I’m standing exterior my bathe and I don’t need to go in.
I’m not drained or in a rush, merely avoiding the reckoning of how a lot hair I’ll lose this time. This dread has been my fixed companion ever since I lathered up, rinsed and watched handfuls of soiled blonde strands circle the drain three weeks in the past. It wasn’t the traditional 100 to 150 strands everybody sheds day by day; these have been thick clumps of one thing I by no means imagined I might lose.
I comb the conditioner by means of gently and are available away with extra. And extra. I really feel fragile, terrified to drag my hair up. Even laying my head on my pillow looks like a threat. “This may’t be taking place,” I wail, my arms shaking as I really feel the unprecedented thinness of my ponytail. My thoughts searches for solutions: Is it the creatine? The estrogen cream? The fashionable hair nutritional vitamins from Erewhon I’ve been choking down religiously?
Seems, I’m not alone. Greater than 85% of males and 33% of ladies expertise hair loss of their lifetimes, however I by no means thought I’d be one among them. Between growing older, stress and the rise of GLP-1s (aka Ozempic) hair loss has by no means been extra frequent. “I’ve seen extra shoppers experiencing shedding and thinning over the previous few years,” says Liz Jung, a Los Angeles-based hair colorist. “It used to come back up sometimes, however now it’s a part of nearly each session. I’ve seen assured, radiant girls begin hiding below hats as a result of they don’t really feel like themselves anymore.” Yep, that was me.
My panic started with ChatGPT, the place I identified myself with every little thing from hormonal imbalances and thyroid points to iron deficiency. Then I spent hours scrolling Instagram learning posts from hair-obsessed influencers like @hairlossgirlboss, @Sofiahairhealth and @AbbeyYung. I doubled down on biotin, Amazon-Primed pumpkin seed oil dietary supplements and surgically utilized Epres bond restore remedy 3 times per week. When the fistfuls of hair persevered, I tore by means of Los Angeles for somebody, anybody, who might inform me why this was taking place and make it cease.
I noticed three docs in 5 days. Every got here extremely advisable, but their prescriptions couldn’t have been extra totally different. The primary prescribed an oral pharmaceutical mix with minoxidil, the gold customary for hair progress, that I’d have to take for all times. The second championed three classes of a buzzy noninvasive remedy that makes use of a handheld system to ship ultrasound waves and air stress to stimulate dormant follicles. The third swore by the massive weapons: PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections mixed with exosomes — tiny vesicles derived from stem cells that ship progress components on to the roots, primarily telling them to get up and develop. Determined for an answer, I used to be drawn to the aggressive strategy, however I selected the third physician for a extra telling cause. He was the one one who required my blood work first.
The chosen one, Dr. Jonathan Shalom, a Beverly Hills-based board-certified doctor and hair transplant surgeon often known as Dr. Hair 90210, was all enterprise as he withheld a analysis till I used to be in his chair along with his trichoscope in hand — assume high-powered magnifying glass to your scalp. Not like genetic or hormone-driven loss, I had a textbook case of telogen effluvium, or stress shedding. Sigh.
“Excellent news,” Shalom stated as he completed his examination. “Your hair isn’t dying, it’s simply sleeping. We will wake it up, however we should be aggressive.” Evidently, telogen effluvium occurs when the physique undergoes emotional, bodily or hormonal shock and pushes extra hairs than standard into the resting section. What I didn’t notice was that hair doesn’t fall out due to what occurred yesterday, it’s what occurred three months in the past (a markedly anxious time in my life) — which is why the huge loss fully caught me without warning. It will probably final three to 6 months however the silver lining is that telogen effluvium may be reversed.
“Simply know that reversing hair loss is an extended recreation,” Shalom stated. “We’re speaking six months minimal.” Oh, hell no was my intestine response. After a litany of anxious occasions, I couldn’t deal with extra handfuls of hair. If I might pace this up with some modern-day drugs, I used to be recreation.
Since my hair was “caught” in a resting section, my remedy was designed to reset the scalp atmosphere and nudge the follicles to develop once more. I reclined within the examination chair as Shalom parted my hair into sections and cleansed the realm with an antiseptic liquid. Step one was injecting my scalp (many occasions) with PRP created from my very own blood, which accommodates progress components the physique makes use of for therapeutic. Shalom swears by his double-spin, double-chamber PRP system, which he says yields a cleaner, higher-concentration product. My scalp was a bit of bloody, however thanks to some pokes of lidocaine, the injections have been comparatively painless. However honest warning, the temple space generally is a little spicy.
Subsequent got here stamping my scalp from hairline to crown with a medical-grade microneedling system, creating microchannels (or mini-tears) to stimulate collagen and blood move whereas growing absorption of the hero ingredient: proprietary exosomes. Shalom rubbed the liquid, saved in a small vial, into my scalp along with his gloved fingertips. As soon as remedy was full, my hair appeared moist with a faint blood-red hue and felt a bit sticky, nevertheless it was nothing a baseball cap couldn’t cover. Aftercare directions have been easy: Don’t wash for twenty-four hours and persist with the ketoconazole shampoo, which I’d already been utilizing 3 times per week to stop additional thinning. “PRP and exosomes are probably the most superior regenerative mixtures we’ve in hair restoration proper now,” Shalom stated. “It’s minimally invasive, biologically pure and designed to assist the scalp perform optimally.”
However exosomes include caveats. They aren’t FDA-approved for hair loss, and the analysis consists principally of small research involving just some sufferers. The problem isn’t security, however uncertainty. Consultants don’t absolutely perceive what’s in exosomes or what causes their results. With remedies operating upward of $1,500 per session (which is what I paid), some critics name it an costly gamble. Nonetheless, frantic and fearful, taking motion outweighed the danger. I used to be keen to attempt something.
So, did it work? Nothing occurs in a single day in hair restoration, so all I might do was wait. Every week later, the shedding slowed to half. Two weeks in, my hair felt stronger — and so did I. For the primary time in months, I wasn’t afraid to drag my hair again or run my fingers by means of it with out counting what got here away. At my one month follow-up, Shalom pointed to his trichoscope display. Child hairs. Plenty of them sprouting up throughout my scalp. The hair was coming again. And with it, the arrogance I assumed I’d misplaced.
