I\u2019m standing outside my shower and I don\u2019t want to go in. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not tired or in a rush, simply avoiding the reckoning of how much hair I\u2019ll lose this time. This dread has been my constant companion ever since I lathered up, rinsed and watched handfuls of dirty blonde strands circle the drain three weeks ago. It wasn\u2019t the normal 100 to 150 strands everyone sheds daily; these were thick clumps of something I never imagined I could lose.<\/p>\n
I comb the conditioner through gently and come away with more. And more. I feel fragile, terrified to pull my hair up. Even laying my head on my pillow feels like a risk. \u201cThis can\u2019t be happening,\u201d I wail, my hands shaking as I feel the unprecedented thinness of my ponytail. My mind searches for answers: Is it the creatine? The estrogen cream? The trendy hair vitamins from Erewhon<\/a> I\u2019ve been choking down religiously?<\/p>\n Turns out, I\u2019m not alone. More than 85% of men and 33% of women experience hair loss<\/a> in their lifetimes, but I never thought I\u2019d be one of them. Between aging, stress and the rise of GLP-1s (aka Ozempic) hair loss has never been more common. \u201cI\u2019ve seen more clients experiencing shedding and thinning over the past few years,\u201d says Liz Jung, a Los Angeles-based hair colorist. \u201cIt used to come up occasionally, but now it\u2019s part of almost every consultation. I\u2019ve seen confident, radiant women start hiding under hats because they don\u2019t feel like themselves anymore.\u201d Yep, that was me.<\/p>\n My panic began with ChatGPT, where I diagnosed myself with everything from hormonal imbalances and thyroid issues to iron deficiency. Then I spent hours scrolling Instagram studying posts from hair-obsessed influencers like @hairlossgirlboss<\/a>, @Sofiahairhealth<\/a> and @AbbeyYung<\/a>. I doubled down on biotin, Amazon-Primed pumpkin seed oil supplements and surgically applied Epres<\/a> bond repair treatment three times a week. When the fistfuls of hair persisted, I tore through Los Angeles for someone, anyone, who could tell me why this was happening and how to make it stop.<\/p>\n I saw three doctors in five days. Each came highly recommended, yet their prescriptions couldn\u2019t have been more different. The first prescribed an oral pharmaceutical blend with minoxidil, the gold standard for hair growth, that I\u2019d need to take for life. The second championed three sessions of a buzzy noninvasive treatment that uses a handheld device to send ultrasound waves and air pressure to stimulate dormant follicles. The third swore by the big guns: PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections combined with exosomes \u2014 tiny vesicles derived from stem cells that deliver growth factors directly to the roots, essentially telling them to wake up and grow. Desperate for a solution, I was drawn to the aggressive approach, but I chose the third doctor for a more telling reason. He was the only one who required my blood work first.<\/p>\n The chosen one, Dr. Jonathan Shalom, a Beverly Hills-based board-certified physician and hair transplant surgeon also known as Dr. Hair 90210, was all business as he withheld a diagnosis until I was in his chair with his trichoscope in hand \u2014 think high-powered magnifying glass for your scalp. Unlike genetic or hormone-driven loss, I had a textbook case of telogen effluvium, or stress shedding. Sigh.<\/p>\n \u201cGood news,\u201d Shalom said as he finished his examination. \u201cYour hair isn\u2019t dying, it\u2019s just sleeping. We can wake it up, but we need to be aggressive.\u201d Evidently, telogen effluvium happens when the body undergoes emotional, physical or hormonal shock and pushes more hairs than usual into the resting phase. What I didn\u2019t realize was that hair doesn\u2019t fall out because of what happened yesterday, it\u2019s what happened three months ago (a markedly stressful time in my life) \u2014 which is why the massive loss completely caught me by surprise. It can last three to six months but the silver lining is that telogen effluvium can be reversed.<\/p>\n \u201cJust know that reversing hair loss is a long game,\u201d Shalom said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking six months minimum.\u201d Oh, hell no was my gut reaction. After a litany of stressful events, I couldn\u2019t handle more handfuls of hair. If I could speed this up with some modern-day medicine, I was game.<\/p>\n Since my hair was \u201cstuck\u201d in a resting phase, my treatment was designed to reset the scalp environment and nudge the follicles to grow again. I reclined in the exam chair as Shalom parted my hair into sections and cleansed the area with an antiseptic liquid. The first step was injecting my scalp (many times) with PRP created from my own blood, which contains growth factors the body uses for healing. Shalom swears by his double-spin, double-chamber PRP system, which he says yields a cleaner, higher-concentration product. My scalp was a little bloody, but thanks to a few pokes of lidocaine, the injections were relatively painless. But fair warning, the temple area can be a little spicy.<\/p>\n Next came stamping my scalp from hairline to crown with a medical-grade microneedling device, creating microchannels (or mini-tears) to stimulate collagen and blood flow while increasing absorption of the hero ingredient: proprietary exosomes. Shalom rubbed the liquid, stored in a small vial, into my scalp with his gloved fingertips. Once treatment was complete, my hair looked wet with a faint blood-red hue and felt a bit sticky, but it was nothing a baseball cap couldn\u2019t hide. Aftercare instructions were simple: Don\u2019t wash for 24 hours and stick with the ketoconazole shampoo, which I\u2019d already been using three times a week to prevent further thinning. \u201cPRP and exosomes are one of the most advanced regenerative combinations we have in hair restoration right now,\u201d Shalom said. \u201cIt\u2019s minimally invasive, biologically natural and designed to help the scalp function optimally.\u201d<\/p>\n