Since my early-mid-forties, I've been experiencing a gradual hair loss centering around the crown of my head and working gradually outward. So what? you ask; except there's no real reason for me to lose my hair. Neither side of my family exhibited male pattern baldness.
However, for an equivalent time I've been on a medication for a condition I'm not even sure I have. As it turns out, one of the side effects of this medication is that it deprives hair follicles of nutrients,y and people who are on this medication report their hair falling out in clumps.
Hmm.
Not only did I start losing hair, but its texture changed. My hair became dry and brittle. Hmm again.
So for the past week I've been gradually weaning myself from this medication. I've cut my dosage in half, and next week I'll cut it in half again, and so on until I'm off it entirely.
I strongly suspect many of my "symptoms" were caused by allergies, for which I'm undergoing--and this is exactly the word--a series of weekly injections. Those things sting like wasps, but my allergy symptoms are receding. As my reactions to allergens subside, I seem to feel better and better. Or perhaps this is the much-maligned "placebo effect." Whichever, I don't need meds which will turn me into Yul Brynner; I need to deal with my issues in a more healthy fashion.
I'll keep an eye on my behavior, of course. If I start running around nekkid at the mall (at least any other day than Samhain) then I'll see Doc about an alternative.
Will my hair grow back? I don't know. I hope so. I used to have this thick, wavy head of Evangelical-quality coiffishness. I would like to have it back. Maybe I'll grow a mid-life ponytail.
