hair texture.  Also I noticed my hair is ready for a color retouch way sooner than normal.  That means Evening Primrose Oil is helping with the speed of hair growth. Thumbs up for Evening Primrose Oil. But there is still more to go.

On the Yahoo Hair Growth forum, a great community, someone posted that iron in the body needs to be in the 70-90 range for new hair growth to happen. Fascinating! Who knew that iron and hair growth were directly related.  And since hair loss, fine hair, dry hair, even bald spots are all related to thyroid issues, and people with thyroid issues often have low iron, this made tons of sense.

My doctor and I have been working to raise my low iron levels (which apparently takes a long time, like months). Seeing how critical iron is to the body and hair growth this gives me added incentive to take my iron in hopes of someday having big sexy hair.

I will report back on my findings.

xxoo

Lizzy

The Nitty-Gritty: Iron supplements often cause constipation. Floridex is a liquid brand that is easier to digest but pretty expensive. Instead, I tried a brand called "Bluebonnet" which claims to be non-constipating, but I'm not so sure they should make this claim. If constipation happens, Magnesium Citrate (200 mgs/day) will solve the problem quickly.  Most of us thyroid and adrenal sufferers need Magnesium anyway so its worth having in the medicine cabinet.