The Women’s Hair Loss Project

I've had hair loss for 25 years, not one type but two. In 2012 I started wearing wigs and had to make a choice for myself on how I would choose the rest of my life, and it was a choice.  In hiding? Or liberate myself and just be open about my situation. While it's not for everyone I found tremendous value and freedom in my openness, in pulling my hair off at will, and not making apologies for something I cannot control. This is me, it's a part of me life. I share this part of my journey to let people know, YOU get to decide how you want to live with this, there is no right, there is no wrong, but there is so much power in taking back your power from hair loss. Podcast also available to watch on YouTube: 

https://youtu.be/PYvKXaE91So?si=jnJAk47tk-1Mu46L

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

X: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

In this episode I discuss some personal stories and reflect on how I came to accept and learn to live with hair loss, the path that helped to get me to where I am today. Hair loss is ever-evolving, and my own journey has been just that. I have 25 years of hair loss, since the age of 21, and I got a 2nd type of hair loss (inflammatory alopecia ) in 2022. I shaved my head May 2023 and I have worn wigs since 2012. 

My hair loss journey has not been easy, and finding out that lightning does strike twice definitely impacted me, but one thing that has never changed over the years, is my desire to never want to live a hostage to hair loss ever again, and staying in front of that, whatever that means and whatever that takes. We get choices in this. 

So many women and men are struggling day in and out to just get through the day and process this entire thing, the devastation, and I understand. In this episode I share my thoughts on all this and I hope it helps in some way, to at least know the ability to get through this exists, the ability to reclaim your life exists. That is real, and you can do it. 

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

X: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

How do we get comfortable in a life with hair loss?  How to we accept the unacceptable ? How do we get comfortable with our hair loss with the choices we make to live with hair loss, including treatment and / or wigs.

How do we move forward and let go of what holds us back, which often times is the options of others. 

It has taken me a long time to learn to accept this, accept less, accept change, and learn to accept this was my reality. Fighting it only hurt me, denial stole years of my life, it didn’t help me.

The ability to be okay, exists, it doesn’t happen overnight, but it does involve being honest with ourselves, it does involve US evolving, and learning all we can to make empowered and educated decisions for ourselves. No one can tell you how to live your hair loss life, the right way is the way that works for you. 

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

X: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

I shaved my head May 7, 2023, due to a second hair loss I got last year, an Inflammatory alopecia. I have had female pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia) for 24 years since the age of 21.

I began wearing wigs 11 years ago at the age of 34.

I never expected to get a second hair loss, I never thought I'd be forced to NEED to make this choice for survival, to be able to continue to live with hair loss without it stealing any more of my life from me. 

I don't love this, I don't love seeing myself with a shaved head, but it is better than the alternative, it is better than the creaturish loss that was more obvious before. In the months prior to shaving, I had reached a place I could no longer look at myself in the mirror, at all. 

We have to do the things we need, to move forward, whatever those are in our life. Starting to wear wigs 11 years ago was life changing for me, and I thought I had it figured out, and I did, until I got a second hair loss that changed everything again and I was forced to adapt and evolve again.

Thank you for listening, thank you for being here. 

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

Twitter: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

This episode focuses on recapping the last year of my life. This is my life and hair loss update, they tie together. I now have a new type of hair loss in addition to the one I’ve had 24 years - female pattern baldness. The events of last year triggered this new hair loss, and so, here we are. I share about discovering I now also have diffuse alopecia areata (Incognita). 

I feel like this update is messy and all over the place, but my life is messy and all over the place, so it works perfectly.  

I had no idea it was possible to get more than one type of hair loss, but it is. 

I vacillated over the last month on how I would treat it, if I would treat it. After a lot of reflection, I have made the decision I can live with, and I’m declining the use oral minoxidil, (and Dupixent, and Olumiant for that matter). I had previously refused oral minoxidil for my androgenetic alopecia, and I stopped systemically treating my female pattern baldness in 2013. I have only utilized PRP hair loss treatments since 2009 (done every 4-5 months). 

This is new, and it is different, but the reasons I’m choosing to not treat it with medication are the very same as I made for my androgenetic alopecia, I am however trying a round of steroid injections, and I’ve already done those two times. 

This podcast is a lengthy deep dive into how this came to be, and my thought process behind all of it. This is my life and hair loss update.

https://www.womenshairlossproject.com/alopecia-areata/life-update-and-a-new-hair-loss-diffuse-alopecia-areata-incognita/

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

Twitter: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

This episode focuses on moving forward through hair loss, and what that looked like for me. I know a lot of women are in a place of feeling they will not be able to accept, they will not be able to live with hair loss - but you can, I know you can. I am living proof of that. 

Believing YOU CAN emotionally get past hair loss is so important.  Removing the fixed mentality that things have to be a certain way - that fixed mentality kept me stuck in my own prison for over a decade, till the one day things changed. I changed. My mindset changed. I learned I could be okay even though my hair wasn’t going to come back. I accepted my hair loss, I accepted what is, I accepting wearing wigs.  I found a new way to live, and I found it when I was open to it. It was there along, but I wasn’t open to it. 

I sat down today to speak to you, to speak to the woman who needs to hear these words from the person who has lived through it, and who knows deeply all the emotions and feelings that hair loss brings with it. 

We don’t always feel like we have any choices, but we do. It’s not always the choices we want, but we do get choices. Those choices empower us, and bring us closer to reclaiming ourselves and our power.

When I stopped feeling like everything was happening to me, out of my control, without any say of my own whatsoever, and began to make the choices I needed to,  and take action over how I dealt with my hair loss - everything changed. 

Visit Me Online:

Website: womenshairlossproject.com 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whlpnetwork

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/womenshairlossproject

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomensHairLossProject

Twitter: https://twitter.com/whlpnetwork

Although I have been doing PRP therapy to treat my hair loss for nearly a decade, earlier this year was the first year I had the treatment locally in Beverly Hills by Dr. Baubac Hayatdavoudi, in addition to the PRP, I also had an Exosomes treatment. After 6 months I want to provide my thoughts and where I am at currently.

I also discuss the importance or confronting the reality of our hair loss, whether or not we choose to treat it. In my opinion, living in denial can make the journey more difficult and at times also, practically and logistically problematic. 

Visit Me Online:

This episode is raw and personal.  In this podcast I share with you in more detail the cause of my hair loss, and provide a deeper look into my hair loss story/ journey. Last week I had posted a video on my YouTube Channel that was meant to really just share the cause of my of my hair loss, and open the dialogue for others to comment on the cause of theirs or if they didn’t know what the cause was, to share that too.

While I cannot advise what others should or should not do, I think there is benefit in sharing my story so that others can get a deeper look into a 21 year journey of hair loss, beginning at the age of 21,  and caused by the birth control pill Loestrin FE.  The podcast takes a few tangents, but my journey is like one giant tangent, so perhaps it works. I share some of my hair loss treatment regrets, and the things I tried over the years.  It took me a very long time to accept anything and get to the place I am at. It didn’t happen over night, and I think it’s important for others to know that, so they are more patient and kind and loving towards themselves when dealing in what can often seem like the impossible…. Hair loss. 

Visit me online via my website: womenhairlossproject.com - Via instagram @whlpnetwork 

The link to the YouTube Video I spoke of in the podcast: What Caused My Hair Loss?

An update on my experience with PRP is long overdue, and over the last couple months I have tried to record a segment on this, each time only finding that I was left with a question mark and a position of inaction and indecisiveness as to how to continue forward. I found myself stuck. I was already being confronted with the fact that I was no longer experiencing the same benefit of PRP during the last couple years, as I had in my prior years. My hair loss shedding / decline was occurring more rapidly and after my last treatment in November,  I was actually debating on whether or not the time had home to close the chapter of that treatment in my life. 

Well, life changed for us all, choices changed. A week ago I finally decided on how to proceed forward, and provided myself with a plan. There is so much power in making a decision, and taking an action towards that decision. The minute I decided to do so, I instantly found relief within myself. This podcast is definitely one giant clump of a run on thought, it's a little all over the place (so my apologies in advance), but I really wanted to get all my thoughts out to you, about where I have been at with all of this.

Visit me online via my website: womenshairlossproject.com and also via instagram @whlpnetwork

Jan 1st of this year Ricki Lake came out to the world revealing her secret battle and struggle with hair loss that she had been dealing with for nearly 30 years. I met Ricki in 2012, she had joined my site, The Women’s Hair Loss Project, in search for help, support and understanding. We connected through hair loss. 

I am so honored to be able to be joined by Ricki, from her home in Marina De Rey, for this episode of my podcast. It was an unbelievable privilege to sit down with her and listen to her tell her story as she shares how her hair loss started and takes us along for an inside and intimate look at what it was like dealing with hair loss while being in the public eye. 

She also shares some never before seen personal footage from from the day she shaved her head, (which you can seen the videocast on my website) and also snippets of documented clips from when she revealed to her boyfriend for the first time (after dating for 20 months) about her hair loss struggle. Spoiler alert, he embraced her with loving and open arms, as any good man would… good news for those women who are concerned about dating and hair loss. 

Ricki is truly a beacon of strength, and hope for others, and I am inspired by her courage to be able to step forward, and put a face (a very public face ) to this debilitating and devastating disorder that so many women like myself have had to deal with and often having to have done so suffering in silence.  Ricki Lake’s Documentary Site: https://www.thebusinessof.life

And on instagram: @rickilake

Visit me online via my website: womenshairlossproject.com and also via instagram @whlpnetwork