Hiding it, and being tired of hiding it

Started 1 February 2025 · 22 replies · 228 hearts · read 3.3k times

IkeChicago, IL · 1 February 2025

1.5 years ago

Hiding it, and being tired of hiding it Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

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

This started at the same time as two other things, which is why I cannot attribute it to anything with any confidence.

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 had a fortnight of this and then three good days and then another fortnight, and the pattern is the bit I would most like to understand.

Thank you for reading something this unglamorous. Any experience welcome, and timescales especially.

PerrinNice, FR

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.

GudrunAkureyri, IS

Mine was patchy rather than general and that turned out to be a different question worth asking about specifically. Please do describe the pattern accurately.

11me too 3

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Two things. First, nobody here can tell you what is happening in your body. Second, the conversation you want to have is with a clinician, and we can help you write down what to say.

FabianBasel, CH

Perrin — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I got a scalp check because I was worried and it was straightforward and reassuring and took ten minutes. I had built it up enormously.

MarthaCork, IE

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.

OsmanAnkara, TR

Grateful you posted rather than kept it to yourself.

WystanCheltenham, UK

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

MairéadMayo, IE

The thing nobody warned me about was that it kept going for a while after the trigger had passed. The lag confused me for months.

NyreeChristchurch, NZ

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.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

#10

Picking up Mairéad’s point rather than starting a new one.

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.

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#11

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

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.

BlySheffield, UK

#12

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.

OttoPrague, CZ

#13

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 5

CoralieMarseille, FR

#14

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

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.

AnnikaStockholm, SE

#15

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

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#16

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.

DillyNewport, UK

#17

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

WinnieCarlisle, UK

#18

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.

IkeChicago, IL

#19

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.

11me too 8

PerrinNice, FR

#20

What Dilly described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

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.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#21

I am going to steer us away from comparing severity. It has crept in over the last few replies and it does not help anybody who is currently in it.

GroverPortland, ME

#22

Gently disagreeing with Ike, or rather adding the other half of it.

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