Dear Doctors: A Middle Aged Woman’s Adventures with Medicine – Oh No, My Hair!
I sent an email to my doctor’s office to other day and so began another disheartening chapter in my book “A Middle-Aged Woman’s Adventure In Medicine.” This is not a fun, wanderlust kind of book, but a precautionary tale about women’s health and doing something, namely consulting doctors, over and over again and hoping for a better result each time I do it. It is about an act of insanity that I just can’t seem to stop doing.
It’s a Precautionary Tale
This whole post may all seem a bit too intimate, a bit too personal. I’ve met way so many women who have gone through similar experiences, so consider this a precautionary tale to add to the ever-expanding number of them.
My hair started falling out. Not excessively, but noticeably more than usual. Each time I ran my fingers through my hair, I’d have several strands twisted around my fingers and my brush has been unusually full. So, I sent an email to one of the specialists I’ve gone to recently explaining this problem.
Admittedly, it is a bit of a privilege to send an email to a doctor’s office and expect a response. Patient portals are changing that, but I know this is unusual. However, I am paying for a functional medicine specialist not covered by insurance out-of-pocket. I only see him every 3-4 months and I had just visited him the week before to the tune of several hundred dollars. I did not intend to do that again one week later. So, thankfully, the office responded and I spoke with the doctor on the phone.
The Phone Call
“Well, you know humans lose about 100 strands of hair a day. Are you sure?” he asked in a dry, droll.
I felt myself bristle at the condescension. I’ve had thick, full hair that as ranged from waist-long to mullet (yes, mullet) to tight pixie and everything in-between. I am pretty confident that at 43, I know how much hair I lose normally. I am pretty confident a man with hair that has probably been a few inches long his whole life would not understand how obvious long strands falling out are or how obvious it is when their falling increases. I am pretty confident second guessing me in this area is unnecessary.
I responded as politely as I could. “Yes, I know. I’ve had long hair my whole life and this is different than normal.”
“Well, there’s nothing in your treatment that could cause this, so maybe you just think it’s more because you’re looking for side effects.”
I knew where this was heading – nowhere. As I expected, the conversation steered into the “you don’t know what you’re talking about” territory and ended in zone of “it’s in your head.”
Arriving here
A convoluted path brought me to this specialist in the first place and my newfound hair loss made me ask “How the hell did I get here?”
Last year, I started to stink. I fell for all the women’s health thought pieces telling me to go with natural deodorants. I did and they caused a rash from elbow to chest. And yes, I did do a pit detox first. Pro tip, baking soda can cause rash and irritation. Wish I had that piece of information before I switched.
After the rash, I started exuding a foul odor distinctly and definitively different than any odor I have ever emitted.
My primary did the usual annual blood tests but also suggested I lose weight and quit eating onions before getting to the “it’s in your head” zone. I thought it was a women’s health issue – premenopause – so I went to the OBGYN. There, aside from the pain of a cervical biopsy, a transvaginal ultrasound, more blood tests, and multiple three-plus hour visits, I learned everyone sweats – especially overweight people – and, oh yeah, onions cause BO.
That fiasco is a different chapter in my book.
So, I Sought a Specialist.
Since I thought the smell was related to premenopause, the specialist treated me for premenopause. Even though more blood tests didn’t indicate a hormone deficiency, he started me on progesterone.
Ater a great deal of research, I found the source of my stench. A skin fungal infection that occurred after the rash. I took care of it topically and with a prescribed oral anti-fungal treatment. Great, the problem I spent nearly a year chasing, going from doctor to doctor, solved. Solved by me, not the doctors.
Then, just over 3 months after starting hormones my hair started falling out. As it turns out, hair loss is often traced to changes in diet, health or hormones 3 months earlier. And, despite progesterone normally improving hair growth, too much progesterone can flood the hair follicle and cause hair loss. I didn’t learn this from random internet articles, I learned it from a book on the specialist’s recommended reading list.
When I mentioned this possibility, he stuck with the line that progesterone is good for hair growth and I wasn’t taking that much even though my initial tests didn’t show me deficient.
Let’s Recap .
In an effort to improve my health, I bought a natural deodorant. It caused a rash and made me stink. I saw three doctors in a year about my stink.
I spent a stupid amount of money and invested multiple days of time. I had two very uncomfortable procedures, spent hours with my pants off draped with a paper blanket and filled around 50 vials of blood for testing. I was told am fat and fat people sweat and they shouldn’t eat onions three times. I started hormones.
Then, I find the cause of my stink on the internet and a single $5, seven-day generic antifungal fixes it. Now, I wonder why I started hormones in the first place when all I just wanted to stop fucking stinking. And, oh yeah,
my hair is falling out.
And there closes this chapter of “A Middle-Aged Woman’s Adventure In Medicine.”
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