Sudden Hair Loss: Do Not Panic

It started with nightmares. Suddenly at night, in the middle of my sleep I woke up anxious. I touched my head and there, instead of hair, I seemed to be having coconut fiber. I tried to run my hand through my hair, it felt thin and brittle and extremely fragile. There was no tensile strength at all in my hair. In a couple of day’s time my hair started falling in clumps.

I got really panicky when it went on falling and in less than a fortnight, the top of my head showed bald patches. The pony tail became pencil thin as I was losing hair from behind also. Last Sunday, I could not go to Church because I could not face going with my near- bald head.

I rushed to a Homeopath. He gave me tonics worth Rs.600/ and promised me that it would stop my hair fall. I had to take 10 doses once in three days. By the time the last dose was over the hair fall would stop. At the rate my hair was falling, I could only interpret this as meaning that by the end of 30 days, the last hair on my head would have fallen-this would effectively stop further hair loss. Just like the girl in O Henry’s short story waiting to die when the last leaf fell, I anxiously watched my thinning top in the mirror. The thirty days went by without my head being completely stripped. The hair fell as before- earlier from my thicker mane a thick 5% fell. Now from my very thin straggly head, a thinner 5 % fell. The bald patches grew in area and number.

It was then that I read about various types of hair fall in the Internet. This added to my worries. Is mine an androgen induced hair fall? Shall I sport a beard by the time my head is bald? I continued to read about hairloss

Finally I consoled myself with the belief that this is indeed Telogen Effluvium.

This type of hair loss cannot be checked once the hair  has started to come out because the hair has already gone into the telogen stage (sleeping stage) 2 to 3 months before falling. I had been laid up by a viral fever about 3 months prior to the beginning of the hair loss. The fever had devastated me and stripped me of my stamina.  When this happened, that unknown intelligence  which controls our body system, the same intelligence that sees to it that my heart beats and my eyes blink, had decided that I did not have enough resources to sustain my body’s strength and also the growth of my hair and nails. This intelligence  decided to shut down my hair growth and put my hair follicles to sleep so that it could concentrate on reviving my vital systems. It also checked the growth of my nails which has left my nails rather kinky, with a horizontal groove across my thumb nail.

The sleeping hair follicles stopped nourishing my hair roots. The hair which remained in the follicle for 3 months, started to fall out together when new hair started to grow, pushing the old hair out.So that is the good news, this stage is only temporary.

I used a hair-top (silicon hair) until my hair grew back.

The treatments offered in the market promises cure in 45 days, which is the average time taken for the new growth to appear. Whether treated or not, the new growth would appear, but perhaps nutrition and tonics would give better hair growth.

As hair is really made up of dead cells, washing daily with strong shampoos can wear it out and you may end up with thin tired looking hair. It is better to go in  for twice a week washes and rinsing in plain water otherwise.