What's good for hair loss due to long term stress?
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free skin care · Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:45 pm

Is there something that should help? My bang area is extraordinarily thin after two years of grief... TIA

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:35 am

I have heard generic Rogaine to be good, available from drugstore.com website. If you want something long term and permanent definitely look at a dietary approach, my hairline is always quite thin but a lot of new growth has sprouted after almost two years of continued protein and general vitamin/mineral supplementation.

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:52 am

I suggest finding shampoos that do NOT contain Sodium Laurel Sulfate - There are some brands from DIY's that are supposed to be good. This will be gentler and decrease hair breakage and loss. Other natural companies have shampoos w/o as well. Also hair,skin, nail supplements, Take powder MSM - that is supposed to be good for hair. Get on Vitacost.com and type in hair supplements or search their categories for supplement suggestions.

Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:29 am

Rogaine for sure. I also know that there are special vitamins that are supposed to help the prevention of hair loss. I don't have a specific recommendation because I haven't run into that problem. But I think that you can go to any drugstore and ask for help. Good luck!

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:50 am

I so understand Anomaly-

the whole top of my head got very thin after longterm stress and illness. I really think nutrition has a lot to do with it. After advice from a naturopath I started taking Borage seed oil (capsule form) and Dong Quai along with a complete multi-vitamin supplement. Eating whole grains, lots of fruit and veggies and such. I also came across a small business Evan's Garden, which produces all natural products in small batches. Evan has a shampoo and nightly oil treatment called Hair be There. I started this regimen in November and I can honestly say new hair is growing in, it is about five inches in length now, still not as thick as it used to be but even my husband has commented on the improvement. (and he never seems to notice when I get a haircut.)

This is the first time I have had any success after about six years of searching for something that would work. I do not know which part or combination of things has succeeded for me, but I am definately thrilled with the results!

I tried Rogaine for women at one time. Many people have success with this. I did not and I hated the messiness of it.

I wish you well in your search.

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:04 am

I've had thinning hair for a long time due both to stress and to heredity.
I've had reasonable success with Rogaine mixed with KGF and green tea from Skin Actives and a good diet.

As for diet when we're under stress we do not eat properly. You need to drink green tea, stay away from simple carbs and you need good quality protein (look up diet for hair on MEDLINE and you'll see this is most important). Also good oils (Omega 3s and 9) this includes fish, flax seed meal and olive oil. Antioxidants such as found in berries helps but the 2 factors that have shown the most correlation with good hair and nails are protein and sulfur compounds (garlic, onions, MSM supplements). Zinc also helps. If you do not eat much animal protein you should take gms of amino acid supplements particularly Arginine/lysine/Carnosine. Your protein should come from all sources whey, soy, nuts AND meat. White flour, white rice and sugar increase inflammation factors in your bloodstream and aggrevate hair loss.

Yoga and scalp massage might also help. When your body is stressed it produces cortisol (stress hormone) which is elevated in those with hair loss. Yoga, massage and time in the sun lowers cortisol levels.

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:21 am

I also have problems with thinning hair. I am a new user of Jan Marini Age Intervention Hair treatment. It is too soon to say I am growing new hair. However, I love this product. Right from the start my hair looked healthier. It has a great shine with bounce and volume. I certainly look like I have more hair. Cool

This product is very expensive. Hopefully it will lasts several month.

http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=19525&highlight=jan+marini

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:36 am

reading sharky's post reminded me that i have also been taking flax seed oil, and use olive oil almost exclusively.

Being a newbie, I found that I cannot add a link to the website, but you should be able to pull it up with a search for Evan's Garden. She has free info there for thinning hair, including how to brush it. So I have also ben doing 100 strokes everyday. I did the test she recommends and in November my roots seemed nonexistent, a couple of weeks ago I retested and there was that nice bulb at the end of the hair shaft. No longer do I see lots of hair in the shower or sink after washing.

Again, I do not know exactly what worked, but it has for me. I suspect though, it has been mostly the nutrition aspect. But at 15.00 for 8oz of shampoo I am not out a fortune either.

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:58 am

Being a victim of too much androgen hormones leading to oily skin and hair loss, I tried so many shampoos, oils, vitamins, etc.

Check your thyroid. Whether you are hypothyroid or hyperthyroid, this can cause you to lose hair. Long term stress is also known to affect your thyroid.

Try Evening Primrose Oil every day. That decreases the DHT known to make hair fall. My hair grew like weeds on it. Try Ramtirth Brahmi Oil from the Indian supermarket once or twice a week overnight. I stopped using this and I noticed a difference. There is a story about a hypothyroid advocate, Mary Shomon, where her ponytail was the width of a pencil until she took Evening Primrose everyday. Now, her hair is as thick as a pantene girl's.

I like the Country Life Maxi Hair vitamins and also take Brewer's Yeast.

I haven't tried this but Apple Cider Vinegar (taken internally and used externally on hair) is supposed to be good as well.

Eat well and try to cut out the sugar. Drink a lot of water everyday. Stop dwelling on your hair loss, I know this is hard, but the more you think of hair loss your hair will manifest this way as the mind-body connection is very strong. If it helps, try to look at pics of women with thick hair and imagine yourself with tons of it.

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:16 pm

There sure are a lot of us that have this issue....I have been dealing with it for 15+ years.

Stress is my primary culprit, and I actually changed jobs because of it. However, there are some less drastic options, especially since that didn't seem to help me much!

Diet:

- Make sure you are eating enough protein, first and foremost.

Medical options:

- Someone already mentioned having yoru androgen hormones checked - a very good idea.

- Check your throid - specifically your Free-T3 and Free-T4 (not just your TSH)

- Check your level of Vit D with a 25-hydroxy vitamin D test. But keep in mind that high levels of Vit D can be toxic, so you don't want to go nuts self-medicating here.

- Consider a low-dosage anti-anxiety medication if you feel that is right for you (and only you can make that decision).

Non-Medical Options:
I have tried most everything out there, and only one product really helped me at all. However, I think you have to try and find what works for YOU.

- Take a good multi-vitamin

- Rogaine - stripped my hair color at the roots, was messy, and you have to keep using it forever or your new hair will fall out.

- Viviscal Tablets - the holy grail for me...my hair stopped shedding at about 3 weeks, and I saw new hair within 6 weeks. It basically caused the 50% hairloss I had to grow back about 95%. I believe so strongly in this that I have taken it for about 8 years straight. I do take December and June off every year to keep it active for me. I also like the Viviscal scalp lotion. BTW, it also has skin benefits, and that is what spawned the products like Imedeen.

- Folligen from Skin Biology - copper petides have proven capacity to regrow hair, and I tried to thicken up a slightly this spot in the front of my hair. I had to stop because I had a HORRIBLE reaction with my hair color (but it shouldn't be a problem if you have dark hair)...you might wan to consider Folligen for Blondes, regardless of your hair color (it is a tin peptide product).

- Emu oil - supposedly reactivates sleeping hair follicles. I am testing this, but have no proof yet.

- Evening Primrose Oil is cheap, but I haven't really seen any results. But it doesn't hurt to try it!

free skin care · Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:51 pm

You definitely need Quality protein. If you're not a vegetarian, Meat is considered high quality protein - a complete protein in that it has all the amino acids. If you are a vegetarian you will need to be very diligent about combining foods to get complete proteins. Your body needs complete, high qualtiy protein to grow "good hair". I encourage you to use high quality hair products and by all means use a hair supplement.

It sound like you have good advice from fellow EDS who have been there.

free skin care · Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:20 am

Going back on my vitamin regime and using women's rogaine stopped mine. Then I weaned myself off the rogaine to every couple of days so that I can eventually stop it, hopefully.

free skin care · Wed May 28, 2008 7:06 pm

I wanted to add an update to my previous post since I have recently noticed a ton of new hair growth.

My current protocol involves taking 2 Viviscal tablets every day PLUS rotating between:
- Viviscal Scalp Lotion
- Fekkai More Nighttime Follicle Treatment (rather perfumey)
- Folligen for Blondes
- Adding emu oil on top of these occasionally to assist in penetration.

I think the rotation of the actives is definitely keeping my follicles guessing (and responding!).

bethany wrote:

There sure are a lot of us that have this issue....I have been dealing with it for 15+ years.

Stress is my primary culprit, and I actually changed jobs because of it. However, there are some less drastic options, especially since that didn't seem to help me much!

Diet:

- Make sure you are eating enough protein, first and foremost.

Medical options:

- Someone already mentioned having yoru androgen hormones checked - a very good idea.

- Check your throid - specifically your Free-T3 and Free-T4 (not just your TSH)

- Check your level of Vit D with a 25-hydroxy vitamin D test. But keep in mind that high levels of Vit D can be toxic, so you don't want to go nuts self-medicating here.

- Consider a low-dosage anti-anxiety medication if you feel that is right for you (and only you can make that decision).

Non-Medical Options:
I have tried most everything out there, and only one product really helped me at all. However, I think you have to try and find what works for YOU.

- Take a good multi-vitamin

- Rogaine - stripped my hair color at the roots, was messy, and you have to keep using it forever or your new hair will fall out.

- Viviscal Tablets - the holy grail for me...my hair stopped shedding at about 3 weeks, and I saw new hair within 6 weeks. It basically caused the 50% hairloss I had to grow back about 95%. I believe so strongly in this that I have taken it for about 8 years straight. I do take December and June off every year to keep it active for me. I also like the Viviscal scalp lotion. BTW, it also has skin benefits, and that is what spawned the products like Imedeen.

- Folligen from Skin Biology - copper petides have proven capacity to regrow hair, and I tried to thicken up a slightly this spot in the front of my hair. I had to stop because I had a HORRIBLE reaction with my hair color (but it shouldn't be a problem if you have dark hair)...you might wan to consider Folligen for Blondes, regardless of your hair color (it is a tin peptide product).

- Emu oil - supposedly reactivates sleeping hair follicles. I am testing this, but have no proof yet.

- Evening Primrose Oil is cheap, but I haven't really seen any results. But it doesn't hurt to try it!

free skin care · Thu May 29, 2008 12:47 am

Take more rest and make sure you intake sufficient vitamin and mineral. Also, do not do any chemical treatment on your hair, e.g. coloring and perm.

free skin care · Thu May 29, 2008 1:56 am

Wow, I'm glad I found this thread. I need some support...I've been grieving ever since I figured out my hair was getting so thin, about five years ago. I can't seem to move entirely past it, and it bothers me no end. But even though I'm glad I found the thread, I'm very sorry so many of us are going through this. IMO there isn't anything cosmetic (meaning, not life-threatening or disease-related) that strikes at our femininity quite like hairloss. Beyond anything else I've experienced in my life (I have a handicap as well as some other problems), losing my hair just made me feel like I'd been "betrayed". That's not a completely accurate way to describe it, but it's the best I can do at the moment.

I have read that dermarolling your head and then applying your actives is extremely effective. From what I understand the .5 is the roller you want to use. I'm just now beginning to try that out, so I have no results to report yet.

I have also read that for those with androgenic alopecia (which I think is my problem), applying topical saw palmetto to the scalp along with the minoxidil/Rogaine and whatever else you're using is helpful. Again, I just started this so I have no result to report yet. I have had luck in the past stopping shedding by taking oral saw palmetto, which inhibits the formation of DHT, the type of testosterone molecule that attacks hair follicles. Saw palmetto is also thought to be a hormone equalizer, so it has other beneficial effects for me. For some reason I quit taking it for a while, but when the mega-shedding and other hormonal symptoms returned, I recently started back up again. If you're taking SP think it's probably best to take a break from this every 3-6 months.

I have also read that light therapy is very beneficial for the hair. I just bought a Hairmax laser comb, and I plan to use that on my scalp 2x per week and my Quasar SP once. Maybe I will also try my amber ProLight, just for the heck of it! Laughing

I hope this thread stays alive. Like I said, I can really use the support, and the helpful tips are excellent!

free skin care · Thu May 29, 2008 3:48 am

I am more then thrilled with the results I am seeing with Jan Marini Age Intervention Hair Treatment. After a few months of daily treatment I have a lot of new growth around the hairline. You can see my latest post:

http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=19525&highlight=jan+marini

free skin care · Thu May 29, 2008 4:13 am

I am so glad to have found this post.
I have been losing my hair for a couple of years now...I used to have a hair full of think hair..I had a difficult time putting a elastic band around my pony tail. My hair has completely changed ( my hairdresser keeps reminding me Confused

) I have lost about 1/4 of my hair and the hair strands are now fine...I believe my thinning hair is from a combo of things..pregnancy, stress, more stress Wink

and heredity. My mom has very thin and fine hair.I am going to try the msm, a good multi vitamin and being conscience of my protein intake.

Lou

Fri Feb 20, 2009 10:21 am

Hi Bethany,

How did things work out with your Evening Primrose Oil and Emu oil? Any results?

Also when you have a minute can you check your mail box..

Thank you

Hi Yubs,

I purchased a Hair Max Laser a few months ago however I havent seen any improvment.. have you?

Thank you..

Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:19 am

My mother in law told me that she started using low heat hair dryer to blow on the hair loss patch for a month and she has seen improvement in the hair growth now... not too sure what is the logic but it is definitely working for her! Laughing

Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:39 am

I tried Nioxin and found that it really works for me..

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