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the big stress debate
Second posting in one day. Wowser !
Right then... its been said before and im going to mention it again ... stress.
So, is it a co-incidence that at my most stressed i have a little hair loss on my beard, it stabilises (sort of) and then wham i have one of the most stressful things happen in my life 8 months later... spots in my hair appear and get gradually worse. I seem to be perpetually stressed nowdays, just a kind of undercurrent. Never seem to be peaceful for a long duration. I think with us alopecians maybe our bodies dont know how to reset back to peaceful. Also as much as anyone says they are fine with alopecia i really think it has a dramatic effect on our psychological wellbeing. Christ its a huge deal in our society..... we can accept, of course, but part of accepting is also realising that it is a huge deal.
On the whole most of the people i have spoken to with alopecia can link it to some psychological or stressful incident. Also i think some people have sub conscious stress. Look at dreams.... the power of the mind is quite something in a dream... (kids stop reading now), look at a wet dream... they effect your body from a dream without any physical contact... could certain dreams not effect your hair as well.
The stumper i guess is when children get alopecia. They on the whole are pretty pure and unstressed, but i think we underestimate parental stress reflecting onto the children.
Anyway i know some people get pissy with the stress talk, even i do (hate it when colleagues bring it up), hope i havent offended, But id love to hear from people.
Thanks
M
Right then... its been said before and im going to mention it again ... stress.
So, is it a co-incidence that at my most stressed i have a little hair loss on my beard, it stabilises (sort of) and then wham i have one of the most stressful things happen in my life 8 months later... spots in my hair appear and get gradually worse. I seem to be perpetually stressed nowdays, just a kind of undercurrent. Never seem to be peaceful for a long duration. I think with us alopecians maybe our bodies dont know how to reset back to peaceful. Also as much as anyone says they are fine with alopecia i really think it has a dramatic effect on our psychological wellbeing. Christ its a huge deal in our society..... we can accept, of course, but part of accepting is also realising that it is a huge deal.
On the whole most of the people i have spoken to with alopecia can link it to some psychological or stressful incident. Also i think some people have sub conscious stress. Look at dreams.... the power of the mind is quite something in a dream... (kids stop reading now), look at a wet dream... they effect your body from a dream without any physical contact... could certain dreams not effect your hair as well.
The stumper i guess is when children get alopecia. They on the whole are pretty pure and unstressed, but i think we underestimate parental stress reflecting onto the children.
Anyway i know some people get pissy with the stress talk, even i do (hate it when colleagues bring it up), hope i havent offended, But id love to hear from people.
Thanks
M
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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The only time I have a re-occurance is when I'm stressed to the max. When I was first diagnosed with alopecia areata I was going through some major issues in my life. I had just had a new born and his father was M.I.A. I was struggling financially, then boom! There it was my first patch, then my second, and my third the size of a grape fruit. It wasn't until then that I sought help and was finally diagnosed. Received the cortisone shots for a period of time and recession began. But not for long - maybe about two years, then my next stressful event came when my relationship ended. Then recession again, now here I am today strugging like you wouldn't believe trying to take care of 2 kids now joining alpeciaworld.com to try figure out what the hell I can do to control this. What am I doing wrong? Did I eat something wrong? Am I using the wrong shampoo? Is it a combination? I just don't understand why there isn't a cure for this.
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Permalink Reply by Mark on
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Hi Jane,
Thanks for the reply. Seems stress has played its hand in your alopecia. Ive tried the diets, i actually was on a detox for a month and then slowly introduced foods. Didnt work. In fact i got more patches doing that than when i was drinking and eating whatever i wanted.
Id really suggest getting your stress under control if poss. Ive been meditating in the mornings, even if the aopecia doesnt clear up its helping with my state of mind.
Theres a guy who writes books detailing really simple meditating techniques. HE's called Barry Long... just google him.
i was going to ask, the cortisone shots... did they help ? Im thinking about havong them. Did they stop the spots getting larger ? What did your regrowth look like at first and how long did it take to come back fully ?
Thanks
Mark
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Permalink Reply by MattiasP on
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Hi Jane and Mark!
I think this is a really interesting issue. Like you said, Mark, a lot of people don't like to hear about alopecia connected to stress, although it's my opinion too that many alopecians seem to have experienced stressful events or periods prior to the debut of alopecia. Well, it's still so undetermined what causes the condition, so who knows.
In my case, I'm almost certain that stress helped trigger alopecia. (Although there are of course many reasons for alopecia per se.) I was under a lot of pressure at work, had some quite negative things happening in my personal life and at the same time I was training really hard preparing for a competition. This left very little time left for sleep and I didn´t recover between training sessions. In stead of getting stronger I just felt mentally and physically exhausted for quite a long time, and hey presto; I got a lot of small circular patches in my beard. A little over a month later it developed into AU.
So yes, I connect the dots (no pun intended) between stress and alopecia. Of course I can really only speak for myself in that matter, although I've heard others talk about similar experiences. What I try to do now is not taking everything so seriously and try to stay clear of negative stress (easier said than done, yes) and that has left me enjoying life more and feeling a lot better. No signs of regrowth though. Thanks for the tip about Barry Long. I haven't tried meditating yet, but I've thought about it.
Hope this looong post makes any sense to anyone. And that I too didn't offend anyone talking about stress. Would be great to hear from others about their thoughts on the topic.
Take care
/Mattias
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hey man,
yeah very interesting. Do you still feel an undercurrent of stress now ? I think the aloepcia of course perpetuates stress as its a big thing to deal with.
Have you had any regrowth...? Do you get the tiny white hairs ?
cheers,
M
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Hey,
well it´s been a stressful year since I got alopecia, it all happened so fast. A lot of questions from friends and co-workers and also people who wonders but don't ask since they think it might be cancer or something. People who haven't seen me in a while hardly recognize me and so on. Many issues to deal with. My appearance drastically changed. But now I feel that it's kind of ok, i'm beginning to accept that this is the way it is. I recognize what you wrote about not being peaceful for a long duration, though. Feel the same thing.
The only regrowth is a couple of white hairs in my face. Hardly nothing. Yours growing back or falling off now? I heard that for some people it tends to get worse in winter and better in summer.
Funny thing about dreams; in dreams I still look like the hairy old me. Dissapointed when I wake up :)
/Mattias
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mine seems to be quite slow. i do seem to always have that stressful feeling and it is very easy for me to spiral. I think theres a connection with cortisol and the adrenals as well. I was on prednisolone steroid tablets to help with the alopecia. It caused really bad eczema and twitches.... its suppose to help eczema so found that a bit weird. Maybe too much cortisol and adrenaline in your body causes it to go haywire. For the kids that have it maybe those two are in their blood stream in high amounts from birth.... its just a theory.
I have lots of white hair in my patches but only a few black ones. Just hoping i get lucky and they turn back normal.
Keep hope buddy. Try meditation and really calm your body and mind down, even if it means sacrificing stuff.
give me a shout of you ever want to chat or you have new theories or news
cheers,
M
ps do you drink / smoke much ? whats your diet like ?
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Yeah I've been thinking about the cortisol and adrenaline as well, it makes sense that there could be a connection.
Have you tried any other treatments except prednisolone steroid tablets and the detox? All I have done was trying a gluten-free diet for a couple of months.Made no difference.
I'm a social drinker, but mostly kind of moderate. I was a heavy user of snus (swedish wet tobacco) before, but I quit in january, don't smoke.
Sounds good that you have a lot of white hairs in your patches, as I have understood regrowth starts with that and then the pigmented hairs come after.
Yeah you to if you want to exchange thoughts or ideas or whatever.
See you!
/Mattias
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ive tried a lot of stuff.... chinese medicine, steroid pills, calosol & diets. Nothing worked except the pred pills. I did see some dark hair regrowth after that but disappeared after i stopped.
If anyone else is reading this DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON CALOSOL. Basically i was using it for a couple of months and nothing. They basically have two women on their main page website who they claim they have helped get back all their hair. One of the women is actually on here and on her profile she admits it was co-incident that her hair came back after using calosol as it disappeared again after some months.
I put up a message on the calosol forum saying that their 'calendar girl' had lost all her hair and admits calosol did nothing. They instantly removed my message and banned me from the site. So much for free speech !
A cream cannot work on alopecia, it goes much deeper than that.
Hope you see some positive signs soon dude.
speak soon,
M
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