Hair loss post menopause

[Sunbeds]

I’m embarrassed to ask this but I imagine there are other ladies in the same boat.
I’m now post menopausal and have noticed that my hair at the temples is going thinner, just fluff in parts🙈. In a photo recently the wind was blowing my hair around and it looked so sparse. My hairdresser has confirmed it and says it’s more on one side than the other.
She takes biotin supplements but just googling that says it’s ineffective.
My hair is past shoulder length and fine. Seems plenty of it elsewhere.
Have any of you got any tips that work? I don’t want to take oral finasteride or minoxidil because of possible (heart) side effects. I don’t take HRT.
Im not ready to surrender to this! I know it’s vanity.

I've been researching this quite heavily recently, and a lot depends on why your hair is thinning. I've decided not to pursue any diagnosis or private trichology appointments etc. my GP is completely uninterested in helping me as it's not life threatening. So I'm choosing to spend my money on products and doing a four month experiment on myself to see if I can improve it. I'm thinning on my crown and generally on the top of my head, not getting a wider parting, it's more diffuse all over the top. Apparently you can have more than one thing going on at once that causes this. I am on hrt but it's made no difference to my hair. I suspect low thyroid is affecting this as my last blood test should thyroid at bottom of acceptable range and low ferritin.
I'm starting a hair regime based on the research that is out there, which unfortunately is mostly on men so no guarantee any of it will work for me. And I haven't started yet but thought you might be interested and you could pick a
Out what could work for you perhaps. here's a run down

• Supplements: iron to try to address any ferritin deficiency, 3 months only and then rest it for a bit. I found tabs that also contains a good amount of vit c and folic acid which are also helpful. Vit c helps you absorb iron. Vitamin d3 with K2. Omega 3 with at least 500mg of DHA, ifos certified as it's fish oil. Zinc would also be useful but I'm holding off on that as it's a lot of pills already. I've got some perfectil max that I'll use up which has a bit of zinc in, taking it at the other end of the day to the iron supplement as zinc and iron can block each other. I'm also not drinking any tea or coffee within a couple of hours either side of the iron supplement as it blocks absorbtion.
• I'm scared of using minoxidil so I'm trying the ordinary multi peptide serum for hair density, which has been shown to be almost as good as minoxidil but without any of the medical side effects. Apparently. I will eventually resort to minoxidil if I see no changes in a few months time.
• Washing my hair more frequently with shampoo specifically treating hair density and growth. For me this means every other day instead of twice a week, and I may well increase further. I've bought Dove scalp and hair therapy density and growth shampoo, and conditioner. I will also use nizoral or head and shoulders once a week as there's good evidence to show that shampoos with active ingredients commonly used to fight dandruff are worth incorporating. And those that contain caffeine, but the ordinary serum has caffeine in so I'm not buying another shampoo for that.
• Microfibre towel for wrapping my hair after washing to absorb a lot of moisture. Good evidence to show this decreases breakage
• Scalp massage. Just a few minutes a day when I use the serum. Increases blood flow.

What I'm not doing yet but also has good evidence. I will revisit after the initial four months:

• Prp on my scalp. Definitely think this would be useful so intending to save up to have next year
• Low level laser helmet, just out of my price range for a home device but may investigate having a salon course of treatment next year
• A therapeutic level of zinc supplementation. Just not right now, but am likely to add this once my perfectil runs out.
• Biotin and collagen. There is biotin in perfectil, but I don't think it's worth supplementing separately with this as there's no evidence for it. Collagen evidence is anecdotal so not where I'm putting my money at the moment.
• Water softener. Good evidence to show that hard water isn't great for hair growth, but I'm not putting in a softener and I don't think the shower head filters work so this is one I can't easily do anything about.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing and I hope this works for you. I will follow up on your suggestions.
Mine is just at the front temples (for now?) and I think it’s linked to menopause.
Hair is so important to our self esteem! Has to be something out there.
I have read about having scalp micro pigmentation (basically tattooing to make it look like hair instead of bare scalp) but unsure yet.
Thanks again xx

Have you had blood tests. My hairdresser mentioned my hair was thinning and from previous clients experience she suggested I get a blood test. Got results yesterday and I have very low iron so going to start on some tablets which will hopefully help.

I'm in the same boat but sadly due to lifelong scalp psoriasis I'm very limited in what I can put on my scalp - I'd love to try the ordinary serum otherwise.

I'm trying to 'embrace' it by having a shorter cut and using a styler to make what I do have look a bit fuller. The minoxidil tablets are an option but I've heard it doesn't cure, only treat so you have to take them forever.

It's so ageing and I do feel down when I see pictures of myself or look in the mirror, I had lovely thick hair in my youth many moons ago!

These are all wonderful suggestions.
I will try them all. Interesting about the iron because prior to the menopause I was always a bit anaemic.

When you get your bloods done, ask for ferritin levels to be checked specifically. For new hair growth your levels need to be around the 80's at least as i recall.
In this country women are routinely gaslit and told that levels in the 30's/40's and lower is totally normal, but it isn't.

You should ask your GP to consider whether you may have FFA - frontal fibrosing alopecia. This is an autoimmune condition and no amount of supplements or serums will help - you need steroids and time is of the essence as lost hair cannot regrow. Treatment is aimed at halting or slowing further loss. There are threads on here about it. Not all GPs are clued up on this so you need to go armed with the necessary info and request a dermatology referral. Good luck.

I think Rosemary oil is supposed to help with hair thinning (I think there was a trial done comparing it to minoxidil, and they found there were similar results in hair growth), although I haven't tried it myself.

Michelle Wong has thoroughly rebutted the rosemary oil claim on her YouTube channel - it appears the data is misrepresented.

My hair is shit too at 64 OP- I sympathise

67 here. I've been taking pumpkin seed oil for 3 months now. I've always had tons of fine hair - it was halfway down my back for many years, but about 4 years ago it started thinning - mostly breaking at the ends (unlike yours), but also there was less in the 'ponytail' (not that I wear one), so less volume overall. I cut it to just below shoulder length, which gave the illusion that it was thicker, 'cos no wispy ends, but I swear it's improving since I started on the oil. Whether that's causal or coincidental, I don't know - it's anecdotal, anyway!

On a thread about hair loss during GLP-1 use someone recommended pumpkin seed oil. I decided it was worth a try and not only has my hair started growing again in the thin patches (which it might have done on its own anyway) but there has been a big improvement with the treacherous urge incontinence that has been blighting my life since menopause shrivelled my old lady bits.

I thought I must be imagining it, but I've been using the perifit pelvic trainer 5 times a week for a year before I started the capsules, and the data from the 4 months since then have shown slow but steady improvement in strength, endurance and control.

Google AI has the explanation if you ask it "how does pumpkin seed oil improve hair growth" and "how does pumpkin seed oil improve incontinence". Mumsnet can be highly education on subjects that the rest of the world ignores -particularly things that concern females.

Just coming to second this, and yes, the sooner the better. Do you have other autoimmune issues?

On the subject of pumpkin seed oil, can you get the same effects from eating the seeds if you can’t get the oil?

No, you'd have to eat a bucket of pumpkin seeds a day, the oil is much more concentrated.

Thank you. They come in different strengths.. 1000 - 3000 mg for example. Does it matter how high you go with pumpkin seed oil?

Following. My hair is getting so thin - literally the shaft of hair is thinner than normal plus it is falling out. I have spent a lot of money on trichologists who have only suggested topical minoxidil (doesn't make much difference but scared to stop now!) and iron supplements. Even so my ferritin never seems to get above 20.

That suggests an iron absorbtion issue @hastenotwaste. Not looked into this much but there are different iron supplements you could try to see if it makes any difference and you need to avoid tea and coffee for two hours either side of talking the supplement. I'd be pursuing the GP for tests for any reason you aren't absorbing iron, could be an underlying issue such as an autoimmune disorder.

@HatStickBoots I haven't looked into pumpkin seed oil beyond noting it in passing so I don't know what strength would be needed. I would try to find the research which would say what strength was used in testing. I don't think it's well researched yet. I also don't think there are any known side effects or contraindications for pumpkin seed oil so I'm my view just crack on and take something if you want to give it a go. Consistency is key though and it's a long term thing, don't give it up after a month of you see no results, you need to commit to at least 3-6 months of continued use due to the growth phases of hair. Consistency is important.

Thank you @Lambsydaisy
For what it’s worth, I lost a lot of hair from my crown by a number of different reasons! A too tight ponytail or bun, a decade of stress with causes that were physical and emotional and finally an auto immune reaction to a vaccine which left a scar. The dermatologist I was referred a year after the scarring gave me some steroid injections, saw me a while later and shrugged before discharging me. There was no longer any autoimmune activity, nothing wrong anywhere, no deficiencies. I had to figure it out on my own. These things have helped me: taking an iron tablet with orange juice before bed, on an empty stomach, taking a good collagen supplement (I found a Vogue magazine article online where various had been trialled and they did a top ten), all the B vitamins, shampoo and conditioner which don’t contain parabens or sulphates, massaging my scalp with a trichology massager, not using a hairbrush only a wide toothed comb. As I no longer menstruate I am wary of taking high doses of iron without a Gp’s recommendation… I used to take ferrous fumerate years ago due to excessive bleeding with fibroids and my hair was the one thing that looked amazing! 🙃 I researched zinc snd magnesium and discovered that it’s best to eat foods that contain those if you can. Anyway. My hair is a lot fuller, sheds very little and despite the scar, is not getting worse. I do have a problem with haircuts though because I cannot tolerate pulling or tugging, any rough handling at all.
I have seen some new shampoos in Boots which have had results of thickening hair at the temples @Sunbeds as well as all the good suggestions here. Frontal fibrosing alopecia is thankfully quite rare.

Red light therapy is something I’d like to try and does actually seem to work wonders!