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harunokaze
December 27th, 2011, 02:07 PM
hey yall,

I've been having a problem with my hair for over a year now. I've tried everything I can think of and have been lurking several hair forums, but decided to throw one out to yall and see if anyone can help.
My hair was always think, long, dark brown growing up and through undergrad. About a year ago, my husband and I bought a house and moved in. I started working on my master's degree. Then I started noticing what I call "squiggly hairs" (kinky, coarse) at back of my head, around my neck. Then I started noticing them at the crown of my head and in my bangs. I started noticing more and more through my hair. These hairs are coarse, thick and black, and have a squiggly pattern instead of straight and smooth. I noticed that eventually, the crown of my head was the most concentrated location of damaged hairs (looks like it's been fried with a flat iron, but it hasn't). Then I started noticing hairs growing in baby fine, that get pulled out easily, with a slight squiggle and are golden brown in color. My hair was thinner and changing in weird ways.
Then I noticed my husbands hair had changed too. His golden blonde hair now had random black coarse hairs growing out, that were thick but not squiggly like mine. He has many baby fine blonde squiggly hairs.
We used the same products, then tried new ones. Tried leave in conditioners, deep conditioners, pretty much anything that we read online could help. Then we realized maybe it was our water we were showering with and drinking. We had known this area had hard water for some time, so we decided to get a whole home water softener installed. In case we were drinking too much chlorine in our water, we changed the filter in the refrigerator and had a reverse osmosis filtration system installed.
I cut my hair off, which had grown down to the small of my back, because it was so ugly and damaged and I thought the water softener would help. I wanted to start over growing my hair out again with soft water. But it's been months now with the water softener and it's not better for either of us. My hair is the worst, between the two of us. As someone who had great pride in my long hair, when it became so damaged I was upset. My hair stylist noticed it too when i went to get my hair cut and styled. she suggested clarifying shampoo, which I used, but noticed no difference. I know these hairs are growing in this way because I've tried pulling some of the squiggly hairs out and they grow back the same way. Neither of us take any RX meds that could cause this (he takes no RX at all) and my birth control has been the same RX for years, so I don't think it's hormones. I've had blood workup done within the past year for diabetes, thyroid, liver, etc and I have a clean bill of health (I'm a little over weight, but I work out regularly). We don't know what to do anymore!

If anyone can make any suggestions or has any ideas, please help!

furnival
December 27th, 2011, 04:44 PM
Sorry to hear about your problems, sounds awful. This is a wild guess but I remember a member saying she had a condition called pili torti which caused weird squiggly hairs. I don't know anything about it myself but maybe you can google it or search the boards. Might be something totally different though.... Hope you find a solution. :)

harunokaze
December 27th, 2011, 06:32 PM
when I googled pili torti i found someone else's post on the forum and her pic. That does look VERY similar; pili torti is connected with menkes disease, which is genetic. And my husband and I aren't related lol.
But yes, that looks a LOT like what I've got going on.

SharkDisco
December 27th, 2011, 07:16 PM
I have the exact same thing going on. The crown of my head is full of kinky, wiry and very coarse hairs. If I pull one out and look at it closely, the hair appears to vary thickness repeatedly throughout the length, with a few twists here and there. The hairs almost feel "ribbed". The hairs snap fairly easily, and I've been finding a lot of short pieces around my basin when I comb my hair in the morning. The hair towards the front of my head is still my regular texture, but I feel that the squiggly hairs will eventually make their way there, too. I'm just into my thirties and the problem seems to be increasing as I get older, so I'm chalking it up to an age thing.

harunokaze
December 27th, 2011, 08:08 PM
I'm 25, my husband is 27, and we both started developing this problem about the same time. We've made an appointment with a dermatologist in Feb but it's still driving my crazy.
the old thread I found here on LHC has this pic
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s94/PilliTor/P1070804.jpg
my thin, light brown hairs make my hair look a lot like that when its fresh out of the shower, but it's not as bad as hers. Very similar though.
Has anyone had experience with hard water when shampooing, then switching to soft water later? Do you think it's possible we damaged our hair from the hard water and it's permanent?

Amber_Maiden
December 27th, 2011, 08:11 PM
I'm so sorry this is happening to you, no advice. :(