I am a hairdresser and this one has hit me hard

Started 3 April 2025 · 20 replies · 184 hearts · read 3.3k times

CoralieMarseille, FR · 3 April 2025

1.3 years ago

I am a hairdresser and this one has hit me hard — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have avoided asking about this for six weeks out of pure embarrassment.

I have written down when it happens and how long it lasts, because I could not answer either of those questions when my GP asked and I felt foolish.

I have read the guide on this and it covered the ordinary version. Mine is not quite the ordinary version and that is why I am asking.

What I cannot tell is whether this is the ordinary tax or the sort of thing that needs somebody today, and that distinction is the whole of my question.

Thanks in advance. Even a one-line "yes, me too" would help more than you would think.

DillyNewport, UK

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.

IkeChicago, IL

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

MarthaCork, IE

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

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Speaking as a facilitator: a symptom that is frightening you is a reason to ask, regardless of whether it turns out to be anything. Nobody qualified will think you have wasted their time.

OsmanAnkara, TR

Mine slowed and stopped without me doing anything at all, over about ten weeks. I had tried four things by then and I do not believe any of them did it.

PerrinNice, FR

Ada said something I want to sit with for a second.

I asked about it at a review half expecting to be dismissed and instead got a proper explanation, a blood test and a plan. Worth asking.

WinnieCarlisle, UK

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.

11me too 2

WystanCheltenham, UK

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.

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

It is a real thing and it is not trivial, and I would say that to anybody who has been told it is only hair. It upset me more than anything else did.

9me too 1

OttoPrague, CZ

#10

Coming back at the year mark to say it regrew. I promised in my first post that I would come back and say either way, and I am glad the answer was this one.

GudrunAkureyri, IS

#11

It is generally described as temporary and mine was, and I want to be honest that the temporary part took the better part of six months.

8me too 2

BlySheffield, UK

#12

Reading Otto, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

What helped me emotionally was that somebody in this circle said plainly that it was allowed to be distressing. I had been minimising it and it was not working.

FabianBasel, CH

#13

What my GP checked was ferritin, thyroid and B12, and one of them was low and worth correcting regardless. Worth asking for, in my experience.

GroverPortland, ME

#14

I cut mine short during the worst of it, which I resisted for weeks and then found enormously freeing. Less to lose visibly, less to notice.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

#15

Coming back to what Fabian wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

Mine started at about month four, went on for three months, and has completely regrown. That timeline was the thing I could not find anywhere when I needed it.

NyreeChristchurch, NZ

#16

The drain was how I found out. I had noticed nothing until then and then I noticed everything, constantly, for about a month.

MairéadMayo, IE

#17

Mine coincided with a genuinely difficult period at home and I will never know how much was which. The two were completely tangled.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#18

Reading this properly rather than skimming, which is all I have to offer today.

8me too 3

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#19

I want to say that the honesty in this thread is exactly what makes this circle worth having, including the parts nobody enjoyed writing.

DillyNewport, UK

#20

Two years on mine is back to how it was, slightly different in texture, and I no longer think about it at all. That is my whole update.