Hair Falling Out? Check In on Your Thyroid.

Apparently when some women are pregnant, they get long, luscious locks. I, however, had no such luck. In fact, I found myself corralling handfuls (not exaggerating, as I'm wont to do) of hair during every shower, and wondering if this would curtail before the thinning was beyond disguising. I chalked it up to another pregnancy thing that would go back to normal after baby arrived, but I found that the hair loss continued without missing a beat after my delivery.

It never occurred to me to consider hair loss a symptom. Like fatigue, dry skin, and brain fog, it's one of those things that when experienced often enough, you start to just adjust and assume they're part of your new normal (especially as a new mom). Imagine my shock as I was reviewing a list of symptoms of hypothyroidism at a visit with my Integrative Medicine doctor, finding all of the above on the list...as well as several other "annoyances" to which I had adapted.

On the one hand, you can Google almost any issue or even slightly abnormal experience and get suggestions ranging from a run-of-the-mill infection to a life-threatening, rare disease. Symptoms are nuanced and illnesses these days are not cut and dry, just one thing or another. With our modern diets and incredibly stressful pace, it's nearly impossible to actually detect when our bodies are trying to tell us that something is wrong, much less take the time (and justify the expense) to address it. 

But I've been doing exactly that as I work to get to the bottom of my autoimmune condition. I am not relegating myself to staying on medication my whole life, which may very well be something that I just have to get over. But doing so without investing the effort in helping my body actually HEAL and return to a state of balance so that it can handle this condition on its own (which I wholeheartedly believe is exactly how our amazing bodies are designed to work) is not something I can justify. My baby boy is only nine months old, and I don't just want to be dragging these old bones around for his life. I want vitality. I want to be well. I want him to have to warn his friends about his sharp, sassy mama. (The spirit of Biggie shall live on! RIP, Ma.)

So, I share all this because I want to inspire hope. I'm about three months into this particular journey, and still working through some big changes to chip away at the years of stress, toxicity, and exhaustion my body has endured. But I will say this: my hair is no longer falling out. My hairline is slowly returning to normal. And I will embrace the peach fuzz in the process, knowing that it's a sign -- albeit a small one -- that I'm on the right track.