Is there any concerning reason as to why a 6-year-old's hair should be thinning out?

[imaginaryfriend]

It's probably to do with her hair just changing as she matures but I've noticed that dd's hair has halved in thickness from this time last year. It's also changed texture slightly. At the longer parts (it's very long!) it looks now really very fine. It used to be quite a full abundant mane.

I'm thinking we'll get it cut to a chin-length bob so it looks a bit better.

Just wanted to (neurotically) check that it's not a sign of any kind of illness.

Thanks AM, I hope you're well?

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It was fine. Dd is a real trooper with blood tests as she's had quite a few over the years. She doesn't flinch at all and she watches everything despite the staff trying to tell her to look in the opposite direction! Just got to wait for the results now.

Our hair results are back now and they still show low levels of important minerals like zinc, selenium, magnesium, but thankfully iron, calcium are fine now. Too much of aluminium & mercury though so more work to do..

I had dd's blood results back today. Her liver, bone and kidney profiles were fine but she is anaemic and has a raised inflammatory marker which might be due to her allergies being fairly intense at the moment.

I have to give her a high iron diet and a supplement and repeat the blood tests in 6 weeks.

thanks for the update. She will hopefully feel a lot better after a couple of weeks on the iron, and not to mention her easter hols away from school More or less the same has recently worked for me. Give her an extra cuddle from me - I can't even begin to tell you how cr@p you feel when you're anaemic.

btw, what's the iron supplement? If it upsets her tummy, even when taken after a main meal, then head back to the GP as there are loads of different types. Also - have you been told to give her plenty of vitamin C as it makes the body absorb iron better?

I haven't got her prescription to hand but the GP mentioned it might make her nauseous and also constipated.

I've got some Floradix, I wonder if that would work as well?

How do you feel gigglewitch?

am not an expert - just being nosey to see if it's one of the ones that made ds1 unwell (it isn't) as I was going to give you the heads-up.

Bug the pharmacist, they are brilliant folk, they can tell you every bit of useful info. ours told us to take a smaller dose for the first couple of days so we could see what effects it had on him before stuffing him with it, as it were. Taken after a meal with orange juice or something should make it tolerable. but it will make her poo black, warn her!! We had to try three before hitting on the fourth one that ds1's stayed on.

IF, I said I wasn't going to say....

But seein' as you asked, well the main bits are - tiredness, aching legs every time you walk far or climb stairs, brain doesn't feel "sharp" [iyswim], I had some problems with my eyesight as I'm short sighted already; lanky hair (as you described in op) lack of concentration (send a snack like rasins and a vitC drink for snack time at school, this works for ds1, teacher has a spare set if she sees him 'drifting' because he also goes stubborn and grumpy and can't always recognise it), headaches mainly across the front of the head and around the eyes.
Starting to add up?

Sorry I got your name wrong

Yes, all the symptoms you listed ring very true. Have you had to remain on the iron or do you think it's possible to control by diet alone?

nah, I'm a witch really, just someone made me do "Easter" Pah!!

DS1 (who's now 8) takes a break from the gloopy iron medicine every few months and has a good multivit with iron (high percentage of child RDA in it, allegedly)
I'm on the iron for 6 months before review. They said that they would then reduce it a bit

Which iron supplement does your ds take by the way?

And did he have the same symptoms as you when he was anaemic? What caused both of your anaemias?

if are they going to try to find a cause for the anaemia~has she got any bowel symptoms like tummy aches,diarrhoea, blood or slime?

She does get tummy aches but none of the other things you mentioned.

could it be something like coeliac disease

I don't know, how might I tell?

She doesn't have regular stomach aches. Just now and then. it usually seems to be trapped wind.

will go and read ds's iron meds - I can't believe I have forgotten No I haven't it's Nifferex.

His is caused by food allergies and low absorbtion due to the inflamation in his digestive system from the food allergies and intolerances that we do know about, and I'm fairly sure that there are some foods that don't agree with him but we still haven't identified yet.

Mine's down to gynae issues that are currently being dealt with - heavy bleeding over a year or so, weight loss and such scary stuff. Hormone imbalance basically.

Sorry to hear that gigglechick. With your ds, what made you take him to the GP?

ds got a fairly fast referral to the paediatric consultant when it became obvious at 21mo that he had a problem with cows milk. from there we had blood tests done when he was 2yo, which showed that he was anaemic. He is re-tested regularly and tbh after 6 years of this we can recognise fairly well when he's good and when he's anaemic, without relying on the blood tests. Mainly mood and energy levels. We see Paeds consultant every 6 mo or so, and a dietitian regularly too, he now does all the talking for himself and I was really proud of him on the visit last week, he answered everything really well and has a good understanding of it all [proud mum emoticon]

Am wondering how far down the 'referral' process you are (or want to go, i suppose) FWIW we've found it really helpful to have support from the dietitian in particular - if they're anaemic then there is actually a limit to what you can do with diet alone. As your LO has food allergies already then it might be worth finding out how good/not her absorbtion is, theoretically at least.