Today is a struggle and yesterday was too. I was trying to leave the house yesterday, my fiance waiting by the door and I was upstairs struggling to make my hair look normal. It seems normal is no longer an option for me, and hasn’t been for quite some time. But yesterday I noticed that my V shaped deeply recessed temporal region had gotten worse. The recession is so deep it just about spans my whole side of my head to the back, it looks awful and is impossible to cover up. So there I was upstairs in front of the mirror, trying to re-tie my ponytail a million times, each one ever so slightly different… lower, higher, much lower… this hair over that one, clip here, clip there etc etc. I felt so defeated, I eventually gave up on trying to cover the deep V recession, lowered my head and headed out the door. That sort of sent me into a depressed like state which I unfortunately awoke with. But what are my options?… I can go back to bed and pull the covers over my head, but that would get old and quite boring after a hour or so, or I can just move on as I always do. I am much better at dealing with these “down” times than I was years ago. It seems hair loss has caused forced me to develop much better coping skills, so I guess that is a plus.
But I’m doing alright. I drank some coffee, took the dog for a walk and decided to write a post about this. I am incredibly good at finding hope when it seems there is none left, but I think that if “hope’ was for sale I’d have to purchase just a little to get me by today 🙂 Hope is what keeps me going. I don’t just hope for my hair loss to stop, but I hope that I get stronger and more accepting of myself despite the amount of hairs on my head. I hope that I truly realize and understand that I am more than my hair, and I hope that all this happens before I am a very old woman. So I will look forward and I will get on with my day, because I have no other choice, life is waiting at the door, and I best go answer it before it passes me by.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I am right there with you today on not wanting to leave the house. I made the mistake of taking pictures of the top of my head with my camera this morning. It is starting to look really bad on the top of my head. I just wondering when it will ever stop…I hate my thyroid right now and synthroid. I also just turned 31 on Saturday. Who knew that once I hit 30 my body was going to crap out on me! I sure didn’t…
marianne
Hi there
I wrote my story at the beginning of Dec and have been looking for it to come up, and it hasn’t yet. It starts,” After 2 years”. Can anyone tell me how seeing your post works? It was sent to my e-mail, but not to this blog. I am right there with everyone on hair loss as mine has been going for 2 years. It is hard, and I do have good and bad days, but this blog has helped my attitude tremendously, and I no longer feel alone.
As to Hope for Sale, I also wore mine in a pony to hide the sparseness of the top of my head. I now braid it on the top of my head at the forehead and put a small matching hairpiece under the braid which I clip over the piece with a pretty Barrett. The braid at the front and top hides the thinness and the 20.00 real hair piece make me look like I have copious amounts of hair. I should have done this even when I had lots of hair. It looks great and makes me feel really good. There is no way to see that it is a piece.
I am an herbalist and a Nutritional consultant and am investigating some supplements that help strengthen and nourish the adrenals and some to help escort excess testosterone out of the body. I plan to be using these supplements and will let you all know of my progress. I do not want to be put on birth control pills or rogaine! I would rather wear hair than to mess up my system with those particular drugs. There is hope. Let’s keep our chins up. Maybe my hair-loss experience will help some of us slow down or stop hair loss. I am very hopeful and have studied and learned a lot about this disturbing disorder. Now I am ready to do something nutritionally about it. Thanks for this blog, and for listening! Happiest of holidays to all of you beautiful women. Medicine Moon
I will be 59 years old in 19 days. My hair loss began at age 20. My two boys age 32 and 26 have never seen me with my own hair. I now have four beautiful bright, wonderful, grand children, (ages 14, 6, 4, 2) who love spending time with me and are confused when I wear a scarf or remove my wig. I would love to have a Spa day with my girls or have us style each others hair or just to sit and let them brush my hair. I have a very little hair at the back of my head.
I have tried many, many hair restoration products and so far I am still looking. I will not give up. I am a victum or Rogaine. I had to discontinue use due to financial hardship and lost even more hair. I am so stressed about my hair loss that it is causing other health problems. I believe if some people did not have to be so concerned about their apperance they could probably have less medical bills from problems caused by stress related to their apperance. I am looking forward to the cloning of cells for hair restoration. I cannot not believe we live in a country that can travel to the moon but cannot find a cure for hair loss. I know there are much greater medical concerns others have and I should feel blessed, and I do. But I do not believe we were not meant to be without our “Crown and Glory”.
I admit I love the way I look in my wig. People always tell me that I look ten years younger. Imagine if I had my own thick coarse hair again….
Does anyone know of any European countries that offer products that work?
Thanks for your feedback
I’m glad I found this website. I started to lose my hair about seven years ago, during the breakup of a long relationship and around the time of Sept. 11, 2001 (I’m from NY). I’m now 40 and I have sporadic problems with losing a lot of hair and have poor hair quality. My hair used to be so great, like silk, and brown-black, perfectly straight. Now it is frizzy and completely coarse and brittle, like the opposite of what it used to be. When it gets like this it seems like nothing will work to fix it, not vitamins or conditioners, or anything.
It is falling out in the front in wings, and around the part. It goes through phases where it gets relly bad and then stops for a little while. I went through this period of horror— just as I separated from my long time partner, suddenly had to deal with losing my hair. It made me feel so bad. Over time I have gotten used to it, but it is still a major source of stress. I never thought much about stuff like this before and always considered myself not too obsessed with things like beauty.
I have a lot of allergies to things like fragrances and hair products, so that limits what I can try to do with it.
Hi Ginny, Welcome to the Site! I know what you mean about the contrast to your former hair. My hair is very dry, frizzy and dull looking even though it has hasn’t been color treated for over a decade. It’s horrible when I see former pictures of myself at my parents house. Long beautiful thick hair. That was then and this is now 🙁 I use 2 products for anti defrizzers which work well. I’ll jot down the names of them and write you back, they are not to perfumey. Also a hair straightening iron works well to smooth things out, have you tried that?
Wings.. I totally know what you mean my hair is so thinned on the sides and unmanageable baby hairs pop forward to taunt me. I try and push them down with gel, but they pop back out, it is so frustrating, now I use those pop clips to keep them down on the sides. Those are the little clips you frequently see gymnastics have stuck all over there head.
~Y
Hi Ginny – Just wanted to get back to you with the names of the the defrizzy products I mentioned.
1. Zerran Hair Care: Radiant Finish, shine, texture, and frizz control, fragrance free
2. Kerastase Nutritive: Oleo-Relax, anti frizz (does have some fragrance but pretty mild)
~Y
what are the ingredients in Kerastace Nutritive: Oleo Relax?
are there any chemicals or ingredients that would cause allergic reactions like parabens or laurel sulfates?
thanks for the help