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Hey there, Secret Soothers. I’ll keep the background short, but I know many of you relate to this story:
In my mid-to-late-30s, I started losing a crap ton of my hair, and I had no idea why, and it was terrifying and scary and shameful, and because I yam who I yam (a wanna-be biohacker for highly sensitive women, but gentle and useful, hopefully) I have since tried most everything since then to stop the shed, and some of it has worked, some of it has not, and some of it might help you, so I want to round up my most effective tools today.
Why did I start losing so much hair? Why are YOU losing your hair, you might wonder?
The short answer is, I still have no definitive idea. Was it genetics? Was it stress? Was it hormones? Was it starting peri-menopause? Was it the shower water in my home? Was it the hair products I was using? Was it diet? Was it something else? Was it all of the above?
Here’s my best guess:
For me, personally, the hair loss was caused by a mixture of the following:
Deep, long-term, chronic stress that I had really no conscious idea I was under and that my diet was contributing to (plenty of coffee and alcohol)
Hormones caused by the onset of peri-menopause, in particular, over-production of estrogen
Inflammation that was affecting my stomach and my ability to absorb nutrients from diet
Other inflammatory habits I was doing at the time, including smoking and over-working-out
Overall, a not-that-great diet that was lacking many minerals necessary for hair growth
In Traditional Chinese Medicine terms, a lack of healthy qi (blood flow, vitality, energy) from the spleen, liver and kidneys
For you, YOUR hair loss could be caused by something totally different, and that’s the frustrating thing about hair loss (or any health issue): there’s no one standard garden variety answer, though we may well wish there were.
I also did go to doctors and dermatologists, who took a cursory look at my scalp, 1. told me it was all in my head and I wasn’t losing that much hair, thanks a lot and 2. proscribed me Rogaine (which I did try out for a while but ultimately didn’t feel comfortable using permanently).
I wanted a more holistic solution to hair loss, so below, I’ll detail what I’ve done that really worked (and a few of the things I’ve tried that didn’t work for me).
Now I’ll say this — I’ve been on this hair loss and hair regrowth ~journey~ for over 10 years now and my hair has NOT fully grown back to its previous glory. Man, I used to have really beautiful hair. It’s very fine, but there was a TON of it, and it had a great texture and strength. I definitely took it for granted. I’ve primarily stopped the loss, I believe, and regrown some of my hair, but I don’t think it will ever be like it was before the loss started. And that’s okay. If I estimate I lost 50-60% of my original hair, I think just a bit of it has grown back, but mostly I’m happy the shedding has stopped, and I’ll take that.
So what worked, and what do I do these days to keep it in good condition?
Let’s take a look…
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