Losing thickness and hair not growing what's up with it?

[whit3c00ki3]

It's been 2 months and my hair hasn't grown at all and on top of that i'm losing thickness!!! I used to have 4 inch thick hair now it's 3 1/2 inches. Is that normal? I've never measured my hair until i joined lhc so i'm not sure whether it's just a end of the season thing and it will eventually pass or what.... I haven't changed anything since starting lhc and i havent noticed any unusual hair loss when brushing or showering. If anything it feels smoother and it's straighter (is used to be be wavier and slightly coarser). so what is up with my hair?

[jasper]

Maybe you just measured differently without realizing it. I find it pretty hard to measure consistently, myself. I never seem to get a change in growth that I can measure with tape in a two month period, but if I compare photos at 6 months or more I will see the growth.

[Cassie 123]

Wow, every word of your post could have been written by me, right down to the numbers! I have two (conflicting) ideas about what could have caused our loss of thickness:

I think the cuticles of my hair were in a perpetually roughed-up state before LHC. My hair felt coarser, as you said, and now it is a lot softer and smoother-feeling. If the cuticle of every hair is smoothed down now, perhaps that is enough to make us lose half an inch of ponytail circumference. This is the optimistic answer.

The pessimistic answer came to me today via two serendipitous sources: a gentle scolding from Lianna (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=1774769&postcount=49) and a spam email from a local hairdresser (http://www.michihair.com/thinning-hair-women.html). The gist of both is that scalps that aren't clean don't grow hair as well. It's possible that in following the LHC gentleness tactics, I may not be getting my scalp quite as clean as I thought.

Well, I love my new smooth hair and don't miss the thickness too much, but if my growth averages out over the long run to be unusually slow, I may have to try a stronger washing method.

[McFearless]

Think back the the beginning of this year, were there any changes to your diet? For me about 6 months later my hair starts to show any flaws in my diet. It sucks but it can fixed!

[Panth]

Another possibility: think back about 3-6 months ago. Was there anything stressful occurring? E.g. a moderate to severe illness, surgery, giving birth, starting/stopping medication, change in diet, change in exercise, mental stress, etc.

Often it'll take 3-6 months for that stress to show up in the hair. It will often manifest as hairloss. Basically, the technical explanation is that the stress (physical or mental) caused some hair follicles that were in anagen phase (growth phase) to prematurely shift into the catagen (transition) phase, which is thought to usually last 2-3 weeks in humans. Once the catagen is over, telogen starts (resting phase), which is thought to usually last approx. 3 months in humans. At the end of telogen, the hair is shed from the follicle and a new hair begins to grow from the follicle as the follicle re-enters anagen.

So, to summarise, stress prematurely induces catagen. After approx. 4 months, these hair follicles will have cycled through catagen and telogen and begun a new anagen phase. At this point, the hair will be shed and, obviously, (depending on the length of the remaining hair) it may take several months/years for the hair to grow to a length comparable to the rest of the hair. This can manifest in temporary thinning of the hair.

Of course, the thinning may last longer / be more permanent in a longer-lasting illness/nutrient deficiency.

[Mirmy]

Oh I am so glad to read this possible explanation of hair loss. I have recently lost a lot of hair - every day there would be large handfuls on my comb and when I washed my hair it would come out in handfuls.

Back in March I took an unexpected illness, ended up very sick and was in hospital on very strong antibiotics for 7 weeks. At the time I was pleased that my hair had stayed in pretty good condition despite not getting very much TLC. Then about a month and a half after I came out of hospital my hair started thinning as described above.

It definitely isn't coming out as much now so hopefully things will start to thicken up :-)