My GP took it seriously and ran bloods

Started 2 September 2024 · 24 replies · 265 hearts · read 3.3k times

GudrunAkureyri, IS · 2 September 2024

1.9 years ago

My GP took it seriously and ran bloods — 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 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.

I would like to hear timescales more than remedies. Knowing how long other people's lasted would turn this from an open-ended thing into a bounded one.

Nobody warned me about this specifically and I am starting to think that is because it is common enough that everybody assumed I knew.

Not after remedies particularly. Mostly I want to know whether this is ordinary and how long it went on for.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

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.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Stepping in because a question about another medication has come up. That is a pharmacist question and it is genuinely one they will answer properly and quickly.

OsmanAnkara, TR

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.

15me too 2

DillyNewport, UK

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

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.

BlySheffield, UK

Mine has thinned and stayed thinner, and I have made my peace with that, and I would not want somebody to read only the full-recovery accounts.

MarthaCork, IE

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

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

OttoPrague, CZ

The thing that helped was a photograph at the start, which I hated taking and which meant I could see the regrowth six months later rather than guessing.

MairéadMayo, IE

Thank you for writing this down. It helped.

6me too 7

IkeChicago, IL

Something I read here that steadied me: shedding is often a response to a change several months earlier rather than to what is happening this week.

8me too 3

CoralieMarseille, FR

#10

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

I stopped washing it less, which I had been doing on the theory it would help, and it made absolutely no difference except that my hair was greasy.

WinnieCarlisle, UK

#11

My hairdresser was more reassuring than any clinician. She had seen it many times, said so plainly, and told me what she expected over the next six months.

FabianBasel, CH

#12

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

12me too 8

WystanCheltenham, UK

#13

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

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#14

The regrowth was the strangest part. Short new bits everywhere, standing up, for about four months, and then it evened out.

NyreeChristchurch, NZ

#15

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

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.

10me too 4

PerrinNice, FR

#16

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.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

#17

Perrin has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

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.

AnnikaStockholm, SE

#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.

GudrunAkureyri, IS

#19

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.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#20

Nyala has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

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

GroverPortland, ME

#21

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.

11me too 9

OsmanAnkara, TR

#22

No advice, only that you are not the only one who found this part hard.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#23

A note for anybody arriving at this thread mid-way: if what you are experiencing is frightening rather than merely uncomfortable, that is a reason to ask somebody qualified this week rather than to read further.

BlySheffield, UK

#24

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.