Wednesday, March 30, 2011

OMG!!! ...now hair loss

So this is something that I have just noticed...you may remember form previous posts that way back on Sept 09 when I went for my first French haircut, that she basically cut my hair a lot shorter than I'm used to an since then I have been trying to grow my hair back to the longer length it was. For the past 18 months though my hair has been really dry and I put that down to the climate here. Because of that I got it regularly trimmed and keep it in a short bob up until December 2010 when I decided it was time to grown it longer again in readiness for going home where it often in a ponytail due to the heat and humidity in summer.

Well, imagine my surprise a few weeks ago when I tried to put it into a ponytail and finally realised that I have probably lost over 1/3 of my hair. I always had loads of the stuff, to the point were I used to ask the hairdresser to thin it out. I have no idea exactly when this started happening and have only just come across an article last night which seems to suggest predisolne is the cause. Didn't know of that little side effect!!

I restarted Pred again last December, but that also coincided with a trip to the hairdressers that wrecked a heap of hair due to over processing, so I didn't make the connection with predisolne until now. It's been over 3 months and the hair I had expected to grow back hasn't.

So a little research last night lead me to discover this...some people lost about 1/3 of their hair over the course of 6 weeks while tapering down on pred. When their hair grew back, it grew back curly instead of straight and the texture was different.

OMG!!!

Well, I'm tapering down...although I severely doubt I'll get off Pred as I'm bleeding already at 30mg and have been since I tried to drop to 40mg. Once I get back to Australia I have an appointment with my GI, but that isn't until 10th May. A long wait time. Oh well, what can you do?

Another thing I've read is that in general medicines can affect hair loss. Maybe it is Pred, maybe it's not, but I'm missing a heap of hair!!! .... hopefully it will grow back soon...we're leaving here on Friday, so hopefully by 7.30pm on Saturday night, I'll be about to arrive back on home soil :D ....maybe I'll even get back into remission after 2 years of hell...well a girl can dream :D

5 comments:

  1. Paula,

    I never knew about hair loss in this context.

    I hope you will be OK.

    Of course this may present the opportunity of trying on a lot of french wigs and hats. You might discover a new you!

    Wishing you luck and happiness.

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  2. Yep, this is true! I was on Pred for a short period of time and it killed my hair and caused me to have migraines. It dried my hair out really bad. It was weird because it seemed like certain sections of my hair would get really really dry. If you do get to go off the Pred, it does eventually go back to normal. I've been off Pred for about a year and a half now and my hair is starting to go back to normal. Have you ever tried Asacol? It is a med used for UC.

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  3. @ Arkayeff - Oh, I'm fine :D - I just used to have really thick hair...just another UC thing eh to add to the list :D It doesn't bother me too much as there are no bald patches..just thinning :D - it was going to happening anyway...age gets to us all

    @ Jodi - ah, so you too. I'll do some research on Asacol as my meds haven't worked for 2 years in France, so hopefully when I get back home I can get sorted with something that does work... the dreaded colonoscopy will raise it's ugly head though..as everyone want to have a little look and see :( - oh well, I do what I have to do :D

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  4. @ Jodi - Just looked - Asacol is mesalamine which stopped working for me :(

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  5. It's got to be the pred...I had a head of great thick beautiful hair until my first round of pred. Mine grew back in curly but it's never been the same. i thought it was just me. then my mom came down with an auto immune disorder and will be on pred for the rest of her life to save her eye site..sure enough it happened to her as well. I finally cut my hair short because the pony tail was so sad looking. It's been 6 months and it is better but now with asacol and rowasa I am still losing hair. It's hard to deal with and feels like a knife in your self esteem. Coconut oil rubbed on the hair and left under a dryer and then washed out in the am helps with the texture and dryness. Best of luck Paula

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