Does anyone lose loads of hair at the hairdressers?

[Fruitcaked]

Hi,

A bit of background, have lost quite a lot of my hair due to (I'm assuming) low iron over the past 10 years. I started with a lot, so whereas it's quite a bit thinner, it's not terrible .....so far 😬

I go through phases of losing a lot when washing and brushing my hair. When I go to the hairdressers though it's always LOADS! I've started having the greys covered every 8 weeks or so, so when I'm having it washed, they really go for it and are very thorough, shall we say 😵‍💫 to get rid of the residue.

When I go back to the chair, I run my fingers through my hair and soooo much comes out. I would say 3 times more than on a normal (well..normal for me!) wash.

All I can think of is that the hairs are being dislodged that would be anyway, but normally over a longer period of time, because I think the hair loss slows over the next few days....if that makes sense!

If it is that, then I guess that's nothing to worry about, but if isn't, could it be that my hairdresser is just too heavy handed? Maybe it's the colour? I bloody hope not, as I'm not ready to let it go grey!

Anyone else?

Could be a telogen effluvium, check your iron and keep it above 70. It's important to maintain this otherwise it'll cause another shed.

This is a disruption of the hair cycle and causes more hairs to move into the shedding phase. If you want to remove a hair that's in the growing phase, you must pluck it out. Any hair fall is going to be a hair in the shedding phase with this condition. So it's not that the hairdresser is doing anything wrong, nor is it your hair dye if you've got a comfortable scalp after having it done.

If you've got no patches of loss it's less likely to be alopecia areata, but that can still present as diffuse loss. This is an auto immune response rather than having any correlation with nutrition.

I'd say check your iron levels regularly and maybe have your GP check your hormone levels and thyroid too. These fluctuating can cause a telogen effluvium also.

@selck I know it's not close to 70. Think it's around 30. I've tried everything, apart from an infusion, to get it up, but nope. Well, it was 7 at one stage, but can't seem to get it above this number.

I'm guessing you are probably being quite gentle with your hair while washing it whereas the hairdresser is being a bit more vigorous. As you say the loss slows down after so it's just speeding up the hairs that were ready to come out anyway.

I hate going to hairdressers as they always aggressively brush my hair after washing when it's tangled rather than in sections from bottom working upwards.