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hair loss??

nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

hi- i have been high raw for like 4 months, and in the last 2 weeks, i have been experienceing excessive hair loss….what could this be due to? this has NEVER been a problem in my life…could it be a detox thing?

thanks!

Comments

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    Me, too, nycgirl! Since I’m not eating less protein or nutrients than most here, I can’t think of what caused mine, except that I came off some horrible medications about 6 months ago.

    Every so often someone asks the same questions and to be honest, it unnerves me to hear people say “oh it’s detox, it can only be detox”. It’s a meaningless word, thrown around because it seems to make people feel unique. No one has yet given any sort of explanation of this mysterious “detox” is. So I hope to god someone here with some education actually can give you a reasonable answer, because I’ve been crying non-stop for weeks.

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    awww you poor thing!! I hear you about the ‘detox’ thing…but in this case, it might be. Simply because the Mayo website talks about how hair loss can be caused by a sudden change in diet or something like that, but doesn’t manifest for a few months. I am detoxing off Lexapro, and recently went down to talking 1/2 pill every 5 days or even less, and so maybe that could be it???? I am eating enough protein, and enough vitamins, and am taking a b12 supplement….could it be iron? i might be low on iron. Maybe I will start taking a that vegan liquid iron thing—floradix. That helped me when I was pregnant and didn’t constipate me.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    I think skin breakouts, digestive upsets, and some fatigue can be attributed to detox. Viruses and other things that are so-called “detox” I am skeptical about. See a natural doctor or nutritionist. It could be that you accidentally got rid of an important nutrient and might have to—god forbid—take a supplement for it. I would rather be raw, not bald, and take supplements than bald and supplement-free. But that is just me.

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    I’ll read that article, thank you, nycgrrl! What I meant by not liking the “detox” thing is that the word is just bandied about without definition or explanation. So when it’s used like that it literally means nothing. I’m not denying we go through some little hell when first going raw, but I’d sure like to know what causes that flu-like problem. Me, I always thought it might be because our bodies are still pouring out excess gastric juices and bile in anticipation of cooked food. I mean, anyone who’s ever had a tummy bug and had extra digestive fluids know that they’ll end up in the john for a long while, and probably break out, too. It was just a thought. Okay, I’m going to read that article!:-)

    oh, you made me think just now, from the time I first went raw(7 months ago?) until two weeks ago I had the trots pretty badly. I wonder if I wasn’t absorbing my nutrients because of it? Yikes.

  • Not too long ago I read or hear some where that hair loss occur when our body is in need of certain vitamins, because the hair is the one part of our body with less priority for vitamins and minerals thats the first resource to be used. Biotin is the one that help produce keratin that prevent graying and hair loss; it can be found in whole grains. Recommended daily dose is between 150 and 300 mcg. Another important one will be inositol that keep the hair follicles healthy at the cellular level and it is found in whole grains too and daily dose should be 600mg.

    Vitamins A, C, E, B3, B5 and B12 are also needed for a healthy hair but because all the greens, carrot and citric we usually consume is my believe that the ones mention above might be the ones that raw eaters might be lacking.

    Minerals are also essential for healthy hair. Calcium, Iron, chromium, copper, iodine, magnesium, manganese and portassium, selenium, silica, zinc and sulfur are the ones we need to look for a healthy and strong hair.

    Good luck :)

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    I eat plenty of all the minerals yo ulist, and the vitamins, but now I am wondering about biotin…Whfoods.com, my go to source, says that biotin is available in swiss chard, romaine, and carrots, cauliflower and almonds.I have been drinking lots of carrot juice and eating lots of the other veggeis, so my sense is this isn’t the issue.

    WHFoods also says that a pantothenic acid (b5) deficiency can lead to functional biotin deficiency, since biotin needs b5 to work.

    B5 is found in crimini mushrooms (don’t eat tons of them), and cauliflower (rare, as I don’t love it). Reasonably good sources are found in broccoli, tomato and corn.It would take eating a LOT of each of these to even come close to the daily recommended dose, whcih i normally think as being way too high.

    Anyway, it’s all interesting. I might take a broad spectrum iron and b vitamin supplement, like floradix, for a couple weeks and see what happens.

    My scalp is even ‘tingling’!!!

  • your house has been built on bad bricks

    just an analogy, of course,,,,

    consider that as a cooked foodie your body did the best it can with undernourished, cooked cells that the diet provided…your body cells are constantly dying, regenerating….it is a constant daily thing….the body gets rid of the bad cells to make way for new ‘good’ cells

    hair and weight are 2 of the most noticeable things that the body destroys so that it can rebuild stronger….many people on raw diets become painfully thin at first..this is the body clearing away the bad…if those same folk manage to stick it out (even in the face of others worries/concern), they usually find that after a while their bodyweight increases and normalises

    break down, clean and then rebuild using good , raw food, cells

    i think it’s the same with your hair….your body wants to rid itself of its bad stock….if you stick with it, i bet that your hair will become a lot more lush

    stress is also a factor….my mum went through a period in her life where she lost pretty much all the hair on the back of her head…this was most definately stress-related

    stick with it and don’t add to the loss by stressing…your body knows what it’s doing

    hope this helps :o)

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    thanks el-bo-just read this over at gi2mr….:)

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    i just bought a Hair Skin and Nails supplement at the HFS…it has all the b vitamins, some iron, Biotin…

    Within 20 minutes of taking it my scalp tingling disappeared. Weird!!! I am only taking 1 vitamin a day (they recommend 3, but that seems excessive)..so i will take this for a few weeks and report back.

    For those who are interested, it’s made by Futurebiotics and it’s called Hair Skin Nails.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    I have more hair shedding than when I was cooked, but I also have thousands of new baby hairs fuzzing out all over my head and I never had them before either. Do you have any baby hairs popping out?

  • WinonaWinona Raw Newbie

    nycgrrl – do you use shampoo or any hair products? I’d recommend stopping shampoo/conditioner/gel use immediately and use only water to rinse your hair now and in the future. I quite using any products or chemicals and my hair looks much better. Anyway, it’s a thought.

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    thanks zoe for responding-i was hoping you’d stop by and share your experience :) I can’t figure out how to inspect my hair for baby hairs, btu i will definitely find a mirror or ask my hubby to look!!

    Winona-my hair is EXTREMELY oily…if i go without washing it I break out all over my scalp and hair line…so at this point, I am unwilling to go without my shampoo…maybe one day.

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    nycgrrl – Please read this thread http://www.goneraw.com/forums/7/topics/4372 on hair. Look for a post by me (several posts actually are informative but one in particular) that lists the nutrients needed for good hair. I list the nutrients you need and examples of raw food to eat. I recommend including hemp seeds in your diet (they contain almost all the nutrients) and MSM.

    Stress in the number one cause of hair loss – if you are stressed out about losing your hair – you could eat the most nutrient rich raw diet in the world and it wouldn’t help. You need to get that stress under control. Start doing some scalp massages. The head is the last place to get nutrients on the body – the blood doesn’t get there as much as it does to other parts of the body. If you are eating the right things for your hair, you have to get those nutrients up there for your follicules to grow good hair. If you don’t do alot of blood-pumping exericse, you should do scalp massages.

    Secondly what el-bo says is true in a away. The hair that is on your head now is hair that was grown from your former diet. It may be full of toxins. Your body will want to shed these toxins. The only part of your hair that is alive is the part you can’t see in your head – the stuff you can see is dead, dead, dead,

    Also, I don’t know if you want to hear this but yes, please get rid of your shampoo! IT IS the reason it is SO oily. It is not your diet. Shampoo WAY over strips the oils from the hair. It causes overproduction of oil. Your body overproduces the oil because it realizes the natural oils it secreted are gone and the scalp is to dry. In an effort to protect the scalp and hair, it goes into overproducing mode. When you stop shampoo, your scalp will stay in this mode for a few weeks. It will soon realize it doesn’t have to overproduce the oils because there is enough and the oils aren’t being stripped away any more. Pretty soon it will even out and your body will only produce what you need and you will have lovely soft STRONG protected hair. It may not make sense to you now because of your problems but believe me it works. I used to get sores on my scalp too when I was on shampoo – well, no more. Totally gone, normalized oil production, strong hair that looks smooth and healthy with no products whatsoever. I have been doing water rinsing for over year. I have never done anything better for my hair.

    Can i ask what shampoo you are using? I don’t know your history or what your hair is like but my guess is that your shampoo is making your scalp “breakout” too. Did you ever consider you might be allergic to it?

    Keep in mind too it can take a while for hair to recover from hair loss, Keep up a good regime of good raw food, massage and please reconsider your shampoo and keep watch for six months down the road of new raw growth!

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    thanks queen fluff. The reason i don’t think shampoo is the problem here is because i have been using this shampoo for 6 months. before that, i used a different shampoo. i am always searchign for shampoos (organic, natural) that will help my hair. I really don’t want to stop shampooing. A friend of mine who is mostly raw doesn’t use shampoo, and, well….um…can i say her hair looks icky? and my dad, who has the same hair as me, well, he is lazy about washing his hair and it looks so greasy and gross.

    I am not saying I won’t try it, but I don’t htink it’s the problem in this case. I am not stressed about my hair loss, I mean, I notice it but it’s not a huge deal to me.

    I will try scalp massages for sure!!! I exercise alot, training for a 10k, and i use hemp seeds most every day. I also use MSM most days in my e3live potion.

    I can totally see where elliot is coming from about my hair being from my old self, and my new self wanting to shed. That’s why I feel like I should be aware of it, but not obsess about it, at least for the time being. Time will tell. If it gets really bad or continues for months, then I might be concerned.

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    oh, and queen fluff—this is what i use:http://www.goddess-within.com/noname2.html

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    okay, just read that thread, queenfluff—full of good info. I don’t know how much msm is in my e3live, so i may swing by vitamin shoppe and get some more next week> i will also be more regular with my hemp intake…now i just throw some in a smoothie when it strikes me.

    thank you so much—i will post back in a few weeks and let you all know what’s happening on the hair front :)

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    I could not see the ingredients for the MOP shampoo so I can’t really tell if there are any ‘baddies’ in there. I am sure you are familiar with the bad shampoo ingredients. Since you are not ready to give up shampoo, you might want to try lessening the amount you use- meaning dilute your shampoo. Shampoo is very concentrated and you don’t need to use it straight. It should be enough to remove the excess oil but not try out the scalp.

    Hmm, I have met several people who do not shampoo their hair (me included) and it it looks fabulous. Maybe these people aren’t keeping their scalp clean enough or they had bad hair from before. You still need to rinse very well with water to keep it clean looking. Yeah, if you don’t keep up with rinsing your hair when you don’t use shampoo it can start to look nasty.

    You might want to consider a special herbal rinse too. Rosemary is great for hair loss and the oilies. Just get some rosemary herb (or tea) and steep it like tea. Strain out the herbs. Let it cool and pour through your hair as a final rinse. You can either leave it in or rinse out.

    For the MSM, I would recommend taking the powder (or capsule) form and increasing up to a 1 to 2 tablespoons a day and stay at that high amount for a while. It will build up the sulfur in your body and sulfur is important to good hair. Make sure you get the OptiMSM (it will say on the back)- I use the Vitamin Shoppe brand sometimes – it is good stuff.

    Hang in there! Let us know how you are doing! :)

  • queenfluff i’m just curius, I still use shampoo, I try no poo for two weeks, and when back to shampoo. I change my hair products a while ago. So my question is how often do you rinse your hair.

    Thank you in advance.

  • I’m a 27 male and have noticed that my hair is falling out like mad recently and my scalp itches consistently… I wonder if this goes with the whole ‘out with the old’ and ‘in with the new’ theory? It’s really starting to freak me out… been following 80/10/10 for a couple of months but noticed the hair thinning/stopped growth (as my hair used to grow like CRAZY) when I was high fat raw also. I recently eliminated Tinea Versicolor when I went 811rv … wonder if I might have some type of fungus on my scalp…? Any other men have this issue being raw?

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    Majomi -

    I normally water rinse my hair (for 10 minutes with a massage showerhead) every other day. Sometimes I do every day. This week I waited three days between washes. It really depends on the person and their hair. I find that if I go longer than two days – I start having an oil buildup. Every other day seems to work great for me.

    seize – I have read several stories that people on 811 lose their hair. In fact I think Doug Graham (who is 811) said he lost almost all his hair and than it slowly started to grow back one day. I don’t think he had a full head of hair before it fell out though. It could be that your scalp is dry though? Any flakes? Try rubbing some coconut oil in your scalp to help with the itch.

  • nycgrrlnycgrrl Raw Newbie

    Hi- queenfluff—i was thnking about your rec to go no “poo, and while i initially resisted..perhaps my hair doesn’t need shampoo anymore, and it’s gettin dried out from it…now that I am raw, I mean. I might try no ‘poo for a couple weeks, although it scares me. my hair is SO GREASY without poo…....

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    nycgrrl, if you go no poo, you won’t be sorry! I promise:) It’ll be gross for a while but it’s so worth it in the end. You hair will be soft and silky(and curly like mad if it’s inclined to curl) and your scalp will be very nice. Also, you’ll have the added benefits of not being sickened by the chemicals that are added to all commercial shampoos(even “organic” shampoos are bad, read the labels). Everyone’s hair is different, and so don’t be afraid to experiment. I find that just baking soda in water is great for my hair. Sometimes I’ll just do a cold water rinse with a splash of white vinager. Some people do both but I find this drying to do all the time. In any event, thing like baking soda and vinegar won’t do nearly the harm that detergents and soaps do.

    By the way, thank you again for the article. I have to be careful with iron suppliments, since I have beta thalassemia, however, I often suddenly drop very low in iron for no reason, so I think this might be a good idea to find a high quality vitamin with iron, and then have my blood levels checked again. Thank you for the help. Keep us up to date with your hair, please! OOXX

  • I know this is different from overall thinning of the hair, but a few months after I first went raw, I acquired a bald spot on the top of my head. I was told it was alopecia (autoimmune disease) and it grew from about the size of a dime to the size of a silver dollar in the course of about 6 months. It was awfully humiliating and I tried every natural remedy I heard about. Finally, someone mentioned that her daughter had a similar problem and her doctor told her to try red raspberry leaf tea. It worked for her, so I tried it in pill form and within a week, my hair was growing back. Now (a year and a half later), it’s probably 6 inches long and is as full as the rest. What a blessing! I saw a woman on TV at the time who was completely bald that said it was alopecia and I was hoping that wouldn’t happen to me.

    Anyway, I”m not sure if it was raw related, but I didn’t have any added stresses at the time (often thought as a cause) and vitamin deficiencies are another cause.

  • southernloversouthernlover Raw Newbie

    HEY ALL YOU!!! GO NO ‘POO’!!! :)

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