Progesterone
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- Joined
- Feb 8, 2017
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- 1,553
hello matey
i stopped my hair loss about six years in my early 20's ago but wasn't happy and insisted it grew all back haha.
some things i have learnt;
diet really isn't that important - yes, it's important to eat enough food and to eat food that doesn't make you sick, but the healthier you get the less this will be an issue. eventually, you will have the intuition to know what to and what not to do.
people talk about stress hormones like they are the devil but they are not. sometimes it's better to be be ramped up on stress and out living life than to be bogged down with food and stuck obsessing over that one night's drinking. i had good regrowth during drug binges where i would eat all sorts of ***t i knew was bad for me, simply cuz i'd gotten to the point where thinking about what i could/could not eat was causing my more psychological worry than actually eating it
i would say that avoiding gluten and pufa is important, but again i was binging on these during hard times and while they certainly don't help regrowth, they didn't affect shedding/loss at all that i can see, at least not in the way people seem to go on about. those with more sensitive nervous systems will probably need to be more careful but if you get a grip on your general disposition, a few slip ups will only serve to encourage you to do better and better
if you're getting fibre, protein, carbs and good fats in, don't get too hungup on the details imo.
posture - this is the number one defining factor in most mpb cases imo. sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's not. in my case, the outer ball of my left foot was very slightly atrophied (from bag carrying/cliff diving/early trauma scoliosis) and while no one would have noticed but me, it literally made my entire frame lopsided. the irony is people always complimented my posture as near perfect, but when i corrected this (via dance/martial arts/generally groping the ground at every opportunity) not only did my frame start to re-align but a lot of emotional bull**** i'd been repressing started squirting out of everywhere and i generally felt pretty fantastic / unshakeable.
posture reflects psychology and you need to be grounded, especially if you're worried about stress hormones (that's like worrying about worrying xD), and believe me, in 99% of cases someone with hair loss will have less than perfect posture, but it can be corrected with nothing but patience and mindfulness.
another important point is to learn to rest your tongue on the soft palate of your mouth, stretching it like you would any muscle in yoga, consistently on a daily basis. the oddest thing happened in that one day in work, i found my tongue resting there naturally, it was so bizarre, but when researching it i actually discovered this is VITAL for perfect posture. you literally cannot have an aligned spine if your tongue isn't helping to support your atlantoaxial joint. it amazed me that in attempting to fix my posture, my body began doing this subconsciously. eventually, you will be able to stretch your tongue all the way up to your nasal passages and avoid having it in the mouth at all, unless you're eating or talking
topicals - generally speaking, i don't think these things work well and if they do, they don't do enough to warrant the time/investment. i tried most everything (i first registered on this forum like 6 ears ago and that was after 5 years of constant research since my thinning started at 18 so i'd tried everything short of burning my scalp with open flame xD) but the one thing i will praise is magnesium chloride. not only does this have a noticeable effect on my mood, i think it is probably the reason i became so aware of my posture problems.
when you saturate your body with magnesium it will begin to decalify tissues and relax muscles that are chronically under stress. your body has no real choice but to relax, and as you relax, you will naturally seek balance. this loosens the fascia and ultimately provides breathing room for the galea, which is generally tight and fibrotic and unable to nourish hair on the top of the head. mag baths, transdermal sprays, and mega doses of oral tablets short term can do amazing things for your mind and eventually your body
-edit- vinegar might also be useful. i actually wash my head in 8% distilled vinegar because it's cheap, it doesn't smell and it helps tenderize tough tissue while breaking up sebum and calcium deposits around hair, which feed bacteria and encourage inflammation. i don't actually know whether this has helped towards the regrowth i noticed in last six weeks but i figured i'd mention it. i think distilled is probably better than acv because the vitamins in acv will leave your head sticky and won't do much to nourish your noggin.
massage - imo the previous points will stop hair loss but regrowing it is another matter. in order to regrow you not only need to correct posture and allow clean flow of energy up and down your body, but you need to undo the years of damage caused by it - you need to literally break up the fibrotic tissue that is producing inflammatory proteins that leads to excess sebum, bacteria, and everything we think is the cause of mpb. deep tissue massage about 20-30mins x2 a day for a year is the bare minimum imo, and one of the reasons most people won't see results, because it's a massive investment most of us underestimate, but it does work
i had good regrowth on back and i was getting regrowth on front/hairline until i got hit with a hat trick of life drama - parent died, evicted, two cars blew up and my only coping strategy was drug and sex abuse, which made me too lethargic to apply any of this for the last year - during which time all i maintained was good posture, and i lost no ground except what massage had provided me
gut health - this is tricky because i'm naturally athletic and have rarely had gut issues, but i am far from having a healthy gut. while we can try to manipulate this sort of thing via diet, imo that is mostly throwing fuel on the fire if you don't master other things first. good posture, exercise, proper breathing and a calm will help heal a gut faster than stuffing it full of things it's already having a hard time dealing with. raising your body temperature via exercise/controlled breathing will raise cortisol, but this will help cellular respiration and co2 production, helping to oxygenate the body and ramp up body temperature, and i think a healthy body temperature (very slightly above average) is the best indicator of gut health. fermented foods etc probably help a lot because they are easier to digest and while ray peat says the gut should be sterile, i disagree - the same way i disagree with his theory on prolactin and balding. which brings us to;
sex - i had very unhealthy approaches to sex and still do to some extent, but a lot of it has simply dissipated as i got other stuff under control. while i admit prolactin might be involved in shedding, i do not think it is involved in actual chronic hair loss as much as people expect. chronic masturbation on the other hand can actually be detrimental simply because it encourages atrophy of muscles in and around the hips that are not only essential for great sex, but equally essential for balance and posture.
light - i'd say getting adequate sunlight is essential but honestly, i live in ireland and can't comment lol. i feel a lot better everywhere when i happen across it and on that alone, without getting into my laymen understanding of vitamin d, speaks for itself. if you live somewhere sunny, make the most of it and walk around nekkied tbh :P
i've finally got my life back under some semblance of control and have started reapplying everything i know worked in the past. normally i would say it takes 4-6months to start seeing real results but i have already started noticing regrowth on my hairline in the exact same place i noticed it prior to copping out due to life drama last year. i think this is because i know it's possible, i had already done a lot of work and despite everything, was working to get what i wanted, just in less than optimal ways.
the main points are to focus on posture because it deals with two major issues at once - stress and blood flow. if you're mindful of your posture you will naturally lower stress hormones (meditation has proven this to be the case) and by improving posture, we naturally decalcify and improve blood flow anyway
eat enough to be happy and healthy but don't let diet become an obsession that begins undermining your effort and generally make an effort to be active and energetic, without exhausting yourself.
gl gl :P
Very interesting.
Can you talk more about posture and... resting tongue on soft palate = the roof of your mouth?