Protein intake and hair — what is actually known

I found the counting worse than the shedding. Once I stopped looking at the plughole every morning the whole thing became much smaller.

Ephraim, I have been where you are and I would rather say so than stay quiet.

My experience was that protein intake mattered — not as a cure, but my dietitian flagged that mine had dropped a long way and correcting it seemed to help.

Replying to Ephraim rather than to anybody above, because I want to answer what was actually asked.

Somebody here described the shedding phase as grieving something small and constant, and that was exactly right and I had not had words for it.

What kept me going was reading the older threads here where people posted at the start and again a year later. The year-later posts are the useful ones.

You have said something a lot of us have not managed to. Thank you.

I wore it up for six months and nobody noticed anything, which I found simultaneously comforting and slightly annoying.

What I found hardest was other people not seeing it. It was enormous to me and invisible to everybody else, which made it lonely.

What I would say to anybody at the start of it: it is very unlikely to be permanent, and it is also completely reasonable to be upset while it happens.