As December and the ‘party season’ rolled around, I started to wash my hair less often, and I also stopped putting product in it unless I was going out. I had very fine hair and washing it, brushing it, blow drying it and in particular putting sticky goo in it to ‘spike’ it up just seemed to exacerbate the issue
In fact, blow drying became a complete no no because as I dried it I could see all my hair flying out behind me to settle all over the bedroom! Very unsettling if you will excuse the pun.
Just before xmas, I also had a haircut & colour booked. I’ve been going to the same Salon for years (Law Salons in Saffron Walden) and Steve always took care of my hair, but just prior to the appointment I called to switch it from ‘color & cut’ to just a cut. My logic being that it was probably not a good idea to colour it given its condition.
Co-incidentally, Steve is in the process of completing a Trichology degree so I mentioned the hair loss to him.
He agreed … it did seem to be falling out. He got this special camera out which had very strong magnification and took a photo of my bald patch and in this, and as mentioned by my GP, we could indeed see hair in the follicles – small black ones!
That was a bit confusing as I’d never had black hair, and in fact the most prominent colour, as mentioned in my previous post, was grey.
We decided on a ‘tidy-up’, there wasn’t much to cut as my hair hadn’t grown since my last visit, and I told the girl who was going to wash my hair to be gentle. She obliges, and I had the gentlest hair wash ever. I think she was nervous, either that or she didn’t want to have to unclog the plughole afterwards 🙂
I also booked my next haircut for the 6th January (ever hopeful).
On the 11th December I returned to the Doctors to get the results of my blood tests, some of which were outside of ‘expected ranges’. My CRP was high (I had to google that one – C Reactive Protein) as was another which I have forgotten the name of. However, I had also had a chest infection and my GPs view was that the results were actually related to that infection rather than my hair loss.
Perversely I was a bit gutted that the blood test results didn’t reveal anything. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely did not want to have something awful wrong with me, but on the other hand it would have been easier to deal with if a reason had been identified.
My GP decided to order some more blood tests and also mentioned in passing that per NHS funding rules she couldn’t refer me to a dermatologist until I had lost at least 50% of my hair!
Firstly, how on earth do you go about calculating how much hair you have lost, I mean it’s not like you count them, and secondly isn’t it a bit late to refer someone once they are already well on their way to resembling a Tibetan monk? (Not that there is anything wrong with the way that Tibetan monks look but orange is just not my colour).
Anyway, she still doesn’t seem that worried, and her parting words to me were to come back in the new year if I was still concerned. I almost booked the appointment then and there.
Needless to say, I got through xmas. I still had some hair, and of course I was surrounded by friends and family with lots of distractions. But, friends were starting to notice it more and were now kindly brushing the hair off my shoulders for me as I continued to ‘shed’. I told everyone that the next time I saw them I would probably be bald, but inwardly I really really hoped that actually wasn’t the case.
Photo Credit: Adli Wahid
