subject: Things That Help With Excessive Long Term Hair Shedding [print this page] I know first hand that dealing with telogen effluvium, hair loss, or hair shedding can be very traumatic. People can tell you "it's just hair," or "it's just temporary" all they want, but it certainly doesn't feel that way when you have hair all over your clothes, clogging your shower drain, and filling your vacuum. It's also torturous to watch as your hair looks thinner and thinner, at least to you. This article will focus on some things that will help you cope with and hopefully lessen the shedding.
Find And Treat Your Trigger, If You Have One: Some hair shedding is caused by a trigger that happens in your life or your body. Severe stress or illness, pregnancy or giving birth, hormonal imbalances, stopping and starting medications, scalp issues, and surgery or anesthesia can all cause hair shedding approximately three months after the event. In some cases (like pregnancy or giving birth), there's really nothing that you can do but support a healthy scalp and wait for this to pass.
But in some cases, like medications that don't agree with you, scalp or dermatological issues, or waning hormones, sometimes addressing and fixing these things can stop or slow the shedding.
Lessening Inflammation, Supporting A Healthy Scalp And Hearty Regrowth While Waiting It Out: Even though many people will worry about the semantics or whether they have TE/ temporary shedding or AGA/ genetic shedding, some of the best treatments for both are similar.
It's very important that you keep your scalp clean, stimulated, and free of clogging. It's so tempting to cut back on your hair washing when you're shedding, but you really shouldn't. If you do, you can get an unhealthy clogging build up on your scalp that can turn a TE into DHT driven shedding or make the problem worse.
You can wash with very gentle shampoos and add natural anti inflammatories like tea tree or emu oil. You can rinse with apple cider vinegar to cut down on build up. But, it's important to change up your regimen from time to time because your hair and scalp can get used to and immune to the same thing over and over. And continuing anything over time can cause build up no matter how gentle it is.
Coping With The Shedding While You're Waiting For Positive Results: While you're waiting for the shedding to stop, there are some things you can do to support yourself. As tempting as it is, you should never count your hairs. I know that we all read that 100 hairs per day is normal, but counting will only raise your anxiety and you can eye ball what's in the shower drain to know if it's more or less than usual. You don't need to count.
Wear the appropriate colored clothes. This sounds silly, but when hairs are falling all over you and people are picking them off and noticing the loss, it can get embarrassing and be a constant reminder of something you'd rather forget. My hair is dark, so wearing a white shirt when going through a TE would be an awful idea. Gray was always the best color for me when I was having massive loss.
Get a cordless vacuum. Again, I know this sounds silly. But, looking at all of the hair on the floor is depressing and a constant reminder of what you are going through. I got a cordless vacuum and ran it once per day. This helped remove the unsightly reminder of all of the hair that was winding up on the floor.
Be kind and patient with yourself. This can be a tough time, I know. It's important not to obsess about this. One thing that can help with that is to concentrate on other things that make you happy and that can take your mind off of this.
Know that this will likely pass. I often find that shedding is cyclical and will sort of come in waves. So, there will be better times ahead. Never give up hope and keep trying different things until you see success. Never give up. There is always something else to try and something on the horizon that may help.
How do I know all of this? Because I lived it. In my quest to end my hair loss, I looked at my triggers, my iron, my thyroid, my adrenals, my hormones, and my scalp's health in my quest to end the nightmare. It was a long, hard, frustrating journey which all but wrecked my self esteem but I finally found something that helped quite a bit. You can read my very personal story at http://stop-hair-loss-in-women.com/
Things That Help With Excessive Long Term Hair Shedding
