(((Mly3e))) Sweetie, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hadn't seen your first thread until now. I don't want to give you false hope but I do want to share my experience in details I didn't share. If you didn't see my thread on hairloss, I'll go dig it up and give you the link below. Let me know.
When I discovered my bald patch (I didn't catch it during the "thinning stage" if at all there was one. But I think there had to be, coz I didn't lose clumps of hair. I didn't even lose a whole braid...which is what you'd have expected. I was wearing braids and redoing them regularly. Any hair I might've seen, I assumed was regular shedding...or hair that had been shed while my hair was braided...so I didn't pay much attention. Also I was touching up the braids one at a time, while watching TV so not paying attention much. And since I never did take all the braids out... it'd have been hard to notice thinning. As you might guess from the first pic I posted, I discovered the patch when I started to part my hair to braid it. /images/graemlins/cry3.gif This was the first time I'd undone all my braids, washed and was getting ready to rebraid.)
Back to what I was saying....
When I found the patch, I noticed it itched when I ate. I have shared on other sections of this board about discovering I had Candida Related Complex...a susceptibility to candida overgrowth (a fungus) if I ate certain foods. For years I had no clue why yeast infections were a part of life for me. It wasn't until by chance I learned of a naturopath in the UK (after I discovered her booklet) and found out that some pple's internal environment is so messed up that candida albicans, a fungus that lives in all of us, but which lives dormantly can overgrow in some pple and cause all sorts of symptoms; some obviously fungal, others not so obvious. The thing that led to the intrigue that led to me reading on and realizing I might've found a solution to recurrent yeast infections, wasn't the yeast infections themselves, but a rash I developed on my hand that looked like eczema (which I've had before, but only on my eyelids) but didn't respond to eczema treatments. In fact, creams seemed to just sit on top of this madly itching rash but not give relief. The naturopath warned against steroid creams (cortisones) stating that they are addictive and although they give relief, you wind up needing more of them every time the condition returned. So she had a natural cream that had as the main ingredient chamomile and hyssop for topical use, and she preached a change of diet - eliminating foods that feed the fungus - while taking supps that build your immunity and flora bacteria (she believed it was a depletion of good bacteria that allowed the fungus to grow out of control). In less than a few months of following her regimen, the rash was gone, my health improved, my metabolism, and yeast infections became a thing of the past. Never saw eczema...and I was no longer the sickly thing that caught the flu every flu season. In other words, I had found a cure that worked and that didn't sentence me to dependence on meds. After a while I didn't need the cream.
So when I started getting this itchiness on bald patches when I eat, because I'm a big believer in nutritional healing, and because sometimes I thought I felt small little bumps on the bald patch, I immediately suspected candida. I will confess that I didn't always stick to my "new diet". In fact, because you don't get a reaction right away, I'd cheat a lot. But cheating, does take you backwards...albeit slowly. So I did wonder if I'd gone too far with my sneaking in the forbidden foods here or there. I just had never had it on my scalp. And you will know that I don't play when it comes to my hair, coz after I got my allergy test, I have not been tempted to cheat ONCE! But I'm jumping the gun here. Back up a little.
When I suspected candida, I immediately did a search online to find out about candida and hairloss. I found a forum that mentioned it and it talked of mixing coconut oil with caprylic acid (coconut is the source of caprylic acid - a natural antifungal agent) and applying to the scalp. I even found a doctor in Arizona online who knew about candida and hair loss, and called his office from the East Coast to find out if he thought it might be my problem. I didn't actually speak to him but left a message and his nurse called back to say if it was behind my ear, it most probably was. Well it was behind my ear...but I didn't think that my location was exactly what he meant, plus I had other areas that were not directly behind my ear. But you know how you see what you want to see if it'll give you hope; behind become a relative term so that even the crown is "behind" if you look at it from a certain angle. So that led me to really look into an allergy test. I wasn't eating any of the foods I originally avoided so why did my scalp itch, specifically those spots after I ate???
Perfect timing... A friend told me about
www.immunolabs.com and introduced me to her doctor who's a member. Sure enough I found my staple diet was food my body was sensitive to, and changed my diet. I also massaged oils as my thread mentioned...and things reversed. Although my doctor thinks stress had a lot to do with it (I lost my dear brother about that time), I am convinced diet had a lot to do with it too.
So if you're open to an allergy test, I highly recommend one. Another thing I did was I switched to all natural products and I finish my wash with an ACV + water + EO rinse. The EOs I add are Rosemary, Lavendar...and well, not an essential oil but liquid Sage. I don't put anything on my scalp...and was making a spritz of the same recipe as my rinse (minus the sage) but with glycerin and geranium rose added...and using that on my hair. I also tried to minimize stress as much as possible by keeping a positive attitude. I also read everything I could get my hands on on hairloss...and massaging the scalp was a big part of my regimen. Most sources said when pple start losing their hair, they are afraid to mess with their scalp...but that that's when it's most vital.
When my scalp was sore...coz it would hurt sometimes, I tried the coconut oils/caprylic acid application at night then I'd wash my hair in the morning. I found the less stuff I had on my head, the less it itched. I still don't know if candida was to blame at all...but I figured I had nothing to lose by "treating" it with a natural product that we all use as a leave-in or treatment. I cannot confirm if that's what stopped the soreness...because you must remember I was eating differently too.
Oh Mly3e, I really understand where you're coming from. In my pics, I showed one spot. The first I found but I had at least four spots. The one I tracked was the first I found. The others took longer to respond to the remedy...but they all have now. Because they all responded at different times, the hairlengths are not the same. They were mostly in the back which did help some coz I could wear a puff...but I also had a small one on my crown and it has the shortest hair of all the previously bald patches but it's surrounded by much longer hair and is easy to disguise coz it's small.
So please take heart. PM me if you have any questions. I'm trying to think fast so I might be missing sth...so ask away. I know you might feel hopeless, right now. I did. My patches were a slippery smooth...like an old scar. I never thought hair could pierce through that hide. It did. And I believe yours will too. Sorry if there are typos. I've got a splitting headache and I am typing fast to get as much info as possible out before going to bed. Please don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have. If I don't know the answer, I'll try and find out. /images/graemlins/kiss.gif
Hugs galore,
