Stress related hair loss - help me with the recovery process!

[Petulia]

Hey there,

I was going through a pretty rough time in the last 3 months, and I noticed that my hair would fall out literally in bunches whenever I tried to finger comb it. So I tried to keep it in braids (just one or two loose plaits) but I'd still have big bunches of hair dangling at the bottom that I'd have to pull out of the braid.

I've started to pick myself up and noticed in the last few weeks that my hair hasn't really been falling out much now, but I can see that my hair has thinned. When I make a parting in my hair, the parting line is much wider now, no matter where I do this on my hair - as in, the line isn't as distinctive anymore and more of my scalp is visible when I make a parting line now.

So I'm just wondering what I can do to help my hair recover from the thinning and to make my hair look full from the scalp again.

Should I go on supplements for hair growth? (Biotin, MSM and Folic Acid have all helped me with hair growth in the past, but this was to help grow back hair faster after the big chop, so I'm not sure if this will work for thinning hair?)

Sorry if I'm using the wrong terms here. It looks like my hair is thinning but I know that it's just the result of stress, and that I should be able to fix it but I'm not sure where to start!

Thanks in advance everyone

[JadeTigress]

I had a massive hair thinning from stress a few years ago. I just tried to really baby my hair and maximize growth. So I did supplements, oiling, massage, BBB brushing daily, switched to shampoo bars and ACV rinses, inversion, monistat... I experimented with all kinds of hair growth stuff.

All that hair you lost will grow back, in my experience, but your circumference won't thicken back up to normal until all that new growth gets long enough. Which is why I tried to just maximize growth; the sooner all that new growth gets long, the sooner the hair looks thick again. For me, it was about a year before my hair looked pretty much back to normal (though I was only around APL at the time).

[lapushka]

Have you kept track with the ponytail circumference? That's the only way to really tell. Measure this once a year (because there are seasonal variances), don't obsessively measure this monthly because you'll likely get a different number depending on when you measure.

Has it really thinned that much?

I'd just focus on being as healthy as possible, and with some patience in about 2 years that should all be back.

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I had a stress shed in 2013 and lost a lot of hair. The thickness is still growing back (or down, I should say) but the newer, thick growth has not yet reached my thinner ends. It could take several more years to do so.

Patience is what you need here, and just try to live a healthy lifestyle, and eat nutritious foods, and a bit of protein most days.

[MJ1972]

I lost a lot of hair between 2012 and 2016, to the point where my hair was seriously thinning and my ponytail (which was never very thick to begin with) was looking quite pathetic. What finally stemmed the tide for me was chlorella and spirulina. I started taking daily chlorella and intermittent spirulina last July. My skin began to improve just a few days after I started taking chlorella, which told me I was on to something good. I also started to get a lot of new hair growth, which seemed to coincide with the periods during which I regularly took spirulina. As for the hair loss, that didn't stop until about a month ago, so the supplements took a while to kick in. That said, I've been extremely pleased with my shedding rate these last few weeks. I've gone from losing about 150 hairs a day to barely losing 15 a day. That's some serious progress right there. I also have very considerable new growth and near-flawless skin, and on top of that, my hair seems healthier and darker than before (although I'm not sure that is biologically possible), which is making me very happy. So I wholeheartedly recommend chlorella and spirulina. It's pricey stuff, but worth it, in my opinion.

For the sake of reference, before starting on chlorella and spirulina, I tried vitamin B supplements, L-lysine, zinc, iron and magnesium (not all together, obviously). I'm not sure these supplements did anything for me. They certainly didn't reduce my shedding rate. I did have some success with fish oil years ago, but only if I took it in large quantities, which became untenable in the long run because fish oil + hot drinks is a recipe for bad breath and I wasn't ready to sacrifice my hot tea, not even for my hair. I think reducing my sugar intake also somewhat reduced my hair loss. My hair didn't actually stop falling out in clumps, though, until I'd taken both chlorella (every day) and spirulina (intermittently) for about five months.

[LadyCelestina]

I know you had stressful times but doesn't have to be stress related , autumn months are often months during which people complain of seasonal shedding. I had a shed too, and at times was losing seriously scary amounts of hair, but it went away on it's own and didn't really affect my circumference.