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Did your white hair stay white?
I know there have been many questions about regrowth, so I apologize if this is redundant. Most of my hair fell out over the past couple of years, but I have had some regrowth. Currently I have thick white hair in a strip about three inches wide on top, and sparse white hairs over much of the rest of my head. I have perhaps 10-12 normal pigmented hairs left that seem to have never fallen out. I last shaved in August, and my white hair is over an inch long. Since the white hair shows no signs of becoming pigmented, I'm wondering if the best I can hope for is a head of white hair (and I would be thrilled with that at this point, though it doesn't seem likely). To complicate matters, I am 47 and was getting a noticeable amount of gray before this started, but I resist the idea that I actually had all this gray and it was revealed when alopecia struck--I wasn't a skunk before, I really wasn't! And bare spots now have white hair. I also have vitiligo, which has erased much of the pigment in my body, but I haven't observed it to clearly affect hair pigment.
Does alopecia just turn whatever hair there is white in some people, and that's that?
Definitely the white hair is an advantage if/when I choose to shave my head, because even the thick stubble is pretty invisible.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lorna on
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Hi mine grew back totally white two years ago, I have a full head of hair now. However i now have a mixture of dark and white hair. The dark is mainly at the front.
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Permalink Reply by hoofpick on
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I am coming up on my hair loss birthdate(Jan) and my birthday, happy birthday (57), my hair started falling out in Jan 2014 and continued til the end of March 2014, when about 85 percent of my long little past shoulder length, thick hair all fell out. I have colored my hair more and more since I was 48 or so, it was gray I thought, since I never let it grow all the way out. But sometime in June 2014 slowly but surely it started regrowing back in, bits and spots in places, filling in slowly at first, when it started growing out in length I noticed it was shock white. Not gray. Only some areas had some of my orginal color which was light brown. Very little of my birth color is left. I wondered about the white myself. It is staying white though and it has pretty much filled in on my scalp. Just a little dime size area not growing, parts are starting to grow out in length, slow, more on the front and top, not much length on the back of my head. But it is slowly coming in, not growing like normal, which would be all the same length. So it is staying white, I am now coloring it again, about every 5 wks. I was diagnosed with AA in April of 2014. I asked about what my options were at the Derm.(who diagnosed it) and decided to go to a natural Dr., because deep down I think its something toxic. I did not want to do more toxic drugs and chemicals. In Jan. 2014 the same time I was losing my hair, I started having food allergies, one incident,sent me to the ER. So that is why I started going to a natural dr..I totally have changed my diet, due to the extensive food allergy test, I found out what the foods were that were causing the problems, it is still a long process. But I am gluten free, dairy free, I kind have known that dairy caused some problems because before any of this started I had stopped drinking milk. I also have some other foods I have to avoid that the normal person would not have a problem with. It gets tiresome sometimes when people say" thats not bad for you", I say, No, it’s not but it is for me! I am so thankful to get my hair back, its got a long way to go but I am so grateful, as we all know this is a long hard journey of learning new things. It sure has changed how I view situtations, gave me more empathy that I don’t think I really had at least not the way I see things now, the important things in life.
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Hi!
Your story is the most similar to my own of all those I've read anywhere.
I lost all of my hair over the course of the last three years. That being said, it grew back in the order of loss and all white. It started on November of 2011. I was 51. At age 31, I found my first spot of vitiligo. I believe both of my onsets were precipitated by a "perfect storm" of extreme duress.
I have complete and full regrowth. The white was shocking as I had minimal gray strands beforehand with no sections of gray, just a few stray grays.
White or not, I'd like to keep it.
Maybe you and I can exchange contact info if you don't mind. I've not had anyone like me/like you come forth on any forum before. P.S. I dye mine every two weeks with a non-permanent dye adding additive drops to the dye or the color is weak. The additive drops WORK. I am called black-haired all the time even though I use dark or medium brown.
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Permalink Reply by Patrick on
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Several of my bald spots filled in with fine white hair. My hair is normally dark brown so my head started looking like Dalmatian fur, or so I've been told. I now bleach my hair white so the alopecia is less noticeable. I'm 55 so it looks somewhat age appropriate. I still have several bald spots but again less noticeable with a white head. I haven't shaved in two years so that's a plus. I just lost my eyebrows so I'm wearing larger dark frame eye glasses. Things could be worse.
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Permalink Reply by Lauren@CornerofHopeandMane on
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Mine started white and gradually got more pigmented. It was never 100% back to normal, though - the color got ashier, somehow!
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Hello! Long time since I have been on here.. but still get notifications and when I saw this topic..well i have had first hand experience! In October 2012, I lost all the hair on my head within 2 months..completely bald for about 4-6 months or so... then i started to have regrowth. White regrowth. My hair color pre alopecia totalis was blonde brown. 98% of my hair regrowth is now pure white. I have a few dark patches (black) at the back of my head that pop up, but i sort that out at the hairdresser every month. I am slowly coming to accept my "platinum blonde" hair, and know I am lucky that it actually grew back. So I am very thankful for that.
I don't think there is any right answer for you.. as everyone is different..but just wanted to share my experience. As when it first happened to me..i was looking for answers from people with white hair regrowth too as i didnt understand what was going on...
Good luck! :-)
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Permalink Reply by Braeden Miguel on
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I am 22, do not have vitiligo, and I have noticed with the most recent hair growth my pigment has been primarily white. It has been growing back slowly over the past 6 months. While the majority of my hair is white there is an increasing amount of dark hair growing around the back of my head, which was originally white or non existent.
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I have white hairs too but the ones I have now are taking much longer to become pigmented then the ones that first popped up.
Back in August a small patch on the top of my head filled in with white hairs very slowly, and they were very fine and I was told not to touch them because they can fall out very easliy. About a month later, the white hairs filled in and within a week they grew and then the pgment came out. Now that patch is gone and it is filled in completely as if it was never bald.
My largest patch which is about the size of a saucer and a half lol is starting to have white hairs after a year of nothing! Its so slow though, I was told it could take about a year for that to grow or fill in completely. I mean it took a month and half for a a five cent sized patch to fill in. But it is a good sign!! I think so anyway, even though some people get them and then they fall out. Alopecia is so hit and miss and I think that is what is so frustrating about the whole thing.
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My daughter has had Alopecia Universalis for about 5 years. She had these white hairs that grew in all the time and she shaved them. She has had a great deal of regrowth in a darker version of her real color (but it is not lightening up) over the last 6 months, but the few hairs that are white remain white. She is 22 years old.
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Permalink Reply by Lori Powers on
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Although I don't have massive regrowth with this bout (which started in 2008), back in 1996 when I was originally diagnosed, I had 100% regrowth and it was all white and very coarse. The only other Auto Immune disorder I have is psoriasis, but it seems to be in 'remission' right now.
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Permalink Reply by Inez on
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Dear GardenJess, and others... It is said its common and typical for alopecia areata that regrowing hairs is white. The white has nothing to do with vitiligo. The reason why hair grows back white, is because the pigmented hairs are more likely to be attacked by our immune system. That is what specialists say.
I myself do not have vitiligo or any other auto immune disorder. I lost all of my hair in a few weeks time, age 47. It grew back after 2 years, entirely. And never fell out again, until this day (11 years later).
At first it was really really white, like santa's beard and a few months later, the pigmented hair showed up. Funny to see how it grew in spots juist like the spots that lead to baldness. When I do not dye my hair, I look like a dalmation dog. Thank God for hairdressers and colour-rinses. Love from the Netherlands
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Permalink Reply by Georgia Stephens on
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I have not yet noticed it but after using colors you can change them to black.
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