Starting over - trichorrhexis nodosa

[kickrz22]

I just came back from the dermatologist and she has diagnosed me with trichorrhexis nodosa.

So I am starting from scratch. Looking for new shampoo and conditioner and ways to better baby my hair.
I have always had thin, limp blah hair but just chalked it up to that's how it is. My derm wanted me to cut it all off (just at my shoulders) into a pixie cut, start rogaine and up my iron. She also has said NO heat styling. I usually blow dry and straighten 2- 3 times a week and no to being a blonde. She said if I want to colour I can only go 1 shade lighter than my normal colour.

At this time I am not ready to cut it all off, I will trim an inch maybe! I also am not prepared to start rogaine.

Just looking for any advice, tips or anything really to help me figure out where to go from here.

[lapushka]

Isn't this the "famous" white dots you typically get in the hair from heat styling?

You can S&D them out, but I wouldn't recommend that as they can "hang on" for a while and not cause breakage. Some undoubtably will break off, but most will be able to stay in the hair until you are prepared to cut them out.

You can also microtrim, and join the thread on that.

Welcome! :D

[kickrz22]

She didn't mention any white dots but the breakage is pretty high- mid-shaft and I think why she suggested a pixie cut.

[lapushka]

She didn't mention any white dots but the breakage is pretty high- mid-shaft and I think why she suggested a pixie cut.

I think the condition you have is known as "white dots". It happens a lot when straightening, it is basically your hair that boils "kaput" from the inside out. Look up white dots on Google, and try and locate them in your own hair; they are usually way up a strand.

If it's not genetic and it's from you damaging your hair, then it is fixable, if you just lay off the straightening iron. A blow dryer is less of an issue if you only use it on cool/warm (but not with a brush or you'll rip the dots out and possibly break quite a few hairs off).

I grew out white dots. I had them in my shoulder length hair at one point, and would have had to have had a pixie cut to get them out. But instead I grew out my hair all the way to hip (with the dots in there), and then my mom did a big S&D session and got them all out. I did have to cut back to BSL though, because my hair was thinned out considerably from the S&D (I had white dots in half of my hair).

[kickrz22]

Yay for fixable!!

I will have a look - they should be easy to see if I have them then?
I am stopping ALL heat - I will miss my flat iron though as my hair is pretty frizzy/wiry without but will figure something out.

I think with going back to less dyeing, no heat and better quality brush, shampoo's and conditioners I should be ok. Plus she wants to up my iron too.
Thank you for replying I am happy you were able to get rid of them! Gives me hope!

[lapushka]

Yay for fixable!!

I will have a look - they should be easy to see if I have them then?
I am stopping ALL heat - I will miss my flat iron though as my hair is pretty frizzy/wiry without but will figure something out.

I think with going back to less dyeing, no heat and better quality brush, shampoo's and conditioners I should be ok. Plus she wants to up my iron too.
Thank you for replying I am happy you were able to get rid of them! Gives me hope!

Maybe your hair is more wavy than you think. Maybe try hairtyping your hair first. You just shampoo, condition and then no combing or brushing and just air drying, then snap a picture of the back of your head, and post it. Wavy hair needs a different "routine" and maybe you can get used to that instead of straightening it.

[kickrz22]

Maybe your hair is more wavy than you think. Maybe try hairtyping your hair first. You just shampoo, condition and then no combing or brushing and just air drying, then snap a picture of the back of your head, and post it. Wavy hair needs a different "routine" and maybe you can get used to that instead of straightening it.

I actually just washed it. Finger combed only. It's air drying now (and not pretty...lol) I will post back soon -- thank you!!

[kickrz22]

Looks like I can't post pics/attachments or don't know how...lol

I did notice the back is much curlier then I thought it would be the sides are more both.

[lapushka]

Looks like I can't post pics/attachments or don't know how...lol

I did notice the back is much curlier then I thought it would be the sides are more both.

You need to put your picture up with a photo hosting site, then link it here. Or wait until you have 25 quality posts and then you can use the albums here. You can take a shot at guessing your own texture as well if none of that works.

[kickrz22]

Gotcha -- and thanks for all the help -- here goes!

This should be the back:

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/kickrz22/Hair/IMG_6631.png

and a couple of the sides because in the one pic you can see how broomsticky I look!

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/kickrz22/Hair/editplain.jpg

http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad256/kickrz22/Hair/IMG_6622edit.jpg

[kickrz22]

arggg sorry they look so huge!!

[Anje]

First of all, congrats, you have wavy hair. :) Which is totally a thing -- it gets frizzy a bit easily, but it definitely isn't straight and it's not really worth expecting it to look straight. It'll just fight you on it. It also looks like it's quite nice at the roots, but has gotten rather fried.

Hang in there. It gets better, and I think you have potential to have very nice hair.

[kickrz22]

First of all, congrats, you have wavy hair. :) Which is totally a thing -- it gets frizzy a bit easily, but it definitely isn't straight and it's not really worth expecting it to look straight. It'll just fight you on it. It also looks like it's quite nice at the roots, but has gotten rather fried.

Hang in there. It gets better, and I think you have potential to have very nice hair.

I had to giggle. I see it as wavy I guess but never would describe my hair as that. NOT one person in my family has any type of wave or curl! Even my kids have straight hair and my husbands is curly.

I guess now I need to learn how to work with what I have and stop trying to make it what it's not.
Thank you!

[lapushka]

Yep, definitely wavy. 1c/2a, I think, but it could be wavier still. A hot tool can pull curl or wave out of the hair, they call that "heat damage" too. So who knows what your hair really looks like. Your dermatologist was definitely right. The hot tools have got to go. Also the less chemicals you can throw at it, the better as well.

Good luck on your journey! :flower:

[mizukitty]

Has your hair always exhibited this type of breakage, even when you didn't color/heat style it? Or has it only shown up once you started those things?

Split ends are known as trichoptilosis, and these are the "white dots" that many people exhibit most commonly. Even if you take extremely good care of your hair, you'll have them at some point.

Trichorrhexis nodosa is severe breakage of hair, very high up each strand where the weak points are. This can be genetic, which is why I ask if you've always had this. If not genetic, then yes, babying your hair can drastically improve its condition!

Also, why don't you want to start Rogaine? It can only help!

I also really love your wavy texture! It looks like you had braids in before you took that pic. Enhancing your waves with moisturizing/protein containing products will help protect your hair from moisture loss and further damage caused by heat styling.

[kickrz22]

Has your hair always exhibited this type of breakage, even when you didn't color/heat style it? Or has it only shown up once you started those things?

Split ends are known as trichoptilosis, and these are the "white dots" that many people exhibit most commonly. Even if you take extremely good care of your hair, you'll have them at some point.

Trichorrhexis nodosa is severe breakage of hair, very high up each strand where the weak points are. This can be genetic, which is why I ask if you've always had this. If not genetic, then yes, babying your hair can drastically improve its condition!

Also, why don't you want to start Rogaine? It can only help!

I also really love your wavy texture! It looks like you had braids in before you took that pic. Enhancing your waves with moisturizing/protein containing products will help protect your hair from moisture loss and further damage caused by heat styling.

I honestly cannot remember a time when I didn't colour or heat style my hair. I had a perm at a young age if I remember correctly and even went like white blonde in my younger days. I guess I have never been kind to my hair.

I don't want to start rogaine because once you stop it you lose all what you grew so I am not sure the point. Feels counter protective to have it help me grow in my hair back and then lose it all again, losing hair was really hard on me a few years back and I even turned to wigs and hair pieces.

I am ready to embrace what I have :) I just need to learn how to manage it I guess. I see frizzy broomstick hair that needs taming!

[Reyesuela]

Your hair doesn't magically fall out when you stop Rogaine. It's like using a REALLY GOOD wrinkle cream. If you stop using the cream, you'll get wrinkles again. But you won't are 30 years overnight. From your part shot, you have some distinct androgenic alopecia. If you don't use Rogaine, that's fine, but you have female pattern baldness, and nature WILL take its course, and Rogaine works less well the longer you wait.

I think that it's likely that you'll have good improvement with hair density on Rogaine. It won't address the "white dots," which are most likely from you brutalizing your hair. :). Your hair is that frizzy from damage. Stop heat styling and permanent dye and use semi permanent and only cool or warm air. Your hair can't tolerate what you're doing now, for sure!

[kickrz22]

Your hair doesn't magically fall out when you stop Rogaine. It's like using a REALLY GOOD wrinkle cream. If you stop using the cream, you'll get wrinkles again. But you won't are 30 years overnight. From your part shot, you have some distinct androgenic alopecia. If you don't use Rogaine, that's fine, but you have female pattern baldness, and nature WILL take its course, and Rogaine works less well the longer you wait.

I think that it's likely that you'll have good improvement with hair density on Rogaine. It won't address the "white dots," which are most likely from you brutalizing your hair. :). Your hair is that frizzy from damage. Stop heat styling and permanent dye and use semi permanent and only cool or warm air. Your hair can't tolerate what you're doing now, for sure!


I have never heard any of that before? You can tell that just from my pic?? Now I am worried as the reason my derm recommended the rogaine was to help regrowth when I cut it. I even asked if growth was my problem and she said no, my hair grows well but when it gets to about 2 inches it starts to break off because the shaft is so damaged.


Regarding the rogaine and hair loss I was just going by this -- If you stop using it, your normal hair loss process will start again, and you’ll probably lose your newly regrown hair within 3 to 4 months.

The way it was explained to me was all my loss happened years ago and what I am losing now it not new growth by breakage due to damage not alopecia.

[Reyesuela]

You have a thin part. Most people wouldn't notice. It's a common part of aging, and it exacerbates the problem of thin hair from damage. Here's a photo: https://goo.gl/images/5bOR9D Only the first picture is normal hair density. You look about a I-3. You don't lose growth at the scalp from "white dots."

You'll START losing your hair again in about a month when you go off it. It would take a few years for you to lose below baseline as a woman, though. Rogaine keeps your hair follicles from being damaged by DHT. Stop taking it, and you'll be back on the hair loss train again. If the "white dots" are new but you've been abusing your hair for years, androgenic alopecia--that is, age-related balding--is likely a contributing factor. It thins out individual hairs as it causes follicle death, making the remaining hair more vulnerable.

I hear lots of people not want to start Rogaine because they'll lose hair when they go off it. No duh. You also have to apply more sunblock or you'll burn tomorrow.

I'll be on Rogaine (actually minoxidil) for the rest of my life. I will also have hair. Fair trade to me. I'm also using vitamin C serum and sunblock everyday.

I'm not saying you're old, btw. I started losing all my hair at 35.

[kickrz22]

Thank you for your help :)

[Reyesuela]

Oh, and I get "white dots" (I keep calling it this so I don't have to fight my autocorrect!!) from clothing friction. But that only happens on under layers and down the length a bit! If you really want to baby your hair, silk pillowcase and a sleep cap will help keep the damaged hair from getting more dots.

If you don't want to pixie, coconut oil a while before every wash will help keep the keratin from getting washed out (studies show it cuts protein loss to 50%!--but other oils don't). I would suggest that you use a slip agent (either silicone based or a thin oil) on damp hair after showering to prevent breakage when you manipulate it (brush, style, etc).

You can also use a STRONG protein treatment like Aphogee's 2 step. You can do it DIY or find an "ethnic" (African American) salon that will apply it. This will temporarily patch damaged hair for about 6 weeks per go. Egg whites don't do anything--the protein molecules are too large.

I should use more smileys. :). Imagine all of this in a "best girlfriend " voice.

Good luck!

[kickrz22]

Thanks again.
I think I am just overwhelmed at this point. I am heading into town to get some necessities for my new journey but just when I think I know what I want I find something else and it's becoming more than I anticipated. I am sure I am making it more difficult then it needs to be but I guess that's who I am.

When you say slip agent like a thin oil would that be like a Moroccan oil? Or does coconut oil work too?

[lapushka]

When you say slip agent like a thin oil would that be like a Moroccan oil? Or does coconut oil work too?

I typically use an oil or serum for the LOC/LCO styling method (the link is in my signature). Moroccan oil is the brand, you don't need to shell out so much money. Coconut oil or any other natural oil that you can get will do as well. Like sweet almond oil, or macadamia oil or jojoba oil.

And you don't need much. Just a few drops, spread over your palms and smoothed down the ends.

[Anje]

Fwiw, I think your part looks like mine, and my hair isn't thinning. (Actually, it's been gradually thickening. If I knew why, I'd tell everyone.)

[Reyesuela]

Thanks again.
I think I am just overwhelmed at this point. I am heading into town to get some necessities for my new journey but just when I think I know what I want I find something else and it's becoming more than I anticipated. I am sure I am making it more difficult then it needs to be but I guess that's who I am.

When you say slip agent like a thin oil would that be like a Moroccan oil? Or does coconut oil work too?

Coconut isn't a slip agent. It absorbs and when it doesn't is actually kind of hard and sticky. :)

I use silicones so I don't know a lot about oils for slip, but almond oil and mineral oil both work.

[Reyesuela]

Fwiw, I think your part looks like mine, and my hair isn't thinning. (Actually, it's been gradually thickening. If I knew why, I'd tell everyone.)

Even if you're gradually losing hair, anyone who isn't losing fast gains a little hair in the spring, only to go below baseline in the fall.

[Anje]

Even if you're gradually losing hair, anyone who isn't losing fast gains a little hair in the spring, only to go below baseline in the fall.
No, I mean I've gone up 0.75 inches in thickness over the last 5 years or so. This isn't a little blip.

Rogaine definitely slowed DH's hairloss, but it didn't fix it. He doesn't have vertex loss, though, so he might not be the most ideal candidate for it.

[Reyesuela]

No, I mean I've gone up 0.75 inches in thickness over the last 5 years or so. This isn't a little blip.

Rogaine definitely slowed DH's hairloss, but it didn't fix it. He doesn't have vertex loss, though, so he might not be the most ideal candidate for it.

That's awesome!

My hair got a lot thicker when I was in my 20s, but that was likely because I had thin-ish hair due to accutane. I had NO IDEA that it could thin hair, and normally when you're a kid/teen, hair gets thicker during puberty. My didn't get thicker or thinner. It just...sat. But then again, it is normal for women to get gradually thicker total hair circumference until the age of 40 and then gradually declining thickness.

I had enormous hair loss due to bad luck/bad genes. I'm 37 with 2 gray hairs total, as I discovered when the minoxidil made them actually grow in. LOL. A third of women have noticeable (to them/hairdresser, not anyone else) gray hairs before 30. I just have rapidly thinning hair, if I let it do its thing. I am apparently a genetic freak--my hair color is still changing and getting darker, and my eyes are getting lighter, to the point where I'm going to have to stop saying "hazel" and start saying "green/gray." And my hair is falling out when it should still be getting thicker at the pony, even if it might thin a little at the temples.

Rogaine's testing story is weird and stupid. It was only tested initially on the vertex, and that's where it was approved. However, it increases hair growth everywhere there's loss. My husband's vertex was getting a tiny bit thin--enough so that a flash on camera caught it. I hadn't even noticed until he did. I bought him minoxidil the next week and he started applying it every day. Five years later, he realized that his crown wasn't noticeably thin anymore. And his temples thickened, too. 10 years later, he was the same place. He added Nizoral, and he's now at his teenage thickness at the vertex with only a tiny amount still receded at the temples. He started early, and that might be a part of the reason he's a good responder. Minoxidil stimulates hair follicles to go into anagen. It also stimulates them to produce thicker hairs. If the hair follicle has been too damaged, it may only be able to produce vellus (body) hairs and not terminal (head) hairs anymore and then to eventually die completely and be replaced by smooth skin. For those, minoxidil doesn't work at all. It's more common in men, especially in the temples and hairline, for these follicles die off completely, so it works less well to restore hair in men there, but it still does work insofar as there are still follicles there to work on.

Is he using ketoconazole 2x per week and then either zinc pyrithione or salicylic acid on the off days? That might boost the hair just enough to stop the hairline recession, or slow it even more!

Men also tend to have more aggressive hair loss due to higher levels of DHT, and for many men minoxidil doesn't completely stop hair loss over the long term. Over the short term, it stops or reverses hair loss completely for about 85% of men. Over 5, 10, 15 years, that number gets a bit smaller, though.