Hair loss question

[kitana97]

So I posted a while back about hair loss and finally got it to stop. I realized it was due to poor diet. I wasn't eating nearly enough carbs and apparently carbs are needed to give your body the energy it needs to grow hair. After a week of slamming down carbs errday my hair has finally stopped excessively shedding. I cut about 3 inches off to thicken the ends up and it looks much healthier.

My question is - when hair loss stops does the hair start to thicken up again or will I have to wait a few years for my hair to grow back out? I'm wondering what to expect...

[Nique1202]

It may take a little while before all those follicles start growing out again, because hair often rests in between growth phases. Then you'll have to wait while all the little baby hairs grow back out and down the length. The thickness should come back, but it's going to take a while for it to go all the way down even if you trim to maintain your length where it is. There's no way to get the thickness back all the way down to the ends immediately.

[Ephemia]

I don't see why it would take years. I'd guess it would take a few months at most, if not weeks. Obviously you won't notice a difference until the new hairs have grown long enough to affect your ponytail circumference, but after a few months you should see that begin to creep back up to what it was. :)

[mamaherrera]

I am trying to be patient too, since my shed with my daughter, the ponytail circumference has gone down and she's 1.5 years old. It didn't go down though until like 4 months after the shedding began. Now that I'm shedding less the circumference has gone down, but like my husband says, all those hairs are going to take a long time to get back to the ponytail and then on top of that you are still shedding (normally or what not) but it's a balancing act that can take a while to get settled.

[Scarlet3636]

It may take a little while before all those follicles start growing out again, because hair often rests in between growth phases. Then you'll have to wait while all the little baby hairs grow back out and down the length. The thickness should come back, but it's going to take a while for it to go all the way down even if you trim to maintain your length where it is. There's no way to get the thickness back all the way down to the ends immediately.

Agreed.

I suffered from stress related hair loss. Now that it's finally growing back, I can tell in the front that the my hair is thicker at the roots and at mid lengths than it is all the way to the ends. The new growth just isn't quite long enough for my hair to have to same thickness all the way from root to end. It'll get there, but it just takes some time.

[AmberJewel]

Ok, I have a question. I have a little bald spot on the crown of my head towards the back, kind of like an exaggerated part. I heard there was a kind of oil that is good to rub into such places to help stimulate the growth. Would olive oil work? Any advice would be appreciated.

[gthlvrmx]

Ok, I have a question. I have a little bald spot on the crown of my head towards the back, kind of like an exaggerated part. I heard there was a kind of oil that is good to rub into such places to help stimulate the growth. Would olive oil work? Any advice would be appreciated.

There are other oils that people use for stimulating hair growth. One of those oils is castor oil. Maybe you can try that. It's best to see a doctor for that balding if it's causing you an issue. Some people have good results with Monistat to make hair grow faster. http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=156
I have read that rosemary and tea tree oil have been used for hair growth as well. I haven't read too much about olive oil used for hair growth.

[Arctic]

Ok, I have a question. I have a little bald spot on the crown of my head towards the back, kind of like an exaggerated part. I heard there was a kind of oil that is good to rub into such places to help stimulate the growth. Would olive oil work? Any advice would be appreciated.

It sounds like cowlick, or several cowlicks (specific term: double crown), rather than bald spot. Though as someone who has it too, it can look like a bald spot, without styling.

[mamaherrera]

This question is for those who like to think "theory" because there's no for sure on this, but just putting it out there for you all, whether you've given birth or not. My last child is 1.5 years old as said before. I didn't start to shed after her until about when she was five months old. So I've had a year of shedding, more or less since she's been born. I know that when you're pregnant most hairs are in the anagen phase, growing, so there is not much "new growth"/regrowth, or whatever you want to call it, right? so when you begin to shed after a baby, it's like you're starting at zero, since you lose hair, but there is no "regrowth"/baby hairs to replace because every hair (almost) is growing on your head. So it's like you play catch up, no? Anyways, after about five months into shedding (and it was never over 100 hairs per day type shedding, no clumps or anything like that) my ponytail circumference dropped. Now it's dropped a bit more. Can it take this long, what I mean is, does anyone think this drop (slight drop) in the circumference can still be related to the birth/shedding of postpartum, or should I be looking into other things. Basically, not to steal the OP thread, but the same question, does it take a year or so after a shed for hair to be back at it's normal thickness, like in terms of ponytail circumference ( I meausure at about ear height)?? Just curious as to what others think. I'm kind of in line with what Nique said above in post 2, in that maybe even though you start shedding in X month, it's not like the next month, those regrowth hairs are growing right back at it.

[Ephemia]

This question is for those who like to think "theory" because there's no for sure on this, but just putting it out there for you all, whether you've given birth or not. My last child is 1.5 years old as said before. I didn't start to shed after her until about when she was five months old. So I've had a year of shedding, more or less since she's been born. I know that when you're pregnant most hairs are in the anagen phase, growing, so there is not much "new growth"/regrowth, or whatever you want to call it, right? so when you begin to shed after a baby, it's like you're starting at zero, since you lose hair, but there is no "regrowth"/baby hairs to replace because every hair (almost) is growing on your head. So it's like you play catch up, no? Anyways, after about five months into shedding (and it was never over 100 hairs per day type shedding, no clumps or anything like that) my ponytail circumference dropped. Now it's dropped a bit more. Can it take this long, what I mean is, does anyone think this drop (slight drop) in the circumference can still be related to the birth/shedding of postpartum, or should I be looking into other things. Basically, not to steal the OP thread, but the same question, does it take a year or so after a shed for hair to be back at it's normal thickness, like in terms of ponytail circumference ( I meausure at about ear height)?? Just curious as to what others think. I'm kind of in line with what Nique said above in post 2, in that maybe even though you start shedding in X month, it's not like the next month, those regrowth hairs are growing right back at it.

Your ponytail circumference can be different each time you measure it depending on a lot of factors - where you measure it, when you last washed it, slight inconsistencies in your method, and so on. There will probably be fluctuations, so measuring too often isn't good for your peace of mind if you're prone to worrying like I am. You say the drop was slight. It sounds to me like a normal fluctuation.

Your theory's probably right. Most of your follicles are in anagen anyway, but during pregnancy, hairs that should transition into catagen and telogen don't. That means that when you have the baby (or when you finish lactating, in some cases, I believe) all those follicles transition at once and won't start producing hair again for several months. So your new growth will only be coming from those follicles that transitioned from anagen at the time they were supposed to and so enter a new anagen phase in time to buffer the awkward stage. It probably takes a few months for your growth cycles to right themselves. Am I right to gather that your shed has only just finished? In that case your hair hasn't really had a chance yet to correct itself. Give it a few more months, and go a little easy on the measuring in the meantime.

[mamaherrera]

Thanks Ephemia for taking the time to respond and give your imput. I do try and meausre it in the same place, and always on a wash day, so don't think it's that, but yeah it's 1/4 of an inch and what I do find, is that it's easier to put that third wrap around with the elastic band so it worries me a bit. My shed started last June and was never clumps, there were months that it tapered down to "normal shedding" and months that it was near the 100 + mark, just an estimate. Like now for example, it varies, some days it's high, some days it's normal. And I"m still breastfeeding, but that varies too, some days she wants lots of chi-chi, and other days not much. So thanks for your support and hope, . . . maybe it takes more than a year after childbirth for the hair cycles to straighten out. I do notice that I shed a bit more of these "thinner, shorter" hairs. .. don't know if that's good or bad, but thanks. . . . I will try and be patient!!

[mira-chan]

So I posted a while back about hair loss and finally got it to stop. I realized it was due to poor diet. I wasn't eating nearly enough carbs and apparently carbs are needed to give your body the energy it needs to grow hair. After a week of slamming down carbs errday my hair has finally stopped excessively shedding. I cut about 3 inches off to thicken the ends up and it looks much healthier.

My question is - when hair loss stops does the hair start to thicken up again or will I have to wait a few years for my hair to grow back out? I'm wondering what to expect...
Yup. I've had several pretty bad sheds for health reasons. Went down almost an inch in circumference the first time. When it was starting to re-grown, my scalp felt fuzzy from all the short baby hairs. They made of a pretty fringe later. My ends thinned a lot. As the thickness came back my hair had the shape of an upside down tear drop. It takes a while to get all the thickness to the ends if you have longer hair already. It does make for some ready made natural layers.

I'm still maintaining to thicken up my ends from all the sheds. Mine seem to have stabilized now as health problems were figured out. I hope yours grows back quickly and you have no repeats of it.



This question is for those who like to think "theory" because there's no for sure on this, but just putting it out there for you all, whether you've given birth or not. My last child is 1.5 years old as said before. I didn't start to shed after her until about when she was five months old. So I've had a year of shedding, more or less since she's been born. I know that when you're pregnant most hairs are in the anagen phase, growing, so there is not much "new growth"/regrowth, or whatever you want to call it, right? so when you begin to shed after a baby, it's like you're starting at zero, since you lose hair, but there is no "regrowth"/baby hairs to replace because every hair (almost) is growing on your head. So it's like you play catch up, no? Anyways, after about five months into shedding (and it was never over 100 hairs per day type shedding, no clumps or anything like that) my ponytail circumference dropped. Now it's dropped a bit more. Can it take this long, what I mean is, does anyone think this drop (slight drop) in the circumference can still be related to the birth/shedding of postpartum, or should I be looking into other things. Basically, not to steal the OP thread, but the same question, does it take a year or so after a shed for hair to be back at it's normal thickness, like in terms of ponytail circumference ( I meausure at about ear height)?? Just curious as to what others think. I'm kind of in line with what Nique said above in post 2, in that maybe even though you start shedding in X month, it's not like the next month, those regrowth hairs are growing right back at it.

I'd hypothesize that starting within 5 months is within range of post partum. The key with that is for some women, shedding slows and telogen is lengthened during pregnancy by hormones, then those are shed out in post partum leaving you with the original amount of hair or a little less that will grow back. For others, hair is at their normal through pregnancy, then shed postpartum. This would show the hair getting thinner than before, a drop in circumference from pre-pregnancy. It generally grows back as the follicles that shed the hair reactivate. They will grow at their standard speed so on average it would take a year or two to reach the length to effect the ponytail measurement. Some variation of ponytail is completely normal. If you have regrowth you can play with it. Mine was from helath issues but my regrowth made lovely bangs/ face framing layers.

Side note, some paragraph breaks would be greatly appreciated. I had some trouble reading as dyslexia makes it difficult for me to keep track of things in big paragraphs with a lot of information. :)

[mamaherrera]

thanks. . . Mirachan. So it would take like (hypothetically) a year or two starting from when you stop shedding, right?? so maybe I just need to give it more time. It's because all these people say, within six months you have all your hair back, but not really. . . . so I get impatient and start worrying. I measure my ponytail at ear height, so it should get better than someone who measures at nape. You give me hope, as you have gone through many hair sheds, and still have lots of hair. For me, I did see an increase with my ponytail measurement right after the pregnancy, , but then five months into the shedding, it went down and now it's gone a bit below normal. I can feel it's thinner, no one else sees it, but hopefully I just need more time. . .

and the fact that I still go through periods /weeks of high shedding doesn't help either. the fun of inconsistent breastfeeding. . Thanks for all your hope and sharing ideas with my own hypothesis.