Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow Or Am I Healing?

 

For the last few months, I have been experiencing hair growth on my head.  At this stage, it is still fine blo
nde hairs thinly scattered in an un-uniform way.  When I did have hair it was dark brown and thick; also the few years before going universalis I was seeing grey hairs!!  I was colouring my hair as to hide these nasty greys.  Funny thing about looking back; back then I was worried about hiding grey hairs.  Then it was hiding the bald spots. 

Why is it growing this way? Why is it blonde? Why is the growth so scattered?  Why now?  What is going on inside my body to cause such an effect?  How long will it last?  Will it all come back?  Will it stop growing again?

I do not have any answers to these questions.  However, I do have a few thoughts.

1.       Living with alopecia is unpredictable.  One day you have a full head of hair, then the next you are noticing more hair in the shower or in your hairbrush or even scattered on your pillow.  You do not think much of it at first.  Maybe it is the season, like the dog shedding its coat.  Then one day while getting ready and brushing your hair you notice visually or maybe it was running your hands through your hair; that smooth skin where it was not before. 

That spot maybe grows back or maybe that spot gets bigger.  Maybe that spot turns to more spots.  Then the roller coaster ride starts; more spots, some grow bigger, some grow back, it all grows back, it all fall out….. and on and on the ride goes.

I call it The Unpredictable Alopecia Ride.  The one roller coaster ride that changes constantly and is different for everyone that is on it.  Not only the physical aspect of living with alopecia but also the emotional toll it takes.  How each person with alopecia chooses to live with this disease is theirs alone; but at least we are joined by the disease itself.

2.     My other thought lately has also to do with what is happening inside our bodies.  Why is this autoimmune disease attacking my hair follicles?  What causes autoimmunity?  In addition, how can I help my body in such a way to lessen the attacks?

I am not doctor, or even work in the medical field. However, I am curious and an amateur researcher.  When a topic interests me, I tend to fall down the rabbit hole of learning more.  When I was looking at how to lose weight, with years of doing the calories in, calories out; eat less, exercise more diet.  I needed to try something else.  I fell into the world of intermittent fasting, and down the rabbit hole, I went to learn more about this “diet”.  A diet it is not, it is a timing method of eating and not eating. It is about giving your body the necessary rest it requires to heal, to regenerate, and to detox.  We have all fasted at some point in our lives maybe we just did not recognise it.  We fast while we sleep; from dinner to breakfast, we are fasting.  Intermittent fasters just expand that time.  Some of us skip breakfast and wait til lunch, others will just have one meal a day.  Me personally, I never was a big breakfast eater, and I like the idea of having my one big meal at dinnertime and with an appetizer like snack before that meal.  And I love the flexibility and the relationship with food this has given me.  Especially when I saw the weight loss happening.

Nevertheless, what did I learn in this journey?  Fasting is A LOT more than weight loss.  When given the time to let my body rest from digesting food I am letting other actions to happen.  My body is healing from the inside out.  How does that happen with fasting?  When we fast we lower insulin which then allows the body to tap into our fat stores to keep our body running.  A process of ketosis begins as our body is breaking down fat into energy.  Then a wonderful thing happens… Autophagy.  Autophagy allows our body to break down and reuse old cell parts so our cells can operate more efficiently. It's a natural cleaning out process that begins when our cells are stressed or deprived of nutrients. Researchers are studying autophagy's role in potentially preventing and fighting disease. 

Diseases maybe like alopecia? Is this what is causing the regrowth?  Am I healing my alopecia?  From what I have learnt is that autoimmunity is an inflammation response in our bodies.  Well if fasting is, healing inflammation is it possible that it is healing the inflammation that is causing my body to attack my hair follicles?

I am not here to tell you to do intermittent fasting.  But it does not hurt to try does it?  Even if my body is healing from the inside out or not; and all the science is proving that it is; the weight loss is great.  I have been fasting for 2 years now (October 2022) the first year I saw great weight loss but this past year I have been at a stall but this was when I started noticing other changes in my body like hair growth.  Time will only tell if the fasting is indeed making the change or is it The Unpredictable Alopecia ride. My hair could stop growing at any time again, but at least I am giving my body a fighting chance to heal.

For now I am walking around with fuzzies growing and watching them grow longer.  I am an experiment of one and I will continue to observe what is happening until such time I am done with watching.