Losing my hair - is this normal?

For the past month or so, I have begun to lose enormous amounts of hair. I have always had really thick hair, and would lose a good amount each day. In my last few months of pregnancy, and the first couple postpartum, I noticed that I hadn't been losing as much. Now it's getting embarassing. I spend 5-10 minutes brushing my hair before getting in the shower (collecting a nice nest of hair), I pull out another nest in the shower, and then make a third equally distressing amount drying/brushing my hair. Throughout the day I am forever picking hair off my arms and back, and out of dd's hands. I know it's summer and we all go through "shedding cycles," but is this normal? I used to get irritated with my cat because I had to vacuum a lot due to his shedding. Now I find myself offering a lint brush to guests to clean themselves of my hair. Oh woe.

This didn't happen to me, but I was warned that it could when I was pregnant with my son. I think that it is normal, but I don't know how long you can expect it to last.

It DOES end... I have really long hair, and for a few months postpartum, it festooned the furniture and wound around the baby and clogged the drains and fouled up the vaccuum cleaner brush and generally showed up EVERYWHERE.

This is just your hair catching up on all the shedding it didn't do during your pregnancy/immediate postpartum. It is totally normal. It WILL slow down before you go bald, I promise!

Cheers,

KathyO

Thank you for the reassurance. My husband thinks I'm trying to catch up with his hair loss (aaaah!) and has also asked if I'm taking anti-rogaine. It's really embarassing, not to mention gross! Thanks, though!

It happened to me, too. I had thin hair to begin with, then it got very thick during my pregnancy. When my son turned about 3 months old, it fell out in huge handfuls. I thought it would never end! It finally stopped when my son was about 6 months old. New hair is growing back, but I have to say I have a lot more bad hair days now than before. Like you say, it's mainly gross and anoying, though.

Funny, no one tells you this stuff when you're trying to get pregnant! :-)

Me too, me too. DS is now 1 year old and it only just stopped falling out in such copious amounts. DH thought we had a Yeti living with us! It seems to have slowed down since I stopped breastfeeding completely, so this may have something to do with it. This is my third child and the only one it happened with, at least to this degree. My doctor did do a thyroid test as this can cause hair loss as well, but mine was normal. It might be a good idea to get your thyroid tested as it can go wonky after the birth of a baby anyways, and then it could be ruled out. I did use Nioxin shampoos and conditioners that seemed to help, but unfortunately I was stuck with a hairy bathroom for a while. Just be assured it should let up after a few months. I think I was the anomaly for going on so long!

Oh thank you for all your comments. I keep reassuring DH that it WILL end (though deep down I'm thinking 'oh please oh please oh please let it end'). We used to be irritated with our 2 cats (when we adopted them from the rescue, they told us the would be small short-haired cats. now at 14 pounds each and hair that is several inches long, we wonder...) and their tumbleweed-esque hairballs that floated through the house, but I can't even place the blame on them, since they are grey and I have long red hair. Perhaps I'll begin collecting my hair and try to sell it to a wig store :D.

You mentioned Nioxin shampoos - is that a brand or an ingredient? If it's an ingredient, what kind of brands carry it? I pick up my brush with dread each morning, thinking "Today is the day I will become bald." I hope this doesn't last until DD is a year, though we're breastfeeding exclusively right now, and will continue to BF after solids are introduced. I wait on pins and needles (and a nest of hair)...

Nioxin is a brand of shampoo, conditioners, etc. etc. and you can pick it up at any hair salon or beauty supply shop, not cheap, but they work a little bit. Don't forget to get a thyroid test from your doctor, too. I hope it doesn't last a year for you, either, I kept waiting to go bald, asking dh if there were any thinning patches as he laughed hysterically (men do have a wierd sense of humour,don't they?) But it really only seemed to let up when I reluctantly finished breastfeeding about a month ago when ds was a year old. I suspect hormones had something to do with it and finishing breastfeeding stopped those hormones or some such thing. I still notice some loss, but nowhere near the amount as before. I think it varies among people and pregnancies, too. Good luck!!

Thank you so much for the info - I will definitely get my thyroid tested. I didn't even THINK about that, but my grandma has had problems with hers, and I've been told before that poor circulation is an indication of some thyroid problem and my hands and feet are always colder (or hotter, as the case was when I was pregnant) than the rest of me. Thanks for the heads-up. Hopefully I'm just de-furring myself from those months of not losing any. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if we lost our leg hair instead? Now THAT would be welcome. But no, nothing ever really goes as we WANT it too!

I have a question...I am dying to get my hair cut. (I am one of those people who think to do it every 12-18 months.) My hair is really thin normally, and while it did get a bit thicker during my pregnancy, I think it was normal given that it was summertime. Should I wait until 3-6 months PP and just slap it into a bun every day, for fear that I'll get a haircut that will just look horrendous (sp?) once my hair starts to fall out?