OF THE FOUR TYPES OF ALOPECIA, TWO ARE TREATABLE WITH NUTRITION. THE THIRD NEEDS A BEHAVIORAL CHANGE IN THE WAY HAIR IS HANDLED. THE FOURTH IS HORMONAL BASED AND LITTLE CAN BE DONE FOR IT.
CATEGORY: 4: Auto-Immune
1: Simple Malnutrition
2: Inflammation/Infection
RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENTS: Bee Pollen, Folic Acid, Biotin, B Complex-100, Beta Carotene, Vitamin D3
There are few people who don’t face some sort of hair trauma. Hence the term “bad hair day,” indicating that something bad has happened besides messy tresses.
Hair loss can be life altering in a literal sense, because hair is a significant part of our personal identity. When it goes, or is impaired in some way, we also suffer emotional loss that can affect us on many levels. Hair loss may even change how we interact with others, which can then lead to other harms.
I developed a stress-related case of Alopecia Areata my first year of law school. I had never felt that kind of unrelenting anxiety before, and not since I graduated.
The classes were large in number, a hundred students on average. Held in towering classrooms of old wood and polished rock, with tall cathedral-like windows. The solemnity of a medieval place of worship. And you left class each day humbled, but enlightened.
Whenever a professor paused and glanced down at the seating chart that held our names and photos, hearts froze. As did bodies. You could hear the proverbial pin while we waited. Don’t pick me, a silent mantra prayed by all except the looniest.
If your name was called your stomach fisted. You cleared your throat and girded your loins for a challenging ten minutes of forced discourse called the Socratic Method. Longer, if you said something naive that displeased them. Your tormentor would then move across the rows to their next victim, leaving you feeling mentally whipped.
With so many rows, unless you sat up front—which I never did for obvious reasons, you were looking at the backs of a lot of worried heads. I noticed two things happening to those heads a couple of weeks into the first semester. Hair was turning grey, and bald spots were sprouting—some dime-sized, some much larger.
One morning I was washing my hair and found three, round, larger-than-a-quarter spots on my scalp. I hadn’t seen clumps of hair, but there was nothing under my fingertips but exposed skin. The spots seemed to have developed overnight.
I was terrified. You don’t know if it’s going to stop or keep on going until you’ve lost all your hair. I made it through the first year and my hair grew back, but I had to comb over bald spots the whole year.
Since then I’ve learned to successfully treat most Alopecia disorders with nutrition, because most are caused by nutritional deficiencies.
That’s why it’s necessary to continue taking a “maintenance dose” even after hair grows back, or risk a recurrence. Maintenance doses are taken when you’re not sick for the same reason you have to eat every day—to avoid deficiencies that cause sickness, disease, and death.
● TYPES OF ALOPECIA ●
Alopecia is the umbrella term for hair loss anywhere on the body. Bald spots appear suddenly where hair used to grow and no longer does.
Type I: ALOPECIA AREATA
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
The term Areata, without further designation, always refers to hair loss on the scalp only. Areata presents as two or more bald spots.
All Areata hair loss disorders are auto-immune conditions, occurring when the immune system attacks hair follicles. Think, friendly fire. It is the most common type of friendly-fire hair loss. It is sometimes referred to as patchy baldness.
Other types of Areata hair loss are discussed further down.
AREATA SUB-CATEGORIES
1. AREATA Monocularis
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
Monocularis presents as one bald spot on the scalp. This single patch is usually on the larger size, but not always.
2. AREATA Barbae
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
Barbae hair loss presents as one or more bald spots and is limited to the male beard.
3. AREATA Totalis
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
With Totalis, hair loss can occur anywhere on the head, and can lead to complete balding of the scalp, eyebrows, and lashes.
4. AREATA Multicularis
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
Multicularis refers to one or more bald spots that occur anywhere on the body, not just the scalp or face.
5. AREATA Universalis
Cause: Auto Immune Imbalance
Universalis can affect the body’s entire epidermis, leaving the subject completely hairless from head to toe. This is the most severe case of Areata hair loss. It is also very rare, presenting in only ten in one million.
Type II: ALOPECIA CICATRICIAL
Cause: Inflammation and Subsequent Scarring of Follicles
Cicatricial hair loss arises from inflammation of the hair follicle. As the inflammation heals it leaves behind scarring, which destroys the follicle over time. Cicatricial is often referred to as Scarring Alopecia.
Scarring prevents the follicles from receiving nutrients from the blood stream and expelling built up toxins, because nothing can get through the scar tissue. Giving the follicles no life support. This is a disastrous combination that kills the follicles.
↘A Note On Inflammation: The body can handle reasonable amounts of it. But in excess, inflammation can kill us. It depends on the individual as to where it will show up, but it’s all the same creature.
For example:
Inflammation in nerve endings can lead to multiple sclerosis; Inflammation in soft tissue and bone can lead to cancer; Inflammation in the lower intestines can lead to Crohn’s Disease; Inflammation in the lungs can lead to asthma.
Inflammation in the hair follicle can lead to baldness. And so forth.
An obvious conclusion would be that all you have to do to stop these diseases is stop inflammation. But that’s for another blog.
Almost half the diseases identified are due to uncontrolled inflammation. All are treatable with nutrition.
Type III: ALOPECIA TRACTION
Cause: Rough Handling That Puts Too Much Stress On Hair
Traction hair loss is caused by careless behavior in the way you address your hair. Hair is not indestructible. Neither are hair follicles.
If you’re rough in the way you handle your hair, pulling on it or stretching it or brushing hard, you can destroy the follicle. When a follicle dies no hair can grow out of it again. This abuse can also cause inflammation that accelerates the hair loss.
Follicles can also become stressed by certain hairstyles that traumatize them, like wearing a tight ponytail or bun for long periods.
Other hairstyles like weaves and hair extensions, that make the follicle take on more weight than it can handle, can also damage and destroy it. Rotating hairstyles helps protect your follicles from Traction and let’s you still be hair fashionable.
Be gentle when you work with your hair. When you wash it, don’t dry it and your scalp with vigorous rubbing with a towel. Instead, pat and squeeze gently.
If you’re trying to detangle your hair, use a detangler like Pantene Leave-In Conditioner, to make brushing it out easier.
Hair is most vulnerable to breakage when it’s wet, so be especially careful when trying to brush or comb it right after it’s been washed.
Type IV: ALOPECIA ANDROGENIC
Cause: Hormonal Imbalance
Androgenic hair loss is commonly known as male or female pattern baldness.
In women, complete baldness is rare. But you will notice a widening of a part, accompanied by overall thinning of the hair. In men the condition can lead to partial or total baldness.
Nutrition cannot help this type of Alopecia.
● THE SUPPLEMENTS ●
In this instance, the following schedule is both crisis dose and maintenance dose. So it basically won’t change when your hair grows back. Except for Bee Pollen, you should continue these same amounts on a daily basis.
What matters in maintaining good health is what you do the majority of the time. You don’t have to be a saint, but try hard to make sure you don’t miss more than three to four day’s doses per month.
1. BEE POLLEN
You can purchase Bee Pollen in whole granules or caplets. It will calm down the immune system, balance it, so that it stops attacking the hair follicles. Bee pollen in any form should not cause or worsen allergies in those with hay fever.
↘Note: Thirty days after you consider your hair to be grown back, cut your Bee Pollen dosage in half by eliminating the evening dose. Reinstate the evening dose if hair loss starts up again. Do not decrease the dosages of the other supplements.
Whole granules can be mixed with a hot liquid like tea, or in a blender drink to dissolve them. Even sprinkled whole over cereals or grains.
Caplets can be swallowed or mixed with a blender drink.
Dosages
Breakfast: 5,000 mg (1 heaping tsp of whole granules, or 5 caplets)
Dinner: 5,000 mg (1 heaping tsp of whole granules, or 5 caplets)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Whole granules: Y. S. Eco Bee Farms; 5,000 mgs per heaping tsp
Caplets: Puritan’s Pride #4390; 1000 mg per caplet
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2. FOLIC ACID
Folic acid is part of the B Complex-100 formula, a mixture of all the B vitamins. Once bee pollen balances the immune system, folic acid will start hair growing again. You can’t believe how effective it is in strengthening hair and making it grow.
Besides helping Alopecia disorders, Folic Acid will stimulate growth where hair grows intolerably slow. Or where hair grows only a few inches long before it stops and sits there. If you’ve dreamed of long hair but haven’t been able to grow it, folic acid might be your answer.
You need a strong dose of Folic Acid on a regular basis to get your hair to grow in earnest. When you stop taking it you notice the difference in just days.
The more folic acid you take, the faster your hair will grow, up to a point. I’ve set the dosage at a level to give you good hair growth but not cause a deficiency in other B Complex elements.
If the dosage I’ve set doesn’t show the results I’ve promised, it means you need to increase your dose slowly over time. Adding one tablet every few days until you see growth. When you reach that point, level off and make that amount your maintenance dose.
The folic acid I recommend comes in very small tablets. Easy to swallow several at a time. Or mix into a blender drink.
Dosages
Breakfast: 16,000 mcg (20 tiny tablets)
Dinner: 16,000 mcg (20 tiny tablets)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Puritan’s Pride #2845; 800 mcg per tablet
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3. BIOTIN
Biotin is also part of the B Complex-100 formula. It is used in many hair and nail improvement products. Here it is used as a support to the main hair growth supplement, folic acid.
Dosages
Breakfast: 5,000 I.U. (1 softgel)
Dinner: 5,000 I.U. (1 softgel)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Puritan’s Pride #29634; 5,000 I.U. per softgel
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4. B COMPLEX-100
B complex-100 contains all the B vitamin elements, plus more:
Thiamine/B-1, Riboflavin/B-2, Niacin/B-3, Pyridoxine/B-6, Cyanocobalamin/B-12, Folic Acid, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid, and PABA. Plus, Choline and Inositol.
When you take any element of the Complex over time, like Folic Acid or Biotin, you have to supplement small amounts of the entire complex to ensure you don’t drain others out and cause a different deficiency. The elements in B complex work together; too much of one over time will deplete others.
Dosages
Breakfast: 100 mg (1 capsule)
Dinner: 100 mg (1 capsule)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Solaray Vegcaps; 100 mg per capsule
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5. BETA CAROTENE
Beta carotene destroys inflammation. No matter how severe it is. If your follicles are under attack by the immune system, it means additional inflammation is occurring in various parts of your body.
Remember, one form of Alopecia (Cicatricial) is caused solely by inflammation.
Dosages
Breakfast: 187.5 mg (25 small softgels)
Dinner: 187.5 mg (25 small softgels)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Puritan’s Pride #1223; 7.5 mg/25,000 I.U. per softgel; The softgels are small and easy to swallow.
6. VITAMIN D3
Vitamin D3 is a more potent type of Vitamin D. It is a support vitamin to Beta Carotene. The body needs Vitamin D3 to properly assimilate Beta Carotene. If you take large amounts of Beta Carotene without Vitamin D3 supplementation, you will end up with a Vitamin D3 deficiency.
Dosages
Breakfast: 5,000 I.U. (1 softgel)
Dinner: 5,000 I.U. (1 softgel)
Suggested Brand & Strength
Puritan’s Pride #19377; 5,000 I.U. per softgel
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↘Note: Try to stop thinking of food supplements as “pills,” which suggests medicine. Rather, think of them as what they are, “concentrated nutrition.” Food, in other words.
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