I have reached my maximum growth :(

[ilovelonghair]

It's still the same as in my albums and I have been growing my hair out from hair dyes since 4 years. Bit more thickness at the top till BSL but no further. It is very strange, there is a clear demarcation line where there is thickness and suddenly thinner. I maintain my hair at hollow-of-back lenght by twice monthy trims. If I don't trim it does grow longer but it's so thin :(. I am able to grow 3 hairs a bit past tailbone, but who wants 3 hairs that long? Seriously, they are below 10 hairs.

I have given up. Hennaing didn't help with less breakage in order to grow longer, but it does make my hair look thicker at the scalp. If I don't henna it's as if my hair is see through, with henna it looks nice and full like as for anyone else. Maybe it's my natural hair colour that does that?

I am tempted to cut off more so the hemline looks thicker, it grows back quickly anyway, I have a very short body :D

Is there still hope or just leave it as it is?

(I'll take a picture tomorrow)

[Tisiloves]

I think your hemline looks lovely:crush:

I'd be tempted to leave it longer and just pamper it more, maybe look at how you put your hair up. I know someone said they finally worked out that a load of their breakage was from a sharp seam on the claw clip they used whilst conditioning.

[PixxieStix]

There is still hope! Maybe you could give us a good, thorough run down of your routine, products you use and how you use them, and with several minds dissecting it apart we can figure out where something might be going wrong?

[spidermom]

We've each got a point beyond which hair won't grow. You might have reached it, but you have really lovely hair, so try not to be disappointed.

[Amber_Maiden]

We've each got a point beyond which hair won't grow. You might have reached it, but you have really lovely hair, so try not to be disappointed.

I agree wit this- at least you have very beautiful long healthy hair!

[xoxophelia]

If you know for sure you don't have a nutritional deficiency, thyroid condition, or some other underlying medical problem it is possible you could be to that point. But, if you don't know for sure about all of those things, maybe look into those before giving up :)

[Octopus]

Have you tried to change the way you treat your hair? I can't see your pictures, I can't see anyone's gallery for some reason :(

[jacqueline101]

Your hair is lovely.

[pink.sara]

Your hair is beautiful! It especially looks pretty with the waves all defined and isn't too thin to be that long.

I'd second the idea to check you have no deficiencies and them baby it as much as possible to see if the thickness grows down... But like spidermom said, it's lovely hair, please don't be disappointed :)

[sazzie88]

Have you tried to change the way you treat your hair? I can't see your pictures, I can't see anyone's gallery for some reason :(

When you have posted 25 posts you can see people's albums. I see you are on 22 currently :)

[heidi w.]

I just took a look in your Hair album, and the most recent photo of the back of your hair that I can find is May 2011. I'd like to see what you're objecting to, as close up as is possible, in good light.

First, know that my hair generally doesn't grow a whole lot anymore. If I let it go much beyond the current hemline (mid-calf length) it kind of looks scraggly to me, what I term "weeds" in a recent hair video I made and submitted to someone privately. So I can appreciate your disappointment if it appears your hair doesn't grow overly well overly long as you might otherwise prefer.

The thing then is to take good care of what you have.

You mention, if I read correctly that you're trimming your hair twice a month? IF that is so, that is too often and too frequent a trimming schedule, and whatever length you may eventually be able to achieve, you are undoing by simply cutting it off, and within a few months you're effectively cutting off new grow (as it concerns length as new growth is front the scalp skin, not the hemline, yet the length increases with new growth coming in from the top).

For you I would recommend that you wear your hair up more than down. People often underestimate the value of wearing hair up. Cher is known for wearing wigs, and I recall her commenting how her friends comment positively regarding the condition of her "real" hair. It's because she's protecting her real hair, most of the time, by donning a wig and keeping it up, covered and out of hairstylist's hands.

I've been vocal regarding this in the past, but my understanding is that henna can in some cases block the uptake of conditioner. People tell me there's different kind of Henna's, and maybe you need to look into that more to ensure that your conditioner is working.

Take care of what you have. That's primary. Just because it may not be super long does not mean you can't have beautiful hair. I'd rather have beautiful short hair than a dull, scraggly rat's nest that's long. There are priorities.

Take heart.
heidi w.

[torrilin]

I maintain my hair at hollow-of-back lenght by twice monthy trims. If I don't trim it does grow longer but it's so thin :(.

That is more frequent trimming than I've ever done. And my hair grows fairly fast at .75-1" per month. If I wanted to maintain a very precise length, every 2 weeks is in fact what I'd do.

However... most of the time, that isn't what I want to do. As a kid, I'd get trims every 6-8 weeks. This kept my growth rate in check so I could actually handle my own hair. My mom was and is horrible at doing hair, so I had to manage on my own, and this was a good compromise for us. For someone with a growth rate more in the 0.5" a month average, this would be still a pretty fast trimming schedule.

As an adult, I've mostly trimmed every 3-6 months. Every 3 months is a pretty reasonable schedule if you want a particular look. Every 6 months honestly still leaves my hem in pretty good shape. With good hair care techniques, both are entirely reasonable schedules even for someone with fine and split prone hair. (if I'm super careful in my handling, I can actually go rather longer)

Looking at your album, I'd tend to say most of the issues could come entirely from your frequent trimming schedule. The 2009 pictures are lovely, with a lot more thickness than the 2011 pictures... which says to me that you were doing something right in 2009 that you aren't doing now.

[ilovelonghair]

If I leave my hair alone the ends grow straggly thin very quickly. If I don't cut once or twice a month it just looks awful. I have tried to leave them alone for months on time and that just made it all look yuk. I stopped S&D-ing because I suspected that that caused it but it makes no difference.

BUT I am slightly iron deficient for the last 2 years. I take supplements and have a cast iron tea pot. The cast iron gives off small amounts of iron on my tea. In the past that actually made my iron skyrocket, not so much not, but it helps. It's slowly catching up :) Last time I got tested I wasn't below the healthy iron count, just on the low side.

I have CFS and several other chronic illnesses, so that probably doesn't help my hair!

Btw straggly thin ends don't look bad on very long hair, I mean classic and longer, but above tailbone it doesn't look good in my opinion, well on me it doesn't look good.

I'm going to try to take pictures now :)

[ilovelonghair]

A crappy picture, but I couldn't get it better. This is my hair when take it out of a bun, all sad and yucky:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=7584&pictureid=127615

It's much thicker higher up, I don't understand why that doesn't grow :confused:

My new colour, I am very happy with it:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=7584&pictureid=127614


I wear my hair up most of the time. But maybe I should comb the ends before I tuck them in? I don't make tight buns but maybe ends get damaged if they get tucked in when they are knotted?

Maybe I should start sleeping with my hair in a braid or bun, I just don't like the feeling.

I was my hair every other day or with 2 days in between. I use conditioner. Maybe catnip will help?

[xoxophelia]

^It looks a little similar to thyroid induced thinning? How is your B12?

When I was both sick and vegetarian, even with supplements my hair got shorter and a similar shedding pattern: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/album.php?albumid=4575&pictureid=89662 (I think it was mostly illness but being veg maybe made it worse in my case due to a low budget)

It could be terminal but it looks really similar to the type caused by other issues. It is hard to tell by photos though. I don't think you should give up hope yet. If there is something, getting it sorted can really make a huge difference.

[Silverbrumby]

I think your hair looks quite lovely. If I ever get past bra strap length I'm hoping mine will look as good as yours does in terms of condition. I think straggly ends are more a matter of what you feel looks good on you. I'd like to add that wearing your hair either braided or up at night is in my opinion very necessary along with a satin pillow slip. I think the slip and wearing my hair braided has made a difference to the overall condition. Just think of 8 hours of your hair rubbing between the body, cotton sheets and pillow. 365 days a year x 8 hours = 2920 hours of wear on the hair at night. I'm almost considering buying a satin sleep cap lol. Then 2920 x 4+ years it took to grow the longest hair that's 11,680 hours of physical wear.

I have NO idea why I just did all that math. Blame weight watchers making me add up my 300 a day cookie habit over a year and seeing how it added 11 pounds to my waistline.

[roundforest]

Your hair doesn't look sad and yucky to me. I think it's lovely. Washing every other day seems quite frequent, though. Do the roots get greasy if you leave it longer? I have read that some people can go longer between washes if they spray in rooibos tea, and fewer washes mean less hair damage. My own hair doesn't really get greasy any more, but I think you may be much younger than I am.

[jackie75]

Looking at your pictures, it seems as if your August 2009 pic is much more fuller at the ends than your recent pic. Was your routine different then? How about your health back then?

Have you clarified recently? Hard water issues?

I have struggled with anemia for a long time now, and have thinned out quite a bit at my sides and bangs.

I would give it time, and trim back some if you feel it's necessary. Maybe your hair is just going through a strange cycle, and with summer approaching, the sun (Vit D!!) can do wonders for hair I've noticed. :)

[Dragon Faery]

After reading what others had to say, I'm betting those who suggested a potential health problem or repetitive damage (like from sleeping with it down) are probably on to something. The parts that do grow longer look lovely, but I can understand it bugging you if you want your hair all one length and it just won't do it. :(

Good luck!

[Octopus]

When you have posted 25 posts you can see people's albums. I see you are on 22 currently :)

Really??? Thank you, thank you so much, I had no idea! You saved the day :)

[ilovelonghair]

Looking at your pictures, it seems as if your August 2009 pic is much more fuller at the ends than your recent pic. Was your routine different then? How about your health back then?

Health can be a major reason: I got CFS and it has gone into a real bad state last year. Sleeping 2 days in a row for example and no time for eating (I barely could get out of bed).

I have severe IBS on top of that but didn't know what I was intollerant to, so I was so ill with that as well. Lost a lot of weight too.

I am working on that, supplements and trying to eat as much fruit and veg as I can. My diet is extremely limited due to the massive list of 'not to eat', I have to have supplements.

However some of my deficiencies are getting better. B12 has never been an issue, but vitamin D is a hard one and iron has been hard too. That's solved now. Vitamin D is hard to get with the sunlight here. So I take supplements, but it doesn't work that well.

I lost 8 kilos, but that's over a year, I don't know how much I weight now as I don't trust the scale to be that correct.

But the ends are always the same thin bits.

[jackie75]

I'm willing to bet your IBS, CFS, etc. is certainly contributing. Hugs to you!! That's a lot to contend with...I have IBS as well, and I suspect CFS or possibly fibromyalgia. It's so tough to grow healthy hair when dealing with all those issues.

It sounds like you are doing a great job to manage your symptoms though! Much better than me, lol! :o

[lunalocks]

I have had damage from elastics, even coated ones for a ponytail, and various clips that broke off my hair and I never knew why I couldn't grow below BSL. I stopped that. I also S and D and now am below waist. I also trim every 3 months anywhere from 1/4 to 1 inch, so my overall growth is slow.

I never considered that the elastics could be so damaging to my hair.

[Mesmerise]

Honestly, I'm going to go with health related issues... If you've been seriously unwell any time during the last two or more years your hair will still be showing the symptoms today at the length it is! Even if you've got fairly fast growing hair (like an inch a month), it's going to take some time for it to recover and to "fill out".

I've gone through two bad sheds in the last couple of years, and I fully accept that my hair won't be nice for some years to come, as it will take that long for it to fill back in (and only then if I keep healthy and don't have any more shedding issues :rolleyes:).

The best thing you can do is just keep looking after your health and persist with your hair! Since it grows fast, maybe you should consider chopping off a few inches, and see how that ultimately impacts your hairline over the long term?

[Chromis]

Health issues certain can be major shed culprits.

Also, I highly recommend taking more pictures! My hair looks pretty "scraggly" straight down from a bun too. Try taking pictures at different points in the wash cycle and from different starting positions, just combed, just washed, just dried. My shots are so variable that is some you'd think I need to trim back to bsl and others I have a nice silk sheet of hair. Trying to judge from just a couple is tricky tricky stuff!

[ilovelonghair]

Health issues certain can be major shed culprits.

Also, I highly recommend taking more pictures! My hair looks pretty "scraggly" straight down from a bun too. Try taking pictures at different points in the wash cycle and from different starting positions, just combed, just washed, just dried. My shots are so variable that is some you'd think I need to trim back to bsl and others I have a nice silk sheet of hair. Trying to judge from just a couple is tricky tricky stuff!

Pretty straggly? In my eyes the pretty is the positive version of pretty :). I wish I had hair like yours! Thin ends at that lenght are beautiful!


Well, in the meantime I checked many individual shed hairs and they are very strange, no more M in thickness but F :mad: I am making a strand of them to see how they act, they act different from a previous strand I made years ago. This is getting serious!

I had blood tests, B12 all good, but can vitamin D deficiencye make hair thin? No thyroid issues though. No protein deficiency, I eat plenty of protein (love my tofu!)
What else to look out for?

[jackie75]

I just came across this about Vit D and hair loss:

http://vitamind3blog.com/2012/01/vitamin-d3-hair-los/

I would definitely get your levels checked, along with iron.

I hope things turn around for you! :)

[Envari]

Pretty straggly? In my eyes the pretty is the positive version of pretty :). I wish I had hair like yours! Thin ends at that lenght are beautiful!


Well, in the meantime I checked many individual shed hairs and they are very strange, no more M in thickness but F :mad: I am making a strand of them to see how they act, they act different from a previous strand I made years ago. This is getting serious!

I had blood tests, B12 all good, but can vitamin D deficiencye make hair thin? No thyroid issues though. No protein deficiency, I eat plenty of protein (love my tofu!)
What else to look out for?

Lack of viramin D can definitely impact your hair.

However, based on your info (mainly the CFS) I'm inclined to think that your hair's mainly suffering from is the effects of having been under major physical and psycological stress for a long period of time. Getting a serious diagnosis can be extremely hard in itself - add the physical symptoms like bad and/or insufficient sleep, pains, lack of certain vitamins etc. etc. and you've got a really bad hairenvironment going.

The first piece of potentially good news is that your problems might not have anything to do with terminal length at all. The second is that you hopefully will get better and the state of your hair will follow. CFS is not going to be cured, I know, but eventually you will (hopefully) become even better at managing your ressources and avoid situations that exhausts you (and thereby also your hair).

Best of luck on getting better to both you and your hair :heart:

[Envari]

Oh, by the way - have you started any new medication during the last couple of years? My hair shedded like crazy for a periode when I started on MS medication during 2010.

[Of the Fae]

Seriously, I think your hair is beautiful! It's so shiny and the colour is amazing :)
Maybe you should trim less? I don't know how to advise you on the thinness at the ends but just so you know, it doesn't look sad!

Edit: I just saw your hair album and all your other pics look different, no thin ends at all. Maybe it's just a bad day for you?

[ilovelonghair]

My hair today:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=7584&pictureid=128746

Now that's some serious henna shine isn't it? :D


I will get my vit D checked again soon. Hopefully the few sunny days we had has put the levels up.

I didn't change any medication, the last time has been years ago so it wouldn't be meds. The CFS is a hard one, I already have it for more than 20 years and it has never gone any better. It's stable, well if you can call it stable the way it is for me LOL:

I have times where I get extremely ill, will be in bed for weeks, sleep 48 hours in a row twice a week (that gives no time to eat and drink when that happens) and sometimes it gets so bad I can be paralized a bit as well after waking up. In that case it takes about 15 minutes to slowly be able to move and talk.

In good times, I can get up same time each day, so some things, maybe even go out of the house. So it's very changeable. Has been for the last 20 years like that.

I think the last couple of extremely stressful years also did me in, I moved house 3 times within a year. And some other health issues aren't helping me much either, BUT it's work in progress :)

I just cut off about 4 or 5 months growth and it looks much better. I'm now wondering if I like to cut a fringe. The front part of my hair is mainly only short hairs, the long ones have fallen out, so if I cut a fringe it's not like I cut off valuable long hair.

Is there any topic here on how to cut different syles of fringes?

[swearnsue]

I have a suggestion for your hair. On days when you are home and may take a lot of naps or sitting in chairs whenever possible, braid your hair over your shoulder. This way you can sleep at any time without worrying about your hair. Also, with the fatigue, you may plop into the nearest chair whenever possible and the back of chairs can be tough on your hair. My next suggestion is to try probiotics for your IBS. They have really helped me. Good luck and hope you feel better soon.

[ilovelonghair]

Thanks :) I've heard good stuff about probiotics, I should give it a try. With over the shoulder, do you mean braid it to one side? If I do that it feels weird, asymetic and annoying LOL.

[ilovelonghair]

Update:

Baldish spots are still there after more than a year. Is it possible to reverse that?

I have cut a fringe, long one that I can comb to one side, which might take some weight off it. Not much to cut off those as most of my hair in front is naturally short.

[summergreen]

Just looked at your album, your hair looks really pretty in all the photos! Sorry no advice about baldish spots ( not that I could see any).

BTW if you drink tea and coffee, I have heard they make it harder to absorb supplements, just a thought.