Hey all! I'm new to the website and really nervous to post on here. I've read a lot of your stories and they were all very inspiring! I was hoping to see if anyone could give me any advice or words of encouragement?

I started losing my hair when I was 12. Around this age I was slightly anorexic and I played many sports. I also got my period around 13 years old. In high school, I played varsity tennis and soccer and was really involved in school... typical honors student. I would get incredibly dizzy through out the day or through practices to the point where I couldn't see anything (it would just be blinding white light) and I'd feel really hot and my heart would beat so fast!! I once had an ECG done on me by paramedics at a school assembly at they discovered I had a sinus arrhythmia. My periods stopped being irregular at about age 14 as well. I would get so dizzy from standing up that I would faint at church or waiting in lines. My hair started getting so thin that you could see all my scalp. In college, the ailments continued.. I would be so tired all the time that I would lie in bed all the time. I could never concentrate in my classes or during studying. Even just getting up to get a glass of water would require so much effort and I'd get so dizzy and nauseous just standing up.

Over those ten years I would see so many doctors and they would always just ignore me.. because why should they listen to a teenager girl.. and blame the hair loss on stress or styling damage. They would tell me to just change my shampoo. I never styled my hair at all, I would just let it air dry. I tried a mountain of shampoos and conditioners and I never stressed.

Finally, this past year I forced my doctors (general, dermatologist, endocrinologist) to run more blood work because I barely have any hair left. My thyroid and hormones were all perfectly in range, but my ferritin level and vitamin D level were sub-clinically low. I'm not sure what my vitamin D level was, but my ferritin level was at 8, and because the range my general physician and endo used were from 8 to 150 they didn't even bother to tell me that it was really low! Finally my dermatologist pointed it out that it should be over 50!! She told me to start taking Feosol 65 mg once a day (I got the CVS kind) I didn't listen to her and took two a day instead and after one month my level went from 8 to 21. It's been another month now and I've been taking 3-4 Feosol 65 mg tablets a day and one of those I take with a vitamin C tablet. I'm planning on going to get tested again sometime this week, so hopefully I see a big jump.

The endocrinologist also told me I have sub clinical hypothyroidism...she doesn't want to put me on medication for it because she wants to hold off on it for ten years? I don't know why? I think she doesn't want me to take something I have to take every day for the rest of my life.. but hello.. I have to do that with iron now anyway...

SO what I don't understand is that some people think that low iron causes hypothyroidism and others believe that it is the other way around and that hypothyroidism causes low iron.... so which way is it? Does anyone know?

I'm really worried that because my hair loss has been going on for so long that it'll never grow back... does anyone have any experience about this?

And my hair falls out with the white bulbs at the end attached... if that matters? It's also in a diffuse pattern. And It is constantly itchy!! I get little pimples and scabs all over it! I use Head and shoulders for dry scalp and I think that helps.. my dermatologist gave my fluocinide to use on my scalp, but I hate using it because it is so time consuming. And everytime they go away they come back after a couple days! She told me I have folliculitis.. does that ever go away?

My sister has nice hair and my mom has super think hair, as do other women in my family. So I don't think it's genetics.

I don't know.. I'm so depressed about this... it's taking a huge toll on my confidence and relationship.

I'm sorry for the long post, but if anyone can please offer some advice and answer some of my questions I would really appreciate it!