PRP Therapy, Getting Off The Birth Control, and Anxiety Updates

I’ve been meaning to update everyone on a few things, and here it finally is. I made a video which I will place at the end of this post. I’m a bit scatter brained in my video because I just had a crazy morning which threw me for a loop, so any rambling and/or incoherentness will need to be attributed to that 🙂 The video is long, so I’ll update in a post too:

Getting Ready For PRP

I know many women are wondering if I still believe in PRP therapy or feel it is working for me, the answer is, yes. I continue to go to Florida to see Dr. Joseph Greco every 4-6 months because it’s something I think is a positive thing for my hair, I feel it’s safe and while there is some discomfort in the actual treatment, the benefits for me are worth it. It currently is the only thing I do for my hair and much to my relief I’ve finally rid myself from all the pills I was taking for my hair, which I never really felt great taking nor really knew if they were actually working to do anything helpful anyways. I’ve heard from some women that felt PRP did nothing for them, and others that felt it was awesome, it’s all so very individual. I’m going to continue doing it for quite sometime because other than having to take time for travel and for the bit of discomfort during the treatment, there are no downsides for me.

This was the final pill I took, ha.

Getting Off The Birth Control Pill Update

Last July I got off the little devil pill that I felt ruled and destroyed much of my life. I made quite a long post on this, which you can read here, and I feared what the aftermath of getting off this pill would do to my hair and body in general. I didn’t experience any major shed, but I’m attributing much of that to keeping up with the PRP. I don’t know if that’s actually the reason I didn’t have a major shed, but I feel it was a strong contributing factor.

The adverse effects I experienced in getting off the pill were pretty mild I think compared to what I thought would happen. I thought I’d implode or something, I felt the sky was going to fall and the bottom would drop out from under me, but alas it didn’t. Instead I had some insomnia, facial breakouts and bad cramps during my period. I could be missing a couple things, but nothing that is sticking out glaringly in my mind which tells you it wasn’t all that big a deal, it was a bigger emotional/mental deal than anything. My periods started up normally too, and regularly, which I was surprised about, I thought they would be erratic or not come for months or stick around for months at a time, but it was normal pretty much from the time I got off the pill, which was a very pleasant surprise. So everything is going well with the cessation of the pill.

Breakfast of champions? LOL and a supportive text from a dear friend of mine 🙂

Anxiety Update

I made an anxiety sharezie in Sept, letting everyone in on my oh-so more complicated than hair life pertaining to my dealings with social, generalized, phone anxiety and OCD oopsies. Anxiety has ruled my world for quite sometime. Second fiddle only to my hair loss, but once I figured out out to put my hair loss in check in my life, it became enemy # 1. I know several people had commented and emailed me on the topic of that post, and were surprised that I dealt with this because that doesn’t come across in my videos, and it wouldn’t. I don’t really have anxiety talking to myself LOL, that’s pretty much what making a video is to me, talking to myself and I do that all time anyways 😉 It’s a solitary event. ha. As indicated in that post, I pretty much never confronted my anxiety head on, and just sort of ran around it, or altered my life to accommodate for it, through no amount of accommodations could ever fully make it right aside from possibly moving into a cave and cutting all communications off with the outside world. I asked my fiancé if he was game, but he just wasn’t into cave life and vehemently protested (darn) so I had to go see a psychiatrist to try and work on this or move into a studio cave for one.

So yes, I’m still seeing my psychiatrist (weekly) and have opted to actually take medications to help tame the anxiety beast within. I was a bit unsure about whether or not I should publicly share this, but A) Sharing is healing and B) It could help someone else, so at the risk of being judged by some, I’ve opted to further share on my mental meds. Pretty much since the beginning I’ve been treating my anxiety with Xanax. I’d love to write a love letter to Xanax, like for real. It’s been an amazing thing in my anxiety-filled life, and has helped me to just be able to process the world in a much better way. I truly wish I’d further explored therapy and the marvel of psychopharmacology years ago, but in truth had I still be in the pursuit of my hair I wouldn’t have taken any medications anyways, because I’d be afraid it would further have exacerbated my hair loss. So yes, Xanax… I love you. There it’s been said. Moving on.

In addition to Xanax, I also do take a beta blocker (Atenolol), if you don’t know what beta blockers are, I’ll let Wikipedia fill you in.

…and lastly, and the most recent addition to my medicated life, is Zoloft. I’m not sure if it’s news to you, but it was certainly news to me that SSRI’s (anti-depressants) are not just used for depression but also used to treat anxiety disorders. The labeling of the pill, was a hard one to swallow for me (pun fully intended) and through it was recommended to me from the very beginning, I was reluctant to give it a try. I felt better going with the pills that had much better labeling attached to them “anti-anxiety” “beta-blocker” that sounds so much sexier to me than “anti-depressant.” In addition, I didn’t want to have to take a pill everyday, you have to take the SSRI’s everyday, and I felt that was a commitment I didn’t want to make. On top of THAT, I just didn’t like the idea that I would be taking an “anti-depressant,” it seems no matter how many times I type it or say it the name just doesn’t get any better. I feel there is a stigma attached to antidepressants and really in some circles of the the internet and life, there is a whole movement against them and benzos (Xanax) for that matter. But, some feel there is also stigma with wigs, so whatever.

Whatever on all of it I say. Existing in this world can be challenging at times… floating by, not really ever present, but the real hard thing is the live. To choose to live, that’s the hard stuff. To be able to get past our own limitations and mental barriers, the walls we throw up in front of ourselves that prevent us from living, that’s not easy. That takes work. I’ve said it too many times to count, I wish I would have started to wear hair earlier, I wish I wouldn’t have sacrificed so many of my years to self loathing and handing over power and control to my hair loss. This same thing holds true for treating my anxiety. I can live a prisoner to it, or treat it in whatever way I can. It’s more than likely I’ll have to take some form of anti-anxiety medication probably for life, and slowly I’m coming to terms with being okay with that, and allowing it to work for me, so I can have a happy non-anxiety filled awesome wigged life. 🙂 I’m not by any means saying anyone else should jump on a medicated wagon, everyone needs to find their own path and what works for them and really just make the choices you can life with, not just for today but for 20,30, 40 years from now too.

So there’s my updates…. Happy Sunday! xoxo