Audrey-B

Many things can cause abnormal, long term, hair shedding. It can range from low ferretin levels or anemia, stopping birth control pills or the wrong pill for you personally, thyroid problems, malabsorption of nutrients due to insufficient digestive enzymes (especially to digest protein), gluten intolerance/celiacs. It can be stress, but that usually causes one abnormal massive shed, then it will grow back.

My experience was of 8 long years of constant, abnormal hair shedding uniformly from my head. I was told by my gp and by and Endochronologist that it wasn't my thyroid, so i crossed that off the list. Next thing to go were my periods which were once normal and ended up all over the place. I kept being told it must be stress, even a dermatologist told me it must be stress and that my hair follicles looked normal. My gp only wanted to push me into taking birth control.

I believe all the doctors so then moved on to diet and vitamins etc etc I took lots of supplements and i also ate a very healthy diet. I then blamed it on the chemicals in hair shampoos and switched to shampoo's without chemicals like sodium laureth/lauryl sulphates, but nothing worked. I then just lived with it for a few years and it just got me down more and more. a female at my work used to keep joking that i should just cut it all off and she'd get the siccors, pretending she was going to cut it off.

In shear frustration i then turned to a Trichologist (hair scalp specialist). by this stage i was virtually anemic, insufficient iodine and vitamin D. He also ordered the right tests and he said my thyroid was not the best. I also had extremly high Thyroid Antibodies which meant i had an Auto Immune thyroid disorder called Hashimoto's. Looking back at thyroid tests from 2000, i had had this condition way back then. To say i was angry with my gp and the Endo is a total understatement!!

I finally began thyroid medication in May 2008. In addition to having Thyroid Antibodies, my thyroid hormones T4 and T3 were too low. Once i began getting addressing all the different areas, from ferretin, Vit D, Iodine and thyroid i began seeing masses of new hair growth. It stopped shedding then i went through some MAJOR stress which threw out my thyroid hormones again and made my ferretin drop. this is when i began experiencing hair shedding again.

The hair growth, resting and shedding phase can be disturbed by low ferretin/anemia alone. For this hair phase to work correcting, ferretin ought to be ideally at 70 or above.

With the thyroid, as in my case, it can sometimes take a long time to get diagnosed due to the way doctors interpret lab results. A lot of doctors don't go by symptoms AND lab results. Some doctors only look at your TSH and not the entire thyroid panel. Even if they do order the entire thyroid panel to be tested, they often only look at "range" and whether you fall into a range and not whether you are at the ideal target.

You should start with getting all these things tested. Some doctors might refuse. It takes a long time sometimes to find a doctor with good knowledge and is willing to work with you. It should not take years, as in my case, but unfortunately it does.