Stress induced shedding

[Avis]

I've been away from LHC for a bit because my senior recital happened last week and I spent a lot of time getting that together but also because my internet at home has been down for whatever reason. Anyway, I just wanted to share something that I know you all would understand and sympathize with.

It's my senior year of college and I'd been preparing for my senior flute recital for basically a year. In addition to that I have a lot of other stressful things going on like instrument competency exams and other recitals to worry about. My senior recital was definitely the biggest stressor of them all and even though it's over and I feel so much less stress, I also went through a fairly drastic shed. My ponytail circumfrence is about 3.75", but then I got bangs/dangly bits and it was 3.5" which is still nice. But recently I've noticed that my hair feels thinner and at first I thought I was just imagining things.

Two days ago I remeasured my ponytail and it was just barely over 3". I lost half an inch!! In only about 6 weeks!! :wail: I'm incredibly upset by this. The huge shedding has stopped so at least there's that.

I told SO about all this but he doesn't understand why I'm so upset about it and he says he doesn't even see a difference. I admit, it's not a very noticeable difference when you see it (I can definitely see it though), but it's the FEELING of actually having less hair on my hair that upsets me.

I just wanted a place to moan and groan about my poor hair losing thickness and maybe ask how long it took some of you to recover from stress sheds. Thanks for reading my disorganized complaining. :blossom:

[ZoSo]

Sorry you're so stressed & have lost that much hair 0.o Hopefully you'll get back to your usual shed amount.

I was in a nasty car wreck in my mid 20s. I was in the hospital for 6 days & was exposed to lots of radiation (they used a fluoroscope to fix my leg), pain & morphine. You should have seen all the hair that fell out shortly afterwards. Seemed like clumps. No bald spots though. I had ear length hair then. I wonder if my hair would be thicker now if that didn't happen. If I remember right it seemed to go away after a few weeks.

[harpgal]

I understand, Avis. I have had a couple of those stress sheds and they really are terrible. I don't know what is worse, the stress or the shed. I dropped down from just over 4 inches to 3.50 inches and you are right; you can feel the difference. Your hair will return to it's former thickness. Just give it a little time. :flower:

[gwenalyn]

Going from a 3.5" ponytail to a 3" ponytail is a significant difference. Assuming* my math** is right, you lost approximately 26% of your hair. I would remeasure and check the assumptions below. If you're sure about this after checking, go to a doctor. Point out that you lost a quarter of your hair.

*Various assumptions:

you haven't been using different products that make hair compact more
your hair hasn't changed texture (e.g. from curly to straight--straight hair compacts more, I believe)
your hairs are all approximately the same on the fine/coarse scale
the "bangs/dangly bits" lost the same proportion of hair
you haven't been losing hair due to breakage
other things I haven't thought of yet


** Math:
area after = 3.0^2 / (4 * pi) = 9.0 / (4 * pi)
area before = 3.5^2 / (4 * pi) = 12.25 / (4 * pi)
area after / area before = 9.0 / 12.25 = .74

[Avis]

gwenalyn, you made me realize that I forgot to say that I think some of it is damage. I had been having trouble sleeping, so I had trouble waking up on time. When it came to detangling my hair in the morning, I was definitely not being as gentle as I should've been since I was more worried about getting to school on time.

Thanks for your kind words and stories. Everything helps. :blossom:

[AZDesertRose]

I second gwenalyn's recommendation that you see a doctor. That's a lot of hair to lose, and maybe it's just stress (stress does all manner of nasty things to your body), but I'd get checked if at all possible just in case.

Best wishes! :)

[Sarahlabyrinth]

Aaagh, poor you! Stress sheds are so horrible! I dropped from 4.25" in 2013 down to 3.5" in about 6 weeks - and it was scary! Thankfully it stopped and is growing back nicely, though as a result I now have 5" of skimpy ends to deal with until I can trim them off. Shedding sucks!

Hopefully your shedding has/will stop and new hairs will grow.

[gwenalyn]

gwenalyn, you made me realize that I forgot to say that I think some of it is damage. I had been having trouble sleeping, so I had trouble waking up on time. When it came to detangling my hair in the morning, I was definitely not being as gentle as I should've been since I was more worried about getting to school on time.

Thanks for your kind words and stories. Everything helps. :blossom:

That's good to hear! If part of the loss is from breakage, there's less to worry about.

[QMacrocarpa]

Going from a 3.5" ponytail to a 3" ponytail is a significant difference. Assuming* my math** is right, you lost approximately 26% of your hair.
I had a comparable shed (from 3.5" to 3" nape thickness) and my math reached the same conclusion, that I had lost about 25% of my hair. That was over the course of about a month in late 2012, I believe triggered by physical stress (I was very physically active through a record-setting hot summer here). I started noticing big wisps of regrowth peeking out from behind my ears some months later (and felt some relief at that point). But I have found that ultimate recovery from a shed takes quite a bit of patience. I have quite thin "ends" that start pretty high up now. It has caused me to temporarily retire some hairstyles, like anything that involves more than one braid. On the bright side, some accessories that were too small are now quite wearable! Anyway, I've opted not to chop, but just to ride out the process. Hang in there, and good luck!
:blossom: