I am losing my hair

[asbolutelyfabulous]

It is coming out in massive clumps, and has thinned out A LOT in recent weeks. I've always lost a certain amount of hair in the past, but nothing like this.

I hardly lost any when I was pregnant. Now my DD is 11 months old, and I am breastfeeding. Could this have anything to do with it? Could it be related to nutrition, like inadequate calcium or vitamin B?

I am embarrassed to go to the hairdresser's, and the last one I went to tried to sell me a very expensive anti-hair loss shampoo and serum, but I think this is treating the symptoms rather than the cause.

I smoke, but not heavily. I rarely drink, and do not have a great deal of stress in my life.

Has anyone else had anything like this? Any ideas what might be causing it?

TIA for your responses.

Its normal to lose very little hair during pregnancy - all the follicles "hold onto" the hairs much more than usual. Then after you've had the baby, your hormones change and all those follicles switch to "let go" mode in a short space of time. I think the timing of when that happens is affected by breastfeeding, so its probably just that you've managed to delay it till now.

If that's all it is, you (or rather someone else) should be able to see new little hairs growing in on your scalp in place of the ones which you've lost. If that's happening, you don't need to worry about it. But if you have shiny bits of scalp where you can't see any new fluff coming, then you should see the GP to get it checked out.

Same thing happened to me at the same time, I was also breastfeeding.

Lost tons, but I could feel the new hair under it.

Hair was reeelly thin for a while but all grew back.