Worries about Hair Loss

(This is not my head!)

For years and years prior to my thyroid cancer, people who cut my hair had been commenting about how much hair fell out when my hair was washed. If I had just listened to them I might have found out a lot sooner about the trouble brewing in my thyroid. Instead I would just say something like, "It’s always been like this. Don’t worry about it."

One of the wonderful side-effects of having half my thyroid removed and going on Synthroid was virtually no more hair loss. I had gotten used to not having to clean out the drain after taking a shower.

That is, until about 2 weeks ago. At that point, once again I seemed to be losing prodigious quantities of hair.

I finally sent Deborah an e-mail message about this asking if this could be caused by the need to regulate my medication and whether I could go bald from so much hair loss. She confirmed that I was definitely not going bald, agreed to check on when my next blood test needed to be done, and told me that hair loss like this is normally associated with stress or trauma and that it is usually temporary.

Then it dawned on me that just two weeks ago I had fallen and hit my head, resulting in a large goose-egg on the back of my head. I had also been agonizing over the job thing for the past few weeks. So, yes, I could put a check by both stress and trauma.

I hope to find that as the final soreness leaves my head and I settle into my new old job my hair is happy once again and is content to just stay on my head. I don’t want to be one of those old ladies who had to tease her hair to conceal the bald spots. What vanity...