Interesting data point

[lillilah]

One of the reasons that I cut my hair recently was that my hair has been very strange. I have a lot of hairs sticking out of my braids, so they look really messy. This didn't used to happen so much. I thought it was because of a lot of broken hairs. These messy hairs were around shoulder length. I also noticed other, even shorter, hairs that were sticking out strangely. Now that my hair is shorter and I can actually see it down, I'm noticing that I shed a ton and guessed that maybe this was related to menopause. When I recently looked at a photo of myself with the same haircut about twenty years ago, I noticed that I had a lot more hair, so that fit. However, as I was looking in the mirror this evening, I could see a lot of hairs that were all about an inch or two long. It looked like I had cut my hair, because there were so many of them and they are all exactly the same length. I didn't though. (Joel also checked, and they look tapered, not broken or cut.) What does this mean? Well, I started growing my hair out in 2012. In seven years, with the occasional trim, it reached my waist. Some period of time ago (x), I must have started growing new hair for a bunch (that longer, "messy hair" that was about shoulder length). I've been on the diet for about two and a half years. Could that be x? Another, much shorter amount of time ago (y), I started growing other new hair (the stuff that looks like I cut it and is about two inches long). I started taking phosphatidyl serine in March of 2018. My hair grows faster than that (maybe), it could be y or maybe there is another length in here like z. I started taking DHEA in August 2018. DHEA is a precursor hormone (or something like that), so it probably is making me produce more of other hormones. It could be that DHEA is responsible for y. Cortisol, diabetes, and menopause all influence hair growth, so I'm not surprised that I'm seeing something. However, I'm guessing that new hair growth is a sign that my body is healthier. That's a good thing.