Melissa Anger is an Associate Trichologist and a licensed Cosmetologist and Barber of more than 24 years. She is married with three kids and experienced hair loss herself after being diagnosed with Hashimotos shortly after the birth of her youngest child. She has become very passionate about the subject of hair loss as a whole and strives to give people hope by helping them determine the root cause of their own hair loss and become successful long term improving their hair loss and hair growth.
Topics covered in this episode:
Referenced in the episode:
The Lindsey Elmore Show Ep 130 | How Insulin Resistance Effects The Whole Body | Casey Means
To learn more about Mellisa Anger and her work, head over to https://www.mabrowsandhair.com/
IG @ma_browsandhair
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lindsey-elmore-show--5952903/support.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Hair Loss Causes
- Minoxidil
- Hormonal Imbalances
- DHT
- Medication Impacts on Hair Loss
- Stress and Hair Loss
- Insulin Resistance and Hair Loss
- Cortisol and Its Effects
- Diet and Lifestyle Changes for Hair Loss
- Women's Health and Hair-Related Issues
Referenced in the episode:
The Lindsey Elmore Show Ep 130 | How Insulin Resistance Effects The Whole Body | Casey Means
To learn more about Mellisa Anger and her work, head over to https://www.mabrowsandhair.com/
IG @ma_browsandhair
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lindsey-elmore-show--5952903/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 3 (00:45):
Fifty percent of women experience hair loss in their lifetime,
and two to three percent of women are affected by
female pattern hair loss by the age of thirty. Almost
half of women start losing their hair by the age
of fifty, and half of women experience hair loss after
giving birth as well as after menopause. Today we are
(01:08):
going to be talking with Melissa Anger.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
She is my guest.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We are here together. Live in Salt Lake City. She
is an associate triptologist and a licensed cosmatologist and barber
of more than twenty four years. She is married with
three kids, and experienced her own hair loss after being
diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis shortly after the birth of her
youngest child. She has become passionate about the subject of
(01:35):
hair loss as a whole and strives to give people
hope by helping them determine the root cause of their
own hair loss. I think that's a little bit of
a pun right there, the root cause of their own
hair loss and become successful long term in improving their
hair loss and hair growth. Melissa, Welcome to the Lindsay
Elmore sh you very much. I'm so excited to talk
(01:57):
to you.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
You're so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You and I met on social media.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You did a TikTok where where you regrammed one of
the reels that I had made about how COVID can
cause a change in cortisol levels which can get into
the hair follicle and start to cause hair loss.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And as we've been.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Talking, as we've been getting ready to start shooting, you
have revealed so many other root causes of hair loss.
So start us out and teach us. Tell us about
your own journey. What happened, how did you get into
researching and learning about hair loss? And then we're going
to start talking about all these different mechanisms of action
and how we can turn them around.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Okay. So I started to notice a difference with my
female clients about seven years ago. At least half of
them would casually mention when they sat in my chair,
my ponytail feels thinner than normal. I swear I'm losing
my hair. Does it look like I'm going bald? And
at the time I didn't take it as seriously as
I probably should have, and and in a lot of
(03:02):
clients didn't really see a big difference, you know, and
would just say, no, I don't I don't think so,
I think it's okay. I had three very specific clients
at the time. One her hair loss was a bit
of a mystery, the other one was caused from a
medication and anti fungal medication that she was taking, and
then the other one she was experiencing female pattern baldness,
(03:23):
but she had yet to determine what exactly was causing it,
and it had been going on for a long time.
Fast forward a year from then. I had just delivered
my youngest child, and it was a couple of weeks
after that delivery. I had gone back into my doctor
because I was losing a lot of hair every time
I shampooed. Went to my doctor and said, I know
(03:44):
you're going to say that this was because I just
had a baby, but it's not. This is my third child,
this isn't normal, so I want to do blood work.
He completely agreed, ran a few numbers. One was my
TSH and had called the next day and said, your
TSH just threw the roof something's wrong with your thyroid.
Come back in, Let's do more blood work, Let's get
you started on thyroid medication. And that started this whole
(04:10):
process of Okay, maybe some of my clients are having
an issue with their thyroid. So we would talk about
maybe go into your doctor and ask about having blood
work done. They would go have blood work done. Some
of them would come back and say, hey, sure enough,
that's what it was. So I started on thyroid medication.
And then there were some clients that would come back
(04:30):
and say, no, my thyroid was fine. What else could
it be. So as I started my own journey of
what can I do to help my thyroid function better,
I didn't just want to rely on medication, dietary changes,
improving my sleep habits, reducing stress, things like that. I
started to notice that a lot of those things also
(04:54):
lined up with improving hair loss, or if you were
experiencing specific vitamin deficiencies, symptom would be hair loss. And
it truly just snowballed into what it is today of
knowing so much about hair loss, and I know that
it is overwhelming for clients when we first go over
(05:18):
what's going on with them, But to me, it's so easy.
To me, it is let's have blood work done. Let's
go over your blood work and find what's off. Because
hair loss is a symptom. It doesn't just randomly happen.
It's a symptom that your body is telling you that
something's off internally.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well, that's interesting because I think a lot of people
consider all hair loss to be hereditary. Yes, And what
you're saying is no, there's a ton of different reasons
that people can have hair loss, And so Hashimoto's most
common cause of low thyroid symptoms, which is why your
thyroid stimulating hormone was so high. Up there, we've touched
on how cortisol can cause this problem, the most common
(05:58):
stress hormone out there. Let's talk about some other mechanisms
that can cause hair loss. So what other hormones, what
other factors in the body can lead to hair loss?
Speaker 5 (06:09):
So I think the best place to start is to
understand the different types of hair loss. So if you
go into your doctor and you say, okay, I've been
experiencing hair loss. I'd like to figure out what's wrong,
and your doctor says, oh, yeah, you have alopecia. Well,
alopecia is an umbrella term for hair loss. Yes, of
course you have alopecia. That's the whole reason why you
went into your doctor. There's different types of alopecia. There
(06:32):
is diffuse alopecia, which, in my opinion, this is the
most common cause of hair loss, not androgenetic alopecia, because
there are more causes of telligen oclivium. You also have
androgenetic alopecia, which is related to your sex hormones. There's
alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune condition. There's traction alopecia,
which is connected to hairstyling. How are you styling your hair?
(06:55):
There are scarring alopecias.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
From things like burns or cuts, I could see that
being a cause of it.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah, yes, but more internally so for example, loopis, discoid
lupus and rheumaturid arthritis are the two main conditions connected
to scarring alopecies.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
How does this differ from the autoimmune alopecies if you know,
because rheumatoid athritis loopis, they're both autoimmune conditions.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
So that right, So there it's autoimmune hair loss, but
it's in its own specific category. So somebody that has
discoid lupus or room tared arthritis where their hairline seems
like it is going back. It is your immune system
literally attacking your hair follicles, and there's this threshold this
time period of you've either crossed the threshold and there's
(07:44):
now scarring in your follicles and now you're just trying
to prevent your hairline from going receding even more, or
if you catch it in time, then you can work
to regrow some of the hair that you've lost.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
It sounds like that it is.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
A more advanced stage right, because you've got this autoimmune
where you haven't caused these significant enough damage to where
it can't repair itself, which we see in all different
parts of the body where the scarring comes in and
then there's no repair that can be done. Now, let's
go back to the beginning. You said, I didn't catch
the word. What did you say that?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You think the most common cause of hair loss is
so the.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Actual term is to diffuse alopecia, but it is often
diagnosed as telligen affluvium. The reason why geneffluvium.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Who came up with that word?
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Well, it has to do with the telligen growth cycle,
I mean the hair growth cycle. All right, what does
what does fluvo meanlffluvium fluvium.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We'll have to go back and research our Latin everybody,
because I love breaking down words, because I know when
you said tella, it was like, okay, it has to
do with the telemere link. That has to do with
some sort of genetic process. Okay, telogen.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
It has to do with the growth cycle. But the
reason why it should be diagnosis to diffuse alopecia is
because there's also anagen of fluvium and this is usually
related to a toxicity issue. Normally it's overlooked unless somebody's
gone through radiation or chemotherapy, but there can be other
issues heavy metal toxicities your environment. But anagen of fluvium
(09:12):
is a completely different style of hair loss. But they're
both in a diffuse pattern.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Okay, so you're getting patchy baldness, not like a full
bonn bald pattern.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Right, No, yeah, it's you still have hair, but it's
becoming very very thin at the scalp.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Got it, Okay, got it? All right?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So why do you think this is so much more common?
And why do you think there's this misconception that it's
actually much more related to androgens. Do you think it's
because we actually have meds that work on androgen cycles.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
So this diffuse alopecia, in particular, has so many different causes.
Having a child going through surgery, psychological stress, a drastic
change in your diet, rapid weight loss, vitamin deficiencies, liver
function issues, gut health issues which those could lead divide
them indeficiencies which would cause this type of hair loss.
But there are so many things that can cause this
(10:07):
type of hair loss, and some people experience around their hairline.
Some people it's an all over type of hair loss.
Some people it's just their crown where for years and
years and years, androgenetic alopecia has been listed as the
most common type of hair loss, but it's in one
specific area. On women, it's around their partline. Their partline
(10:28):
seems like it's getting whiter. So you have all of
these people that are experiencing thinning around their hairline or
their crown are all over, and they go to their
doctor and some of these women are diagnosed with androgenetic alopecia,
but it's done without blood work. You have to verify
things through blood work. But the rule of thumb as
(10:49):
all for androgenetic alopecia has always been it's related to DHT.
Now long term, if you have been in survival mode
or adrenal fatigue, you your cortisol is imbalanced, whether it's
high or low. Long term, this can impact your sex hormones,
your estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. But there are so many more
(11:12):
factors that go into diffuse alopecia that, in my opinion,
I think that is the number one cause of hair loss,
not female pattern baldness.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Okay, so you're saying that we start with labs, which
I love. That's that functional medicine principle of test don't gas,
and so it sounds like what you're starting with has
the you're gonna get a thyroid panel, and then you're
gonna get your sex steroids. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone are
their other labs.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Yes, So when you do a thyroid panel, you have
to do a full thyroid panel for sure, including antibodies
correct and a lot of times I understand that doctors
just check TSH first, but you also have people that
have issues with their thyroid that have been medicating, that
are still experiencing symptoms that is still coming from this
(12:00):
same reason, which is an imbalance in your thyroid hormones.
They are directly connected to your hair growth cycle. So
you have to check T four, You have to check
T three. Is there an autoimmune issue that is leading
to this imbalance in their thyroid hormones. So a full
thyroid panel including antibodies has to be done.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And I'll add to that, I mean if TSHT three
two four, great, because like you said, you can have
a problem with stimulating the thyroid and the thyroid not responding.
But you can also have an enzymatic problem where you're
unable to convert T four into T three, and then
you can also convert T four into reverse T three YE,
(12:36):
which is also not good and also is high cortisol
levels drive that process. And then the anti TPO antibodies
are also something that we need to look at. And
I mean, to me, one of the major problems with
thyroid panels is that the ranges are so wide, and
so the other thing you have to do that is
(12:58):
sort of like balking convention medicine, is we have to
look at the ideal range because the problem with modern
labs in general is we standardize it to what everybody's
results are. But it's like, okay, but you know, nine
people out of ten in the United States have cardio
metabolic disease, and so if we normalize all those labs
(13:20):
to the people who are sick at baseline, it doesn't
actually reveal what is standard.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
And what is out of range.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And we see that nowhere more clearly than with thyroid panels,
because we've just had these super wide ranges for so
so long. And it's also part of the problem with
thyroid medication is you know, you can give T four,
but if you can't turn it into T three, it
simply doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So what other labs?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
So full thyroid panel, full sex steroid panel.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Yes, including all three types of estrogen.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Not estrial, and yes, not just estradyle.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
That's the most common one, but all three of them.
A full lipid panel, a full metabolic panel including fasting insulin,
a CBC, magnesium, vitamin D, ferratin, or a full iron panel.
It's not enough to look at just iron or saturation.
You need to check your ferratin. Ferratin is more related
(14:16):
to loss than iron or saturation. So you can have
people that are iron and emic, yes they can deal
with hair loss, but you can have people that their
iron is fining. Their saturation is okay, but if your
ferytin is under an ideal range, it will impact your hair,
not only hair loss, but the way that your hair
regrows as well. So a full iron panel. And then zinc.
(14:41):
I think I already said magnesium.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, we said magnesium, vitamin D zinc yes, which I
would assume are cofactors and enzymatic reactions.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And then of course vitamin D is a hormone. That governments.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
So you have issues with vitamin D deficiencies, there's the
labs range and then there's an ideal range, and those
ranges can be different if you have an autoimmune condition.
And then you have people that have chronically been deficient
in vitamin D. They've been supplementing for years and years
(15:13):
and years. So to me, and this is something I've
brought up to my own doctor, where's the issue? Is
it the vitamin D that they're taking or is it
a liver function issue? What is going on to where
you are not storing these vitamins in your boty. We
store fat soluble vitamins and minerals in the body, So
why aren't you storing them? Where is the issue?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well, and it could also be a kidney issue, because.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
There's so many things that come into play.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, because vitamin D goes through multiple, multiple enzomatic reactions
that transform it from kind of a inert form of
the vitamin into the fully active form of your one
twenty five dihydro vitamin D. And so, I mean, for sure,
we've talked a ton on this show about the importance
(15:57):
of taking colo calcia for all and so ergo calciferral
but to your point or lanolin?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Why do you like lanolin?
Speaker 5 (16:05):
No? No, don't know, Okay, I should it should be
colact You have supplement companies that use lanolin as their
vitamin D source, which is.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Going to give you that?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Why?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Why?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
What's your what's your thought problem? Maybe for your skin,
but not internally.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Cola calciferral's naturally in your body. Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yes, I can definitely hear the argument that Cola calciferral
is the supreme form. I just didn't know if there
was something inherently like dangerous about land.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
No, no, no, no, no, you have you have uh like
readily available forms of supplements that are easy for the
body to absorb and actually make an impact in your numbers,
and then you have.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
The cheapest way to go when it comes to certain supplements.
So you have that's the issue. Could it be the
supplement that you're taking or is it an internal issue
that is impacting the that you are absorbing or you
are storing these vitamins?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yes, okay, got it all right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So the one that surprised me the most out of
all those labs that you mentioned was the CBC, which
is the complete blood count. The rest of them, Like
checking vitamin and mineral status makes perfect sense. You know,
thyroid conditions well known to cause hair loss, hypothyoric conditions,
so that makes complete and total sense. Iron makes sense,
although I want to talk more about how iron plays
(17:26):
into hair growth. But is it because you're looking at
for that iron status and looking at the CBC than well.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
And part of the CBC just looking at fully in
B twelve.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Oh, got it.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
And if you are deficient in fully or B twelve
for long enough, this will lead to issues with iron.
So that's kind of the precursor too, is iron or
your saturation or ferretonin issue?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Okay, we get a lot of questions about iron because
iron homeostasis is really hard to understand. The supplements don't
work that well. The IV iron works, but people have
severe adverse reactions to it, and it just seems like
we can't get a handle on like why iron is
(18:09):
so complicated and how do we get to why it's
out of balance? And so you mentioned that B nine
and BE twelve are also like if you have chronic
deficiencies there, it can lead to iron homeostasis problems.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Talk us through just what.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
You understand about iron how it functions in the body,
how it's stored in the body, and then how does
it impact hair and hair growth.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Okay, so iron B twelve and fully all help with
the production of red blood cells. There's this whole process
with oxygenating the blood and blood circulation. Our hair feeds
off of blood. They're like little vampires. So the better
your red blood cell production is, the better your blood circulation,
(18:52):
the better your hair growth happens. And so when people
have this deficiency in iron, it will lead to change
in the way that their hair is growing. It leads
to this and honestly, I don't know if that comes
from the body being stressed that you are deficient in
(19:13):
iron or if it has to do with blood circulation,
but any of those deficiencies will lead to loss. But
then it also impacts the way that your hair regrows.
The better the blood circulation, the better nutrient dense your
blood is, the better your hair grows. Just in general.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
So it's a circulation kind of thing. Yes, absolutely, And
so before before we started recording, we were talking about
red light therapy and that's one of the thought processes
with red light therapy CAPS is that it just improves
the circulation. But you were telling me that there's some new,
more advanced red light therapies that actually can have even
(19:50):
a greater impact on hair growth and the scalp because
they can work on they can work on different hormones
as well.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Yes, so some scalp caps they have specific red diodes
in them, so it's not just infra red light or
red light therapy. They've actually been proven by the FDA
to be ninety three percent effective at regrowing hair. But
some of them, in their explanation of what exactly they do,
(20:20):
some types of lasers that they use will penetrate the
scalp deep enough to have a positive impact on DHT. Now,
because they help with regrowth, everybody's a perfect can if
you're dealing with hair loss, everybody could benefit from red
light therapy on their scalp. But if you have androgenetic alopecia,
(20:41):
if your hair loss is coming from an issue with
DHT specifically, it could be even more impactful to use
a very high quality red diode laser to help with
a DHT issue as well as regrow your hair.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Let's dive into DHT.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
So DHT is the most potent form of testosterone hydro testosterone.
It's converted by five alpha reductaste from testosterone to dihydro testosterone.
So DHT can kind of poison the hair follicle in
a way, just because it is such an assertive hormone.
And it's also the mechanism by which a lot of
(21:20):
the drugs work is to inhibit all is to inhibit
five alpha reductastes. And these are not benign drugs. They're
actually quite dangerous. They were originally developed for men with
BPH with benign prosthetic hypertrophy, and one of the root
causes is this driving towards this dihydro testosterone in BPH.
(21:40):
But what we also know is that the medication is
readily available across the surface of the skin, can inhibit
the enzyme in women who are pregnant, and can inhibit
the normal maturation of a male fetus by even just
handling the tablets. And this process also it messes up
(22:02):
all of our hormonal homeostasis and the balance of it all.
So how do we get to a point where we
have way too much dihydrotestosterone? And what do you think
about using the medications? Do you think that it's a
valid solution or do you think that they're doing more
harm than good.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So here's my issue with most of these medications. They
were not formulated for women. They're formulated for men percent,
so they've gone through trials on men. They're now readily
handed out to women all the time. No blood work
is done. I mean, you have doctors all of the
(22:40):
time that are looking at someone's scalp and saying, oh,
this is genetic or this is female pattern baldness. There's
no blood work to determine is this a genetic issue?
Do you truly have higher levels of testosterone which is
leading to this conversion. They're just given a prescription, which
to me, that's scary because is it going to target
(23:04):
the correct things in my body or is it going
to lead to more issues down the road. You had
made a video on finastride and had talked about handling
the pill, especially if it's broken. There are women that
are being prescribed finastride five milligrams and they are told
by their doctor to break it in half and take
(23:25):
half a pill a day. That is their prescription. As
soon as I saw that video, I thought, my gosh,
how many of these women are within child bearing years
and could potentially become pregnant and don't know how serious
of a medication this is.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
It is.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It's frankly startling how little we teach women when meds
are prescribed about the pregnancy category.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Like it's ruled out that you're not pregnant.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
However, nobody sits back and is like, unless it's accutane.
You know, that's the one medication that has really stringent
prescribing guidelines for women who are of child bearing years.
But we have dozens and dozens and dozens of very
common medications that are pregnancy category X. I mean things
(24:15):
that you wouldn't even think about, like ace inhibiting drugs
and orbs, but they're pregnancy category X, and we don't
teach women about it. And even on a lot of
a lot of the pregnancy category lists that I see,
finasteride doesn't always appear on it, which is shocking that
there's not one comprehensive list of all pregnancy categories. In fact,
(24:39):
if you go and look up different pregnancy categories, we
have ABCD and X right, and so A is the
A are the ones that are known to be recommended
and safe, like every pregnant woman needs a full a
supplement right or methylated fully depending on where your methylation
cycle is. So that's one like pregnancy category A. But
(24:59):
the the B drugs are like mah, they're probably all right,
but don't take too much.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
This is things like taile and all ibuprofen is in that.
But then you get to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
D and X and the ones that are X or
like absolutely do not use. This is well known triadogen,
well known feta toxin, embryo toxin, maternatoxin, whatever it is.
But in the middle, right there in the sea, it
actually says all other meds not otherwise mentioned on this list,
And it's like, wait, how how is that not clearly
(25:31):
clearly defined? We don't We simply don't have enough medications
out there.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
We have a lot, but.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We don't have enough to where we can't actually categorize
them and keep women safe. And you know, and to
your point, many medications are developed for men. They're tested
more commonly in men. But when you look at something
like finesteride, it was only tested. I'm sure it has
some testing in women, maybe since then, maybe since then,
(26:00):
but to bring it to market was a one hundred
percent male population because that's what it was for, was
for benign prosthetic hypertrophy. So another med that really commonly
used in hair loss that also has a predominance of
male research is monoxidill.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
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And now let's get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And so what are your thought processes on monoxidel how
do they work? And what's wild is monoxidil was originally
developed as an antihypertensive, not for hair loss, and so
what are your thoughts on monoxidil.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
So it's always been for years and years and years,
it has been labeled as the go to. You know,
if you are dealing with any type of hair loss,
go with rogain.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean it's over the counter with monoxide over the
counter at this point.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Yes, either topically or orally. The main idea behind this
medicine is to help you dilate your capillaries. Each hair
follicle is connected to a capillary, and so the idea
is we're going to increase blood circulation by dilating those capillaries.
But you're not addressing what is actually going on. If
(28:43):
your hair loss is coming from a vitamin efficiency, monoxidal
isn't going to do anything for that. If your hair
loss is coming from your cortisol, it's not going to
address that. If it's coming from a thyroid hormone imbalance,
it's not going to do anything to repair your hair loss.
Topical monoxidil, well, it contains seventy percent alcohol. It's very
drying to the skin. In order to maintain the health
(29:05):
of your hair follicals, the skin needs to be very moisturized,
very plump, very healthy. So to dry it out, you're
kind of defeating the purpose of what you're trying to
do oral monoxidal. One of the biggest side effects of
taking oral monoxidil is you're going to lose some hair
first before it gets better. That seems ludicrous to me.
Why would I take in medication that's going to make
(29:26):
my hair loss worse before it improves.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I definitely want to come back and talk about various
medications that can cause hair loss, But I also want
to touch on is this a new phenomenon that we're
seeing this rise in DHT in women? Because it you
don't think about women having this twenty five, thirty forty
years ago. Why are we experiencing such a such a
(29:50):
distinct increase in DHT in women?
Speaker 5 (29:52):
So to me, that's the big question, why all of
a sudden. I've been in the beauty industry for twenty
four years. The first fifteen years of my career, this
was not as big of an issue as it is now.
Anytime you look up hair loss on the internet, if
you're looking for pictures to compare, it is all or
the majority of them are women bent over showing their part.
(30:16):
I mean, it's this true female pattern baldness, which also
just as a side note, to give you a true
idea of female pattern baldness, look up the Ludwig scale
for women. This will show you a diagram of what
it looks like when it first starts out and what
it can progress to. In the beginning of my career,
I always thought, or we were taught, you know, two
(30:38):
three years tops, if you can tackle it within that
amount of time, then you're good to go, which was
always so devastating because you had people that were noticing
hair loss and we're afraid to mention it or just
hadn't reached that lowest point with their hairs to go, Okay,
(31:00):
I'm going to go to my doctor and talk to
them about this, or I'm going to bring this up
to my hairstylist. So then you had people that were
beyond that two to three years, and they thought it
was truly devastating. Now the rule of THEMB is ten years.
So there's a whole process where DHD will lead to
miniaturization in the follicles. So this causes shrinking in your
hair follicles and you lose terminal hairs. These are terminal hairs,
(31:22):
and they're replaced with vellus hairs, which is like peach fuzz.
If you have a man that has male pad in baldness,
he has the cul de sac that's going on up top,
like he's completely bald up here. If you were to
shave his head with trimmers, there's hair there, there're vellus hair,
so he's not completely bald. There's still hairs that are growing.
So this increase in miniaturization has become more and more common.
(31:48):
I would say within the last ten years you have
this ten year period of Okay, the follicles are miniaturizing.
After ten years, there's an issue with the muscle in
the follicle called the erector pilli. It will hold on
to the hair. It's what gives us goosebumps. Yeah, so
it's almost like after a certain point, the erector pilli
(32:10):
is like, I can't do this anymore. So I'm not
going to hold onto your hair, You're gonna lose it.
So I started asking this question with clients, why are
we seeing this increase in clients that have this DHT issue.
And this all came about from a client who she
was actually experiencing hair loss from a fungal medication. She'd
(32:33):
picked up a foot fungus from a nail salon. It
was a pretty serious medication. She had to be on
for four months.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Oh, the oral anti fungal drugs are It was serious
because there are no jokes. I mean, they have so
many side effects, so many drug interactions.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
They're they're very poisonous.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Yes, oh yeah, it was. It was serious. She had
to have blood work done every six to eight weeks
to check her liver.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
So she was thinking about a red light therapy cap
and was saying, call, they're so expensive. You know, these
are twelve to fourteen hundred dollars and they were a
little bit newer on the market. I had heard of them,
but hadn't researched them a whole lot. And so as
we were weaving her hair, she said, you know, this
is the one that I'm looking at It's like, well,
read me the description and it talked about how the
(33:19):
laser was deep enough to penetrate the scalp and get
rid of DHT. And I had this light bulb moment
of wait a minute, what if this is the issue.
What if you have all of these women that have
an increase in testosterone. So the next day, I have
a client I call her my Golden Child. She's the
very first client that we looked into all of this.
(33:41):
So she sat down in my chair. She had been
taking finash Ride for two years. She was doing the
five milligrams, cutting in half, taking one pill a day.
She sat down in the chair and I said, okay,
I have a question to ask you. Have you ever
had your testosterone checked and she said yeah. I said,
has it ever been elevated and she said yeah, it's
been elevated for the last ten years. It was like,
(34:01):
oh my gosh, okay, okay, let's look into this. Why
would your testosterone be elevated? I personally believe it has
to do with insulin resistance. So you have all of
these people that usually aren't diagnosed with insulin resistance until
they're pre diabetic or they have type two diabetes because
everyone just looks at glucose or they look at your
(34:23):
A one C. They don't look at fasting insulin.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's infuriating. It's infuriating. I mean the people sit back.
I so a friend sent me A friend sent me
her friend's labs the other day and was like, what
do you think? And I was like, you know, she's
all worried about her estrogen levels being high and this
and that, and I was like, why don't you worry
about the fact that you're like point one points away
(34:45):
on your A one C from being diagnosed with diabetes, Like.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
But you're still within range.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Oh, you're still normal. You're still normal. So we're not
gonna give you that met formula.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
You're five point six. You haven't to hit five point
oh I know.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And meanwhile, you're fasting insulin's like thirty oh you know.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
I mean, like I have lost track of consultations where
someone's A one C is normal like four point eight. Yeah,
their glucose is eighty six and their fasting insulin is
nineteen point two.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
See, I mean fasting insulin is elevated sometimes decades before
glucose and then certainly before your A one C gets elevated,
and I agree with you because you know, in in
functional mess and we talk about the hierarchy of hormones,
and so everybody gets all upset about the testosterone, the estrogen,
(35:34):
the progesterone, and everyon's talking about INDOC disruptors, and you know,
all these BPA's and all the plastics in our environment and.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
But you're not digging deeper to see that underlying that
is likely a thyroid problem, and underlying that is either
an insulin or a cortisol problem or both. Yes, And
so you you can have.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
All of that throwing things out of whack. And you know,
we see.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Insulin resistance if if what you're saying sounds like what
one of our previous guests has said when we were
talking about pcos. You know she she's just like this
doctor Casey means and she was just like, look, we
call it PCOS, but why don't we call it what
it really is. It's just insulin resistance of the ovaries.
What you're saying is no, this is just an insulin
(36:18):
resistance of the hair follicle along the mid part line
in women that's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I love that. So yeah, and that's what's throwing the theterroids.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
So when you have when you have insulin resistance, you
have this stagnant amount of insulin in the body which
is leading to all sorts of issues, inflammation, all sorts
of issues, but it's converted into androgens. So if you
long term, yeah, yes, obviously there are things that you
can do. Short term, some people choose to do medications,
(36:48):
some people to change they choose to change their diet
or go the supplement route. Long term, if you work
on your insulin resistance, this type of hair loss will improve.
If you get rich of the stagnant amount of insulin,
it cannot be converted into androgens. It cannot be converted
into DHT, So this influx of DHT slows down, it
(37:11):
goes back to normal.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yes, and so that is it's absolutely amazing because you
think about it. Of all of the hormones that we
have that we can exert control over, cortisol and insulin
are very very high on the list, Like we have
a very very important role in how do we regulate
cortisol and insulin. And it goes back to where we
(37:34):
first started It's just about dietary changes. It's about exercise,
it's about building lean muscle, it's about doing everything that
needs to be done to not have insulin resistance, because
we're seeing increasingly that it affects every single part of
the body. Yes, and so let's go back from whence
we came. Let's talk more about medications that can cause
(37:56):
hair loss.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Honestly, I think just about everyone can.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Do You really think yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Because you have different So anytime you look up a medication,
whether it's on the manufacturer's website or a website like
drugs dot com where they'll give you the good, bad,
and indifferent of almost any medication, you have issues with
your gut health. You can have issues with your liver function,
you can have issues with your cortisol. You can have
medications that directly lead to vitamin deficiencies B twelve, low
(38:26):
vitamin D. Some medications are meant to slow things down,
slow your blood circulation down. I really don't think there
is a medication that is out there that long term
won't possibly lead to hair loss. But it specifically depends
on what is it doing. Is it changing your guts microbiome,
(38:49):
is it impacting your liver function. Is it changing the
stomach acid in your stomach which is leading to a
B twelve deficiency, which long term will lead to an
iron deficiency. I mean, it's always the domino effect where
it starts with one simple thing, and for some people
it is medication. Now you have some people obviously that
cannot they cannot stop taking medication. You know, heart medications
(39:13):
are a big one. I mean, you're on them for
a long time. But getting to the root of things,
what is your medication doing on top of helping you?
Is it possibly causing a vitamin efficiency? Should you be
compensating for something while on this medication that could improve
(39:35):
your hair loss? If it is strictly happening from a
medication standpoint.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Well, it's interesting because what you're saying is that it's
not necessarily the mechanism of action of the drug. It's
the long term side effect profile of the drug that
can lead to vitamin mineral imbalances, insulin imbalances, all kinds
of hormonal imbalances which are known side effects. Those are
the known side effects of metations. It's just you're saying now,
(40:02):
and when we throw those things out of balance, it's
also impacting the hair.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Yes, yeah, yeah, ninety five percent of hair loss is
being caused from an internal issue. It is a sign
that your body is telling you that something is off.
Whether it is an issue with a hormone like cortisol
or insulin, or your thyroid or testosterone or estrogen, progesterone,
any of them, or it's a vitamin deficiency or a
(40:30):
gut health issue, a liver function issue. There's so many
different things that can be the actual root cause. That's
why blood work is so important to get to the
very root of things. Of Okay, let's check through all
of these things, see what's off, what isn't. Even my
own doctor has said that figuring out hair loss is
(40:51):
a process of elimination. You have to be able to see, okay,
this is okay, this is not this is okay, this
is not through blood work.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
So before we before we end, I really i'd like
to think about the person who's listening to this person
who's watching this, and they're like, you know what, my
hair is getting thin or dang, I have that widening
part or something is going on to where my hair
is just not.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
What it used to be.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Let's say somebody's like, I'm not sure I want to
go in and get all the labs like straight away.
I just want to see if I can impact it
in with my everyday lifestyle. What are some of the
top changes the top you know, supplements, the top thing.
What are the top changes in lifestyle that you encourage
people to do if they're not ready to go in
(41:42):
and full on doo labs and dig that deep just yet.
Are there certain foods that you would want to eliminate
or there's certain you know, does everybody need a red
light cab whether or not they have thin hair? What
are some of the things that you would say, all right,
pretty much everybody should do this if they want to
prevent or to treat hair loss.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Ye. So first I would say, if you are somebody
that has noticed a particular area on your scalp is
getting thinner, this isn't. Oftentimes there's this internal dialogue with
someone between their own brain saying, my hair looks thinner. No,
it's not thinner. Why would it be thinner? There was
(42:22):
a study that was done saying that when you have
noticed a certain area of your head becoming thinner, on average,
you've lost forty percent of your hair. So rather than
having this internal conversation with yourself, you probably have lost
hair and it's okay. I think it's important too, And
(42:43):
I know this is easier said than done. It's really
important to kind of take a step back and go, okay,
I'm gonna address this calmly. There are particular areas of
the head that will hair loss will present itself in
particular areas of the head, versus it's just happening randomly someplace.
I don't know what's going on. So when hair loss
(43:04):
is happening around the heroline, this is commonly connected to
a cortisol issue, vitamin D deficiency, or low ferreted seen with
the crown of the head. If it is your partline.
If this seems like it is getting whiter, this is
related to sex hormonons or into like your blue cups.
If it is happening in patches behind the head, not
(43:27):
so much in the crown, but behind the head, above
the ear, sometimes the back hairline, but it's in patches,
this is usually alopecia areata. If it's happening around your
hairline and your hairline feels like it is going back,
this is usually a scarring alopecia. It can start in
your eyebrows. This is something that should be addressed very
very early on. So if you suspect, if you know,
(43:49):
look at a picture of yourself or see one from
a couple of years ago and go, wait a minute,
my hair my hairline looks like it's receding, go to
your doctor, cop two doctor immediately. So first of all,
what area of the head is it happening in?
Speaker 4 (44:06):
That was exactly what I was about to say.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
I love how specific you are about, Like, if it's
happening this way, Yeah, start with this, it's happening that way,
start with that.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
So one thing that you will commonly see in women
that have just had a baby is this area of
their head will get really really thin. They'll pull their
hair back and they have a very strong widow's peak.
They're they're this particular area of the head always shows
up as far as hair loss happening. Cortisol. It's stressful
on your body to deliver a baby. It just is
(44:35):
on a cellular.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Level, no way, So uh, it's.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
There's a common connection there. Now a lot of the
things that people can do to improve hair loss, just
in general at home, are dietary changes reducing stress. And
I know this is one thing that always gets me
in consultations where doctors say, you know this is happening
from stress, just try to calm down. How do you
(45:03):
do that? Like, I need a game plan of how
I do this. So, just like we have an oral hygiene,
we have a sleep hygiene. Creating a bedtime routine for yourself,
going to bed at the same time every night, waking
up around the same time every morning, Limiting blue light
before you go to bed, so we're not stimulating the
hypothalmus Limiting things that are stimulating to the brain. You know,
don't lay in your bed and plan things on Pinterest
(45:26):
or scroll through social media. It's stimulating to the brain.
We want to calm down. Limiting caffeine. If you're gonna
drink caffeine in the morning, eat before you consume caffeine,
try to limit it, you know, by a certain time
of the day, maybe no later than ten am. Limiting
heavy exercise, anything that's going to amp up cortisol production.
(45:49):
We're really trying to calm the body down. Dietary changes
obviously excess sugar, alcohol, things that are commonly known to
impact liver function. Almost every type of hair loss in
one way or another can be traced back to a
liver function issue, almost every single one. Working to improve
your liver function, it can be helpful to focus on
(46:14):
limiting inflammatory foods GMO, corn, dairy, gluten, yes, yeah, yeah,
all of these things that can cause inflammation in the body.
Those can be beneficial to limit them or avoid them completely.
Getting plenty of protein, whole foods, vegetables, fruits. The idea
(46:35):
is you should be able to get your nutrients through
your food alone and then fill in gaps with supplements
good multi vitamin, probiotic. Not everybody can do this, so
they may need to supplement a little bit more, but
anything that you can do to reduce stress. One thing
that I tell clients in a consultation is make a
(46:56):
journal for the next couple of weeks. Write down moments
throughout your day that has caused your blood pressure to
rise a little bit. You can feel that increase in
cortisol and your stressed. If that is something that you
can limit, then work to limit that. Any way that
you can create boundaries for yourself and kind of protect
your piece to help lower your cortisol or regulate it
(47:19):
to where that's not so much of an issue. But
they're very easy things that you can do at home.
Getting plenty of fiber fantastic for the liver, castor oil
packs topically on the liver fantastic. Any way that you
can improve your gut health through dietary changes or probiotic
any way that you can improve liver function and reduce stress.
(47:39):
These will help across the board, kind of like you
had mentioned earlier, where things work hand in hand. If
your cortisol is out of whack, this will impact your thyroid,
it will impact your insulin levels. So anything that you
can do to work on improving your cortisol production or
(48:02):
your health or your liver function is great across the board.
It's a great place to start and then go have
blood work done. But anytime someone goes into their doctor
and says, I'm losing my hair, what do you think?
What do you think is going on? Your doctor has
to verify through blood work. It's not enough to just
get a diagnosis for your doctor say, oh, this is
(48:23):
probably happening from stress. What is the stress though? Is
your body under stress because your thyroid hormones are imbalanced?
Is your body under stressed because you're deficient in specific
nutrients or is it psychological stress? You have to get
to the root of what the stress is in order
to improve things long term.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Makes total sense, and I think I would add to that,
don't just jump to a medication, especially if you haven't
tested what you're actually working with here. So totally agree
with you on that, and I again, I just love
how specific and detailed that you can get about what
type of alopecia are we actually looking at so we
(49:05):
can treat it correctly, so that we can actually hit
the nail on the head and not just like search
in the dark. So you know, listeners, this has been
such a fascinating conversation. We have never talked about hair
loss on the show. I don't think enough people are
talking about it, and I don't think enough people are
being as researched and well versed as you are. So
(49:29):
I just so appreciate you coming out and being a
guest today, and I encourage everybody you know follow Melissa
on social media. She makes great content about hair loss
all of the time. You can also find her on
her website at MA That's for Melissa Anger browseanhair dot com.
So Melissa Anger, thank you so much for paying being
a guest today.
Speaker 5 (49:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
The Lindsaylmore Show is written and produced by me Lindsay Almore.
Show segments are produced by Sue Proco Derek Lugo. Sound
design and editing is by Jive Media. Support The Lindsay
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Your contribution, no matter how big or how small, helps
(50:13):
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Speaker 3 (00:45):
Fifty percent of women experience hair loss in their lifetime,
and two to three percent of women are affected by
female pattern hair loss by the age of thirty. Almost
half of women start losing their hair by the age
of fifty, and half of women experience hair loss after
giving birth as well as after menopause. Today we are
(01:08):
going to be talking with Melissa Anger.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
She is my guest.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We are here together. Live in Salt Lake City. She
is an associate triptologist and a licensed cosmatologist and barber
of more than twenty four years. She is married with
three kids, and experienced her own hair loss after being
diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis shortly after the birth of her
youngest child. She has become passionate about the subject of
(01:35):
hair loss as a whole and strives to give people
hope by helping them determine the root cause of their
own hair loss. I think that's a little bit of
a pun right there, the root cause of their own
hair loss and become successful long term in improving their
hair loss and hair growth. Melissa, Welcome to the Lindsay
Elmore sh you very much. I'm so excited to talk
(01:57):
to you.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
You're so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
You and I met on social media.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You did a TikTok where where you regrammed one of
the reels that I had made about how COVID can
cause a change in cortisol levels which can get into
the hair follicle and start to cause hair loss.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
And as we've been.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Talking, as we've been getting ready to start shooting, you
have revealed so many other root causes of hair loss.
So start us out and teach us. Tell us about
your own journey. What happened, how did you get into
researching and learning about hair loss? And then we're going
to start talking about all these different mechanisms of action
and how we can turn them around.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Okay. So I started to notice a difference with my
female clients about seven years ago. At least half of
them would casually mention when they sat in my chair,
my ponytail feels thinner than normal. I swear I'm losing
my hair. Does it look like I'm going bald? And
at the time I didn't take it as seriously as
I probably should have, and and in a lot of
(03:02):
clients didn't really see a big difference, you know, and
would just say, no, I don't I don't think so,
I think it's okay. I had three very specific clients
at the time. One her hair loss was a bit
of a mystery, the other one was caused from a
medication and anti fungal medication that she was taking, and
then the other one she was experiencing female pattern baldness,
(03:23):
but she had yet to determine what exactly was causing it,
and it had been going on for a long time.
Fast forward a year from then. I had just delivered
my youngest child, and it was a couple of weeks
after that delivery. I had gone back into my doctor
because I was losing a lot of hair every time
I shampooed. Went to my doctor and said, I know
(03:44):
you're going to say that this was because I just
had a baby, but it's not. This is my third child,
this isn't normal, so I want to do blood work.
He completely agreed, ran a few numbers. One was my
TSH and had called the next day and said, your
TSH just threw the roof something's wrong with your thyroid.
Come back in, Let's do more blood work, Let's get
you started on thyroid medication. And that started this whole
(04:10):
process of Okay, maybe some of my clients are having
an issue with their thyroid. So we would talk about
maybe go into your doctor and ask about having blood
work done. They would go have blood work done. Some
of them would come back and say, hey, sure enough,
that's what it was. So I started on thyroid medication.
And then there were some clients that would come back
(04:30):
and say, no, my thyroid was fine. What else could
it be. So as I started my own journey of
what can I do to help my thyroid function better,
I didn't just want to rely on medication, dietary changes,
improving my sleep habits, reducing stress, things like that. I
started to notice that a lot of those things also
(04:54):
lined up with improving hair loss, or if you were
experiencing specific vitamin deficiencies, symptom would be hair loss. And
it truly just snowballed into what it is today of
knowing so much about hair loss, and I know that
it is overwhelming for clients when we first go over
(05:18):
what's going on with them, But to me, it's so easy.
To me, it is let's have blood work done. Let's
go over your blood work and find what's off. Because
hair loss is a symptom. It doesn't just randomly happen.
It's a symptom that your body is telling you that
something's off internally.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well, that's interesting because I think a lot of people
consider all hair loss to be hereditary. Yes, And what
you're saying is no, there's a ton of different reasons
that people can have hair loss, And so Hashimoto's most
common cause of low thyroid symptoms, which is why your
thyroid stimulating hormone was so high. Up there, we've touched
on how cortisol can cause this problem, the most common
(05:58):
stress hormone out there. Let's talk about some other mechanisms
that can cause hair loss. So what other hormones, what
other factors in the body can lead to hair loss?
Speaker 5 (06:09):
So I think the best place to start is to
understand the different types of hair loss. So if you
go into your doctor and you say, okay, I've been
experiencing hair loss. I'd like to figure out what's wrong,
and your doctor says, oh, yeah, you have alopecia. Well,
alopecia is an umbrella term for hair loss. Yes, of
course you have alopecia. That's the whole reason why you
went into your doctor. There's different types of alopecia. There
(06:32):
is diffuse alopecia, which, in my opinion, this is the
most common cause of hair loss, not androgenetic alopecia, because
there are more causes of telligen oclivium. You also have
androgenetic alopecia, which is related to your sex hormones. There's
alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune condition. There's traction alopecia,
which is connected to hairstyling. How are you styling your hair?
(06:55):
There are scarring alopecias.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
From things like burns or cuts, I could see that
being a cause of it.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah, yes, but more internally so for example, loopis, discoid
lupus and rheumaturid arthritis are the two main conditions connected
to scarring alopecies.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
How does this differ from the autoimmune alopecies if you know,
because rheumatoid athritis loopis, they're both autoimmune conditions.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
So that right, So there it's autoimmune hair loss, but
it's in its own specific category. So somebody that has
discoid lupus or room tared arthritis where their hairline seems
like it is going back. It is your immune system
literally attacking your hair follicles, and there's this threshold this
time period of you've either crossed the threshold and there's
(07:44):
now scarring in your follicles and now you're just trying
to prevent your hairline from going receding even more, or
if you catch it in time, then you can work
to regrow some of the hair that you've lost.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
It sounds like that it is.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
A more advanced stage right, because you've got this autoimmune
where you haven't caused these significant enough damage to where
it can't repair itself, which we see in all different
parts of the body where the scarring comes in and
then there's no repair that can be done. Now, let's
go back to the beginning. You said, I didn't catch
the word. What did you say that?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You think the most common cause of hair loss is
so the.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
Actual term is to diffuse alopecia, but it is often
diagnosed as telligen affluvium. The reason why geneffluvium.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Who came up with that word?
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Well, it has to do with the telligen growth cycle,
I mean the hair growth cycle. All right, what does
what does fluvo meanlffluvium fluvium.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We'll have to go back and research our Latin everybody,
because I love breaking down words, because I know when
you said tella, it was like, okay, it has to
do with the telemere link. That has to do with
some sort of genetic process. Okay, telogen.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
It has to do with the growth cycle. But the
reason why it should be diagnosis to diffuse alopecia is
because there's also anagen of fluvium and this is usually
related to a toxicity issue. Normally it's overlooked unless somebody's
gone through radiation or chemotherapy, but there can be other
issues heavy metal toxicities your environment. But anagen of fluvium
(09:12):
is a completely different style of hair loss. But they're
both in a diffuse pattern.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Okay, so you're getting patchy baldness, not like a full
bonn bald pattern.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Right, No, yeah, it's you still have hair, but it's
becoming very very thin at the scalp.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Got it, Okay, got it? All right?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
So why do you think this is so much more common?
And why do you think there's this misconception that it's
actually much more related to androgens. Do you think it's
because we actually have meds that work on androgen cycles.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
So this diffuse alopecia, in particular, has so many different causes.
Having a child going through surgery, psychological stress, a drastic
change in your diet, rapid weight loss, vitamin deficiencies, liver
function issues, gut health issues which those could lead divide
them indeficiencies which would cause this type of hair loss.
But there are so many things that can cause this
(10:07):
type of hair loss, and some people experience around their hairline.
Some people it's an all over type of hair loss.
Some people it's just their crown where for years and
years and years, androgenetic alopecia has been listed as the
most common type of hair loss, but it's in one
specific area. On women, it's around their partline. Their partline
(10:28):
seems like it's getting whiter. So you have all of
these people that are experiencing thinning around their hairline or
their crown are all over, and they go to their
doctor and some of these women are diagnosed with androgenetic alopecia,
but it's done without blood work. You have to verify
things through blood work. But the rule of thumb as
(10:49):
all for androgenetic alopecia has always been it's related to DHT.
Now long term, if you have been in survival mode
or adrenal fatigue, you your cortisol is imbalanced, whether it's
high or low. Long term, this can impact your sex hormones,
your estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. But there are so many more
(11:12):
factors that go into diffuse alopecia that, in my opinion,
I think that is the number one cause of hair loss,
not female pattern baldness.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Okay, so you're saying that we start with labs, which
I love. That's that functional medicine principle of test don't gas,
and so it sounds like what you're starting with has
the you're gonna get a thyroid panel, and then you're
gonna get your sex steroids. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone are
their other labs.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
Yes, So when you do a thyroid panel, you have
to do a full thyroid panel for sure, including antibodies
correct and a lot of times I understand that doctors
just check TSH first, but you also have people that
have issues with their thyroid that have been medicating, that
are still experiencing symptoms that is still coming from this
(12:00):
same reason, which is an imbalance in your thyroid hormones.
They are directly connected to your hair growth cycle. So
you have to check T four, You have to check
T three. Is there an autoimmune issue that is leading
to this imbalance in their thyroid hormones. So a full
thyroid panel including antibodies has to be done.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
And I'll add to that, I mean if TSHT three
two four, great, because like you said, you can have
a problem with stimulating the thyroid and the thyroid not responding.
But you can also have an enzymatic problem where you're
unable to convert T four into T three, and then
you can also convert T four into reverse T three YE,
(12:36):
which is also not good and also is high cortisol
levels drive that process. And then the anti TPO antibodies
are also something that we need to look at. And
I mean, to me, one of the major problems with
thyroid panels is that the ranges are so wide, and
so the other thing you have to do that is
(12:58):
sort of like balking convention medicine, is we have to
look at the ideal range because the problem with modern
labs in general is we standardize it to what everybody's
results are. But it's like, okay, but you know, nine
people out of ten in the United States have cardio
metabolic disease, and so if we normalize all those labs
(13:20):
to the people who are sick at baseline, it doesn't
actually reveal what is standard.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
And what is out of range.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
And we see that nowhere more clearly than with thyroid panels,
because we've just had these super wide ranges for so
so long. And it's also part of the problem with
thyroid medication is you know, you can give T four,
but if you can't turn it into T three, it
simply doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So what other labs?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
So full thyroid panel, full sex steroid panel.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Yes, including all three types of estrogen.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Not estrial, and yes, not just estradyle.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
That's the most common one, but all three of them.
A full lipid panel, a full metabolic panel including fasting insulin,
a CBC, magnesium, vitamin D, ferratin, or a full iron panel.
It's not enough to look at just iron or saturation.
You need to check your ferratin. Ferratin is more related
(14:16):
to loss than iron or saturation. So you can have
people that are iron and emic, yes they can deal
with hair loss, but you can have people that their
iron is fining. Their saturation is okay, but if your
ferytin is under an ideal range, it will impact your hair,
not only hair loss, but the way that your hair
regrows as well. So a full iron panel. And then zinc.
(14:41):
I think I already said magnesium.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, we said magnesium, vitamin D zinc yes, which I
would assume are cofactors and enzymatic reactions.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And then of course vitamin D is a hormone. That governments.
Speaker 5 (14:52):
So you have issues with vitamin D deficiencies, there's the
labs range and then there's an ideal range, and those
ranges can be different if you have an autoimmune condition.
And then you have people that have chronically been deficient
in vitamin D. They've been supplementing for years and years
(15:13):
and years. So to me, and this is something I've
brought up to my own doctor, where's the issue? Is
it the vitamin D that they're taking or is it
a liver function issue? What is going on to where
you are not storing these vitamins in your boty. We
store fat soluble vitamins and minerals in the body, So
why aren't you storing them? Where is the issue?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well, and it could also be a kidney issue, because.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
There's so many things that come into play.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, because vitamin D goes through multiple, multiple enzomatic reactions
that transform it from kind of a inert form of
the vitamin into the fully active form of your one
twenty five dihydro vitamin D. And so, I mean, for sure,
we've talked a ton on this show about the importance
(15:57):
of taking colo calcia for all and so ergo calciferral
but to your point or lanolin?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Why do you like lanolin?
Speaker 5 (16:05):
No? No, don't know, Okay, I should it should be
colact You have supplement companies that use lanolin as their
vitamin D source, which is.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Going to give you that?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Why?
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Why?
Speaker 3 (16:19):
What's your what's your thought problem? Maybe for your skin,
but not internally.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Cola calciferral's naturally in your body. Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yes, I can definitely hear the argument that Cola calciferral
is the supreme form. I just didn't know if there
was something inherently like dangerous about land.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
No, no, no, no, no, you have you have uh like
readily available forms of supplements that are easy for the
body to absorb and actually make an impact in your numbers,
and then you have.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
The cheapest way to go when it comes to certain supplements.
So you have that's the issue. Could it be the
supplement that you're taking or is it an internal issue
that is impacting the that you are absorbing or you
are storing these vitamins?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yes, okay, got it all right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So the one that surprised me the most out of
all those labs that you mentioned was the CBC, which
is the complete blood count. The rest of them, Like
checking vitamin and mineral status makes perfect sense. You know,
thyroid conditions well known to cause hair loss, hypothyoric conditions,
so that makes complete and total sense. Iron makes sense,
although I want to talk more about how iron plays
(17:26):
into hair growth. But is it because you're looking at
for that iron status and looking at the CBC than well.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
And part of the CBC just looking at fully in
B twelve.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Oh, got it.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
And if you are deficient in fully or B twelve
for long enough, this will lead to issues with iron.
So that's kind of the precursor too, is iron or
your saturation or ferretonin issue?
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Okay, we get a lot of questions about iron because
iron homeostasis is really hard to understand. The supplements don't
work that well. The IV iron works, but people have
severe adverse reactions to it, and it just seems like
we can't get a handle on like why iron is
(18:09):
so complicated and how do we get to why it's
out of balance? And so you mentioned that B nine
and BE twelve are also like if you have chronic
deficiencies there, it can lead to iron homeostasis problems.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Talk us through just what.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
You understand about iron how it functions in the body,
how it's stored in the body, and then how does
it impact hair and hair growth.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Okay, so iron B twelve and fully all help with
the production of red blood cells. There's this whole process
with oxygenating the blood and blood circulation. Our hair feeds
off of blood. They're like little vampires. So the better
your red blood cell production is, the better your blood circulation,
(18:52):
the better your hair growth happens. And so when people
have this deficiency in iron, it will lead to change
in the way that their hair is growing. It leads
to this and honestly, I don't know if that comes
from the body being stressed that you are deficient in
(19:13):
iron or if it has to do with blood circulation,
but any of those deficiencies will lead to loss. But
then it also impacts the way that your hair regrows.
The better the blood circulation, the better nutrient dense your
blood is, the better your hair grows. Just in general.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
So it's a circulation kind of thing. Yes, absolutely, And
so before before we started recording, we were talking about
red light therapy and that's one of the thought processes
with red light therapy CAPS is that it just improves
the circulation. But you were telling me that there's some new,
more advanced red light therapies that actually can have even
(19:50):
a greater impact on hair growth and the scalp because
they can work on they can work on different hormones
as well.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
Yes, so some scalp caps they have specific red diodes
in them, so it's not just infra red light or
red light therapy. They've actually been proven by the FDA
to be ninety three percent effective at regrowing hair. But
some of them, in their explanation of what exactly they do,
(20:20):
some types of lasers that they use will penetrate the
scalp deep enough to have a positive impact on DHT. Now,
because they help with regrowth, everybody's a perfect can if
you're dealing with hair loss, everybody could benefit from red
light therapy on their scalp. But if you have androgenetic alopecia,
(20:41):
if your hair loss is coming from an issue with
DHT specifically, it could be even more impactful to use
a very high quality red diode laser to help with
a DHT issue as well as regrow your hair.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Let's dive into DHT.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
So DHT is the most potent form of testosterone hydro testosterone.
It's converted by five alpha reductaste from testosterone to dihydro testosterone.
So DHT can kind of poison the hair follicle in
a way, just because it is such an assertive hormone.
And it's also the mechanism by which a lot of
(21:20):
the drugs work is to inhibit all is to inhibit
five alpha reductastes. And these are not benign drugs. They're
actually quite dangerous. They were originally developed for men with
BPH with benign prosthetic hypertrophy, and one of the root
causes is this driving towards this dihydro testosterone in BPH.
(21:40):
But what we also know is that the medication is
readily available across the surface of the skin, can inhibit
the enzyme in women who are pregnant, and can inhibit
the normal maturation of a male fetus by even just
handling the tablets. And this process also it messes up
(22:02):
all of our hormonal homeostasis and the balance of it all.
So how do we get to a point where we
have way too much dihydrotestosterone? And what do you think
about using the medications? Do you think that it's a
valid solution or do you think that they're doing more
harm than good.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So here's my issue with most of these medications. They
were not formulated for women. They're formulated for men percent,
so they've gone through trials on men. They're now readily
handed out to women all the time. No blood work
is done. I mean, you have doctors all of the
(22:40):
time that are looking at someone's scalp and saying, oh,
this is genetic or this is female pattern baldness. There's
no blood work to determine is this a genetic issue?
Do you truly have higher levels of testosterone which is
leading to this conversion. They're just given a prescription, which
to me, that's scary because is it going to target
(23:04):
the correct things in my body or is it going
to lead to more issues down the road. You had
made a video on finastride and had talked about handling
the pill, especially if it's broken. There are women that
are being prescribed finastride five milligrams and they are told
by their doctor to break it in half and take
(23:25):
half a pill a day. That is their prescription. As
soon as I saw that video, I thought, my gosh,
how many of these women are within child bearing years
and could potentially become pregnant and don't know how serious
of a medication this is.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
It is.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It's frankly startling how little we teach women when meds
are prescribed about the pregnancy category.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Like it's ruled out that you're not pregnant.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
However, nobody sits back and is like, unless it's accutane.
You know, that's the one medication that has really stringent
prescribing guidelines for women who are of child bearing years.
But we have dozens and dozens and dozens of very
common medications that are pregnancy category X. I mean things
(24:15):
that you wouldn't even think about, like ace inhibiting drugs
and orbs, but they're pregnancy category X, and we don't
teach women about it. And even on a lot of
a lot of the pregnancy category lists that I see,
finasteride doesn't always appear on it, which is shocking that
there's not one comprehensive list of all pregnancy categories. In fact,
(24:39):
if you go and look up different pregnancy categories, we
have ABCD and X right, and so A is the
A are the ones that are known to be recommended
and safe, like every pregnant woman needs a full a
supplement right or methylated fully depending on where your methylation
cycle is. So that's one like pregnancy category A. But
(24:59):
the the B drugs are like mah, they're probably all right,
but don't take too much.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
This is things like taile and all ibuprofen is in that.
But then you get to.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
D and X and the ones that are X or
like absolutely do not use. This is well known triadogen,
well known feta toxin, embryo toxin, maternatoxin, whatever it is.
But in the middle, right there in the sea, it
actually says all other meds not otherwise mentioned on this list,
And it's like, wait, how how is that not clearly
(25:31):
clearly defined? We don't We simply don't have enough medications
out there.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
We have a lot, but.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
We don't have enough to where we can't actually categorize
them and keep women safe. And you know, and to
your point, many medications are developed for men. They're tested
more commonly in men. But when you look at something
like finesteride, it was only tested. I'm sure it has
some testing in women, maybe since then, maybe since then,
(26:00):
but to bring it to market was a one hundred
percent male population because that's what it was for, was
for benign prosthetic hypertrophy. So another med that really commonly
used in hair loss that also has a predominance of
male research is monoxidill.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
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Speaker 4 (27:51):
And now let's get back to the show.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And so what are your thought processes on monoxidel how
do they work? And what's wild is monoxidil was originally
developed as an antihypertensive, not for hair loss, and so
what are your thoughts on monoxidil.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
So it's always been for years and years and years,
it has been labeled as the go to. You know,
if you are dealing with any type of hair loss,
go with rogain.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean it's over the counter with monoxide over the
counter at this point.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Yes, either topically or orally. The main idea behind this
medicine is to help you dilate your capillaries. Each hair
follicle is connected to a capillary, and so the idea
is we're going to increase blood circulation by dilating those capillaries.
But you're not addressing what is actually going on. If
(28:43):
your hair loss is coming from a vitamin efficiency, monoxidal
isn't going to do anything for that. If your hair
loss is coming from your cortisol, it's not going to
address that. If it's coming from a thyroid hormone imbalance,
it's not going to do anything to repair your hair loss.
Topical monoxidil, well, it contains seventy percent alcohol. It's very
drying to the skin. In order to maintain the health
(29:05):
of your hair follicals, the skin needs to be very moisturized,
very plump, very healthy. So to dry it out, you're
kind of defeating the purpose of what you're trying to
do oral monoxidal. One of the biggest side effects of
taking oral monoxidil is you're going to lose some hair
first before it gets better. That seems ludicrous to me.
Why would I take in medication that's going to make
(29:26):
my hair loss worse before it improves.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
I definitely want to come back and talk about various
medications that can cause hair loss, But I also want
to touch on is this a new phenomenon that we're
seeing this rise in DHT in women? Because it you
don't think about women having this twenty five, thirty forty
years ago. Why are we experiencing such a such a
(29:50):
distinct increase in DHT in women?
Speaker 5 (29:52):
So to me, that's the big question, why all of
a sudden. I've been in the beauty industry for twenty
four years. The first fifteen years of my career, this
was not as big of an issue as it is now.
Anytime you look up hair loss on the internet, if
you're looking for pictures to compare, it is all or
the majority of them are women bent over showing their part.
(30:16):
I mean, it's this true female pattern baldness, which also
just as a side note, to give you a true
idea of female pattern baldness, look up the Ludwig scale
for women. This will show you a diagram of what
it looks like when it first starts out and what
it can progress to. In the beginning of my career,
I always thought, or we were taught, you know, two
(30:38):
three years tops, if you can tackle it within that
amount of time, then you're good to go, which was
always so devastating because you had people that were noticing
hair loss and we're afraid to mention it or just
hadn't reached that lowest point with their hairs to go, Okay,
(31:00):
I'm going to go to my doctor and talk to
them about this, or I'm going to bring this up
to my hairstylist. So then you had people that were
beyond that two to three years, and they thought it
was truly devastating. Now the rule of THEMB is ten years.
So there's a whole process where DHD will lead to
miniaturization in the follicles. So this causes shrinking in your
hair follicles and you lose terminal hairs. These are terminal hairs,
(31:22):
and they're replaced with vellus hairs, which is like peach fuzz.
If you have a man that has male pad in baldness,
he has the cul de sac that's going on up top,
like he's completely bald up here. If you were to
shave his head with trimmers, there's hair there, there're vellus hair,
so he's not completely bald. There's still hairs that are growing.
So this increase in miniaturization has become more and more common.
(31:48):
I would say within the last ten years you have
this ten year period of Okay, the follicles are miniaturizing.
After ten years, there's an issue with the muscle in
the follicle called the erector pilli. It will hold on
to the hair. It's what gives us goosebumps. Yeah, so
it's almost like after a certain point, the erector pilli
(32:10):
is like, I can't do this anymore. So I'm not
going to hold onto your hair, You're gonna lose it.
So I started asking this question with clients, why are
we seeing this increase in clients that have this DHT issue.
And this all came about from a client who she
was actually experiencing hair loss from a fungal medication. She'd
(32:33):
picked up a foot fungus from a nail salon. It
was a pretty serious medication. She had to be on
for four months.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Oh, the oral anti fungal drugs are It was serious
because there are no jokes. I mean, they have so
many side effects, so many drug interactions.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
They're they're very poisonous.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Yes, oh yeah, it was. It was serious. She had
to have blood work done every six to eight weeks
to check her liver.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
So she was thinking about a red light therapy cap
and was saying, call, they're so expensive. You know, these
are twelve to fourteen hundred dollars and they were a
little bit newer on the market. I had heard of them,
but hadn't researched them a whole lot. And so as
we were weaving her hair, she said, you know, this
is the one that I'm looking at It's like, well,
read me the description and it talked about how the
(33:19):
laser was deep enough to penetrate the scalp and get
rid of DHT. And I had this light bulb moment
of wait a minute, what if this is the issue.
What if you have all of these women that have
an increase in testosterone. So the next day, I have
a client I call her my Golden Child. She's the
very first client that we looked into all of this.
(33:41):
So she sat down in my chair. She had been
taking finash Ride for two years. She was doing the
five milligrams, cutting in half, taking one pill a day.
She sat down in the chair and I said, okay,
I have a question to ask you. Have you ever
had your testosterone checked and she said yeah. I said,
has it ever been elevated and she said yeah, it's
been elevated for the last ten years. It was like,
(34:01):
oh my gosh, okay, okay, let's look into this. Why
would your testosterone be elevated? I personally believe it has
to do with insulin resistance. So you have all of
these people that usually aren't diagnosed with insulin resistance until
they're pre diabetic or they have type two diabetes because
everyone just looks at glucose or they look at your
(34:23):
A one C. They don't look at fasting insulin.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's infuriating. It's infuriating. I mean the people sit back.
I so a friend sent me A friend sent me
her friend's labs the other day and was like, what
do you think? And I was like, you know, she's
all worried about her estrogen levels being high and this
and that, and I was like, why don't you worry
about the fact that you're like point one points away
(34:45):
on your A one C from being diagnosed with diabetes, Like.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
But you're still within range.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Oh, you're still normal. You're still normal. So we're not
gonna give you that met formula.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
You're five point six. You haven't to hit five point
oh I know.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And meanwhile, you're fasting insulin's like thirty oh you know.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
I mean, like I have lost track of consultations where
someone's A one C is normal like four point eight. Yeah,
their glucose is eighty six and their fasting insulin is
nineteen point two.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
See, I mean fasting insulin is elevated sometimes decades before
glucose and then certainly before your A one C gets elevated,
and I agree with you because you know, in in
functional mess and we talk about the hierarchy of hormones,
and so everybody gets all upset about the testosterone, the estrogen,
(35:34):
the progesterone, and everyon's talking about INDOC disruptors, and you know,
all these BPA's and all the plastics in our environment and.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
But you're not digging deeper to see that underlying that
is likely a thyroid problem, and underlying that is either
an insulin or a cortisol problem or both. Yes, And
so you you can have.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
All of that throwing things out of whack. And you know,
we see.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Insulin resistance if if what you're saying sounds like what
one of our previous guests has said when we were
talking about pcos. You know she she's just like this
doctor Casey means and she was just like, look, we
call it PCOS, but why don't we call it what
it really is. It's just insulin resistance of the ovaries.
What you're saying is no, this is just an insulin
(36:18):
resistance of the hair follicle along the mid part line
in women that's fascinating.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I love that. So yeah, and that's what's throwing the theterroids.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
So when you have when you have insulin resistance, you
have this stagnant amount of insulin in the body which
is leading to all sorts of issues, inflammation, all sorts
of issues, but it's converted into androgens. So if you
long term, yeah, yes, obviously there are things that you
can do. Short term, some people choose to do medications,
(36:48):
some people to change they choose to change their diet
or go the supplement route. Long term, if you work
on your insulin resistance, this type of hair loss will improve.
If you get rich of the stagnant amount of insulin,
it cannot be converted into androgens. It cannot be converted
into DHT, So this influx of DHT slows down, it
(37:11):
goes back to normal.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yes, and so that is it's absolutely amazing because you
think about it. Of all of the hormones that we
have that we can exert control over, cortisol and insulin
are very very high on the list, Like we have
a very very important role in how do we regulate
cortisol and insulin. And it goes back to where we
(37:34):
first started It's just about dietary changes. It's about exercise,
it's about building lean muscle, it's about doing everything that
needs to be done to not have insulin resistance, because
we're seeing increasingly that it affects every single part of
the body. Yes, and so let's go back from whence
we came. Let's talk more about medications that can cause
(37:56):
hair loss.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Honestly, I think just about everyone can.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Do You really think yeah?
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Because you have different So anytime you look up a medication,
whether it's on the manufacturer's website or a website like
drugs dot com where they'll give you the good, bad,
and indifferent of almost any medication, you have issues with
your gut health. You can have issues with your liver function,
you can have issues with your cortisol. You can have
medications that directly lead to vitamin deficiencies B twelve, low
(38:26):
vitamin D. Some medications are meant to slow things down,
slow your blood circulation down. I really don't think there
is a medication that is out there that long term
won't possibly lead to hair loss. But it specifically depends
on what is it doing. Is it changing your guts microbiome,
(38:49):
is it impacting your liver function. Is it changing the
stomach acid in your stomach which is leading to a
B twelve deficiency, which long term will lead to an
iron deficiency. I mean, it's always the domino effect where
it starts with one simple thing, and for some people
it is medication. Now you have some people obviously that
cannot they cannot stop taking medication. You know, heart medications
(39:13):
are a big one. I mean, you're on them for
a long time. But getting to the root of things,
what is your medication doing on top of helping you?
Is it possibly causing a vitamin efficiency? Should you be
compensating for something while on this medication that could improve
(39:35):
your hair loss? If it is strictly happening from a
medication standpoint.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Well, it's interesting because what you're saying is that it's
not necessarily the mechanism of action of the drug. It's
the long term side effect profile of the drug that
can lead to vitamin mineral imbalances, insulin imbalances, all kinds
of hormonal imbalances which are known side effects. Those are
the known side effects of metations. It's just you're saying now,
(40:02):
and when we throw those things out of balance, it's
also impacting the hair.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Yes, yeah, yeah, ninety five percent of hair loss is
being caused from an internal issue. It is a sign
that your body is telling you that something is off.
Whether it is an issue with a hormone like cortisol
or insulin, or your thyroid or testosterone or estrogen, progesterone,
any of them, or it's a vitamin deficiency or a
(40:30):
gut health issue, a liver function issue. There's so many
different things that can be the actual root cause. That's
why blood work is so important to get to the
very root of things. Of Okay, let's check through all
of these things, see what's off, what isn't. Even my
own doctor has said that figuring out hair loss is
(40:51):
a process of elimination. You have to be able to see, okay,
this is okay, this is not this is okay, this
is not through blood work.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
So before we before we end, I really i'd like
to think about the person who's listening to this person
who's watching this, and they're like, you know what, my
hair is getting thin or dang, I have that widening
part or something is going on to where my hair
is just not.
Speaker 4 (41:16):
What it used to be.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Let's say somebody's like, I'm not sure I want to
go in and get all the labs like straight away.
I just want to see if I can impact it
in with my everyday lifestyle. What are some of the
top changes the top you know, supplements, the top thing.
What are the top changes in lifestyle that you encourage
people to do if they're not ready to go in
(41:42):
and full on doo labs and dig that deep just yet.
Are there certain foods that you would want to eliminate
or there's certain you know, does everybody need a red
light cab whether or not they have thin hair? What
are some of the things that you would say, all right,
pretty much everybody should do this if they want to
prevent or to treat hair loss.
Speaker 5 (41:59):
Ye. So first I would say, if you are somebody
that has noticed a particular area on your scalp is
getting thinner, this isn't. Oftentimes there's this internal dialogue with
someone between their own brain saying, my hair looks thinner. No,
it's not thinner. Why would it be thinner? There was
(42:22):
a study that was done saying that when you have
noticed a certain area of your head becoming thinner, on average,
you've lost forty percent of your hair. So rather than
having this internal conversation with yourself, you probably have lost
hair and it's okay. I think it's important too, And
(42:43):
I know this is easier said than done. It's really
important to kind of take a step back and go, okay,
I'm gonna address this calmly. There are particular areas of
the head that will hair loss will present itself in
particular areas of the head, versus it's just happening randomly someplace.
I don't know what's going on. So when hair loss
(43:04):
is happening around the heroline, this is commonly connected to
a cortisol issue, vitamin D deficiency, or low ferreted seen with
the crown of the head. If it is your partline.
If this seems like it is getting whiter, this is
related to sex hormonons or into like your blue cups.
If it is happening in patches behind the head, not
(43:27):
so much in the crown, but behind the head, above
the ear, sometimes the back hairline, but it's in patches,
this is usually alopecia areata. If it's happening around your
hairline and your hairline feels like it is going back,
this is usually a scarring alopecia. It can start in
your eyebrows. This is something that should be addressed very
very early on. So if you suspect, if you know,
(43:49):
look at a picture of yourself or see one from
a couple of years ago and go, wait a minute,
my hair my hairline looks like it's receding, go to
your doctor, cop two doctor immediately. So first of all,
what area of the head is it happening in?
Speaker 4 (44:06):
That was exactly what I was about to say.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
I love how specific you are about, Like, if it's
happening this way, Yeah, start with this, it's happening that way,
start with that.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
So one thing that you will commonly see in women
that have just had a baby is this area of
their head will get really really thin. They'll pull their
hair back and they have a very strong widow's peak.
They're they're this particular area of the head always shows
up as far as hair loss happening. Cortisol. It's stressful
on your body to deliver a baby. It just is
(44:35):
on a cellular.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Level, no way, So uh, it's.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
There's a common connection there. Now a lot of the
things that people can do to improve hair loss, just
in general at home, are dietary changes reducing stress. And
I know this is one thing that always gets me
in consultations where doctors say, you know this is happening
from stress, just try to calm down. How do you
(45:03):
do that? Like, I need a game plan of how
I do this. So, just like we have an oral hygiene,
we have a sleep hygiene. Creating a bedtime routine for yourself,
going to bed at the same time every night, waking
up around the same time every morning, Limiting blue light
before you go to bed, so we're not stimulating the
hypothalmus Limiting things that are stimulating to the brain. You know,
don't lay in your bed and plan things on Pinterest
(45:26):
or scroll through social media. It's stimulating to the brain.
We want to calm down. Limiting caffeine. If you're gonna
drink caffeine in the morning, eat before you consume caffeine,
try to limit it, you know, by a certain time
of the day, maybe no later than ten am. Limiting
heavy exercise, anything that's going to amp up cortisol production.
(45:49):
We're really trying to calm the body down. Dietary changes
obviously excess sugar, alcohol, things that are commonly known to
impact liver function. Almost every type of hair loss in
one way or another can be traced back to a
liver function issue, almost every single one. Working to improve
your liver function, it can be helpful to focus on
(46:14):
limiting inflammatory foods GMO, corn, dairy, gluten, yes, yeah, yeah,
all of these things that can cause inflammation in the body.
Those can be beneficial to limit them or avoid them completely.
Getting plenty of protein, whole foods, vegetables, fruits. The idea
(46:35):
is you should be able to get your nutrients through
your food alone and then fill in gaps with supplements
good multi vitamin, probiotic. Not everybody can do this, so
they may need to supplement a little bit more, but
anything that you can do to reduce stress. One thing
that I tell clients in a consultation is make a
(46:56):
journal for the next couple of weeks. Write down moments
throughout your day that has caused your blood pressure to
rise a little bit. You can feel that increase in
cortisol and your stressed. If that is something that you
can limit, then work to limit that. Any way that
you can create boundaries for yourself and kind of protect
your piece to help lower your cortisol or regulate it
(47:19):
to where that's not so much of an issue. But
they're very easy things that you can do at home.
Getting plenty of fiber fantastic for the liver, castor oil
packs topically on the liver fantastic. Any way that you
can improve your gut health through dietary changes or probiotic
any way that you can improve liver function and reduce stress.
(47:39):
These will help across the board, kind of like you
had mentioned earlier, where things work hand in hand. If
your cortisol is out of whack, this will impact your thyroid,
it will impact your insulin levels. So anything that you
can do to work on improving your cortisol production or
(48:02):
your health or your liver function is great across the board.
It's a great place to start and then go have
blood work done. But anytime someone goes into their doctor
and says, I'm losing my hair, what do you think?
What do you think is going on? Your doctor has
to verify through blood work. It's not enough to just
get a diagnosis for your doctor say, oh, this is
(48:23):
probably happening from stress. What is the stress though? Is
your body under stress because your thyroid hormones are imbalanced?
Is your body under stressed because you're deficient in specific
nutrients or is it psychological stress? You have to get
to the root of what the stress is in order
to improve things long term.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Makes total sense, and I think I would add to that,
don't just jump to a medication, especially if you haven't
tested what you're actually working with here. So totally agree
with you on that, and I again, I just love
how specific and detailed that you can get about what
type of alopecia are we actually looking at so we
(49:05):
can treat it correctly, so that we can actually hit
the nail on the head and not just like search
in the dark. So you know, listeners, this has been
such a fascinating conversation. We have never talked about hair
loss on the show. I don't think enough people are
talking about it, and I don't think enough people are
being as researched and well versed as you are. So
(49:29):
I just so appreciate you coming out and being a
guest today, and I encourage everybody you know follow Melissa
on social media. She makes great content about hair loss
all of the time. You can also find her on
her website at MA That's for Melissa Anger browseanhair dot com.
So Melissa Anger, thank you so much for paying being
a guest today.
Speaker 5 (49:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
The Lindsaylmore Show is written and produced by me Lindsay Almore.
Show segments are produced by Sue Proco Derek Lugo. Sound
design and editing is by Jive Media. Support The Lindsay
Elmore Show by heading to Lindsaylmore dot com slash podcast.
Your contribution, no matter how big or how small, helps
(50:13):
us to bring the best guests to the interview chair.
Thank you so much for listening, Subscribe, rate and review
the show on Apple Podcasts, Share this and all of
your favorite episodes with a friend, and on social media,
be sure to tag at Lindsayelmore Show and help us
bring the pod to more people.
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