Episode 88 - Signs and Symptoms of Alopecia and Listener Questions

There were numerous questions brought to me which if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us anytime at hello at alopeciaangel.com or you can also ask us your questions on Instagram and we will respond to them on the podcast and of course on Instagram as well. We'll reply back and let you know. But I wanted to share those questions because I get these questions. All the time and more than likely you're wondering about them, too.

Let's go ahead and just talk about signs and symptoms of alopecia, and when I talk about alopecia, alopecia is the medical term for hair loss. It's the overarching umbrella term for hair loss. But when it comes to the alopecia that I'm specifically talking about right now at this moment, it's the autoimmune alopecia, meaning it's alopecia areata, alopecia totalis, alopecia universalis.

There's other signs and symptoms for different types of other hair loss, including telogen effluvium, scarring alopecia, androgenetic alopecia and other, various types from there on, including diffuse and traction, etcetera. And I believe I highlighted this in previous podcasts, but I wanted to talk about the importance of healing hair loss, all hair loss.

And the importance of it is that. In terms of the autoimmune situation is that 25% of people will go on to acquire a second and a third autoimmune disease, which maybe for some of you who are listening to this, maybe that's not a big deal, but if you start to do your research, it is a big deal. There are over 140 different types of autoimmune disease, everything from lupus to MS, which is multiple sclerosis to rheumatoid arthritis to other debilitating autoimmune diseases.

And in many ways, alopecia for me was very debilitating. It was debilitating on a mind body, mental, emotional, physical sphere, and I'm sure it is for you, too. And so just take into consideration how much hair loss can and does cripple you. And then you want to avoid, at least I would hope you would want to avoid the possibility of a second and third autoimmune disease.

Now, saying that if you already have a second and a third autoimmune disease, understand that those two can also be reversed. I've seen it numerous times on my program where people come with me with second with two and three autoimmune diseases and they reverse them completely. They reverse their Graves disease, they

reverse their Hashimoto's, they reverse, the thyroid issues, they reverse hormones, they reverse, so many other imbalances that are occurring at the same time.

And this is where there's a big connection. And in holistic health, there's a big connection with everything and everything is connected. This is why seeing different doctors for different things is not really getting the full picture or getting the full view of what's really going on and signs and symptoms of alopecia. Anything can be from, of course, obviously hair loss and any amount of hair loss.

If it's too much for you, then it's already too much. And only, you know, what too much is, right? Because you already know what your normal standard is. We can't go off of an internet search and say: Oh yeah, I'm shedding at 50 hairs, 75 hairs a day. This is quote unquote normal. That's the same guideline that your primary doctor is going to use, and I use a different rule of thumb. My rule of thumb is if it's too much for you, it's already too much.

If you're losing eyelashes on a consistent basis, if you're losing your eye eyebrows, if you're losing your hair on your head, especially like in the shower or just during the day, and it already feels too much, then it is, you're not crazy. It is too much hair loss. And this is where you need to do something about it because it can, and it will get worse. And I've seen this over and over with the thousands of clients that I've seen where they just let it be, thinking that it's going to get better on its own, but it doesn't. And so that's part of the situation that you don't want this to faster. You don't want this to take its own

path on its own. And so some things that I wanted to talk about are, the symptoms that are correlated with alopecia. And many times it's dry eyes and dry skin, it's digestive issues, it's hair loss, of course lots of tons of shedding. It's a lot of fatigue, lack of energy, it's depression, anxiety, it's mood swings, it's being sad and depressed, it's having really bad bowel movements, maybe tons of acne on your face, on your back, on your body, other symptoms like body odor or halitosis, joint pain, body aches, eczema, psoriasis.

Brain fog is a big one, because I think brain fog You can't pinpoint it, but it's like, when you do, you know it. And so brain fog is a big one. And brain fog was a big one for me to. Not feeling like yourself, completely feeling hopeless and helpless of this situation. Understanding that, that many times that the options out there for us are actually doing us more harm.

So for example, just like me, when I first got my allopatient diagnosis, the first thing I did was go see my general doctor, and then I went to go see a dermatologist, and then I went to go see a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth of so many different doctors all around the world and still, I was coming up short with all the options, with all the healing modalities.

And the treatments were just not doing its job. The treatment options actually put me in a vicious cycle of worse side effects and worse health, mental, physical, emotional health. And so this is where the signs and symptoms, like you need to do something

before you go over the edge a little bit. And I will say If you're feeling desperate, which I've been there, I felt desperate myself, do something about it.

Do something about it. You have full control of your health. You have full control of your hair and hair loss can stop in, two to four weeks, the shedding can stop. And many times, we think, Oh, it's just the diet. Oh, it's just this. Oh, it's just that. And let me tell you, if this is the first time you've heard my podcast, it's not just diet. It's not just supplements. It's not just one thing or two things or three things. It's a big puzzle piece of 1000 pieces.

And so you need to really put this all together to make sure everything is working like a recipe, right? For example, if I want to make dinner tonight, and I'm about to chop up some vegetables or do something, you first, you have to do this, then that, and then step two, and then step three, and then step four, and this is how it is.

There's different steps to even creating a recipe to even creating dinner, right? The same thing happens when we're healing alopecia, there's many different steps. And if you think that just diet alone is going to make this all work, it's not, it really isn't. And I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's the reality of it. It's not just diet, it can't be just diet because if it was just diet, then we wouldn't be here. It wouldn't be this difficult, right?

And you think of something like hair loss and you're like, okay, this is easy. I'll just take biotin. I'll just take a hair, nails, skin supplement. I'll just do this, I'll just do that, I'll just use minoxidil, I'll just use the supplement. I'll use this, but that's not it. There's so much more to it behind the scenes. And I really want to drive that home that there's so much more than just diet alone. So if you think that you've done one diet, who dies or three diets, this is not it. There's so much more that needs to be done in order for you to see the results that you want.

For me personally, if you don't know my story, I'd say I recommend episode one, and this is where you can learn more about my story. It's been now more than eight years of being alopecia free. And when you heal, you gain so much. a) you gain the health and the hair you also gain all those other symptoms that I had mentioned, they all go away all of it completely.

So anything from your psoriasis to your skin issues to the depression anxiety to Insomnia to not being able to sleep. The brain fog it all goes away, the energy comes back the the zest for life comes back, the empowerment comes back, the control comes back. Everything comes back, and it comes back in full force. I can't stress enough how much it comes back because now I never fear hair loss again.

And this is me saying this even after a pregnancy, even after COVID, even after stressful times and having different moves and everyone knows moving, even if it's from one house to another house down the street, it's still very stressful. There's still a lot

going on. And if you know my story, I've moved many times throughout this journey. And so even all the stressful, things that come my way, they don't phase me and my hair still remains. And so this is the key, understanding that you hold the keys to your hair growth and to your health.

And it's not going to come from a pill, a prescription or from steroid injections or anything else, it's going to come from you. And from within, and of course, with the guidance of the Hair N' Heal program. And so I also wanted to answer your questions.

Last week, I had a question box on my Instagram and I've had many questions similar to this in the past. And some questions from, followers and viewers were that number one: can I heal even after 40 years of having alopecia, after 40 years of being bald and me personally, I believe you can.

I believe you can because I've seen it before and whether you've had alopecia universalis or whether you have scarring alopecia or whether you have different types of hair loss, I believe you can heal. And that's where this all starts. You have to believe you can heal.

And unfortunately, many of us, we put so much emphasis on what doctors say we put so much emphasis and we give them the keys to our future by what we're led to believe, and the thing is doctors are humans, they can be wrong too. And just because the medical textbook doesn't give you like the affirm, the affirmation that yes, you can heal doesn't mean you can't heal. I was told this over and over again, whether it was an internet search or from a doctor where: Oh, there's no cure for alopecia, oh, there's no cure for this, oh, there's no cure for that.

Again, I've mentioned this before in other podcasts, but I'm going to repeat this. They say there's no cure because there's not one pill that's a one size fits all. For example, if you have a headache and I have a headache, we both take headache medicine, it'll go away. Maybe for you it goes away in 45 minutes, maybe for me in 15 minutes, but it'll go away, right? And there's no one pill that does that for alopecia for everyone around the world.

And on top of it, if there was, I would be weary of it. And I'm weary and concerned about it because there are a lot of side effects. There are a lot of negative side effects to it. And the thing is, it's like alopecia is not just for adults. Alopecia happens in children as young as eight months, as young as five months. And so it's like you can't give headache medicine to a child who's five months or eight months. Why would you give them some sort of alopecia med, right? It just doesn't make sense.

So in this case, you want to be very weary of medications and prescriptions and really look at the benefits, the side effects the negative side effects, the long term side effects. And then also if it even works, because if you'll do your research, you'll see that medication only works less than 10%. This is why they say there's no cure.

So going back to healing and going back to believing, you have to believe first a) that it's possible for you, whether it's been a hundred years that you've had alopecia. If you want to, if you have that desire to heal, you can heal, but you have to have the desire and the belief. If you don't have that, you won't go anywhere, right? It's the same for anything. If you have the desire and belief that you want to graduate from college and finish school, you can do it.

There's ways to do this. Whether there's one obstacle or two obstacles or whatever it is, you can do this. You can go to college and you can heal and you can grow your hair back out. So it all starts with you. Do you want to heal? Yes or no. Do you believe you can heal? Yes or no. That's where it starts, it starts with you. And then from there you take action, you implement, and then you see the hair growth. That's how this happens.

Again, when doctors say or an internet search says you can't heal or there's no cure for alopecia I like to believe that there is because I feel I've healed and I feel like others and my clients have healed as well. I feel like they are on the right path. I feel like everyone's path is different. It doesn't all look the same. It can't all look the same.

We all live in different countries, cities, states, provinces. We all have different ages, different backgrounds, and I'm not just talking about ethnicity. I'm talking about like backgrounds, like how we grew up and where we grew up and, everything.

We all are different. And so this is why the Hair N' Heal program is tailored and customized to you because we're all different. We all have a different life. Understanding that it all starts with you is paramount to your healing, in any healing it's paramount. You have to believe that it's possible for you. If you give up, then, no one can do anything for you, right?

It's just like the child who's learning how to walk. If they give up, no one can, force them to walk. If they want to crawl their whole life, then they will crawl, but that's not what nature intends us to do. This is why children learn to walk, right? Because they eventually do walk. And so this is the progression in life. And so the progression in life for you at this point is to believe, to take action and to understand that healing is possible.

And so I truly do believe that healing is possible regardless of 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, or however long it is, it's all very possible. So that's first and foremost. Another question I get is, can the Hair N' Heal program help somebody with androgenetic alopecia or scarring alopecia or other different types of alopecia?

And I would say yes, because I've seen it already in my clients. And if you have any questions about that, I would say, look at the success stories online. I would say online at alopeciaangel.com I would also say you can look at the interviews from previous podcast episodes and you'll see people with scarring alopecia. You'll see people with autoimmune alopecia, with regular diffused alopecia, with telogen effluvium, with different types of alopecia, have interviews with me and talk to me about their progress in just less than eight weeks.

And that's huge, because I guarantee you, no bottle of hair, skin, and nails, no bottle of prescription, no medication guarantees you, hair growth in less than two months. And yet, I see it in 90% of my clients, 90%. And if you're wondering what happens to that 10% I have a podcast episode about it, spoiler alert, the 10% just have a few more steps to do. They have a few more extra things to do and work out. And so this is necessary to everyone's healing.

Again, what took me four years. Is packaged now in a eight week program and four years of trial and error, four years of perseverance, four years of tenaciousness, four years of keep going and keep working at this. Like I didn't give up and I'm so happy I didn't because it's giving me peace of mind, it's giving me freedom, it's giving me, the only concern that I have about my hair now is split ends, regular haircuts and the gray hairs, which I don't know if you can, see on the YouTube, but I have a little crown of gray hairs that come in.

Those are really it in terms of hair problems that I face, which gray hairs, everyone at some point is going to have to deal with that. Probably not guaranteed, but probably. And then, cutting of hair, getting regular trims and maintenance, which is another thing. Because now, with curly hair. I see that it's changed and it's changed because I also live in a new country, in a new state in a new city and everything changes. The weather, the environment affects the curls of my hair.

When I lived in a humid area, it was all super curly and coily. Now it's a little more relaxed because it's more dry out here. And so everything is different. And so the concerns, the, it's just all different. The process, the maintenance is a little different, but It's still there, it's still growing.

So this is the only way to heal completely, is the holistic and natural way. Another question I get is, somebody else telling me: Oh, they say androgenetic alopecia has no cure. They also say the same thing about scarring, and they also say the same thing about traction, and they also say the same thing about the autoimmune, and they also say the same thing about any other type of hair loss or alopecia that you may encounter.

And again, to what I say is, If you want it, and if you believe it, it's possible. That's my train of thought, that's where my foundation is built on that. If you want it. And if you believe that it's possible for you, then it is. You just have to go get it. And really, just like anything in life, if you want to, get a college degree, if you want to buy a house, if you want to get your hair back, if you want to lose weight, if you want to, beat cancer, if you want to do this, if you want to do that, I believe it's all possible. I really do.

But you have to keep working towards it. And that's the key word is work. You got to work towards it, just like anything, if you want to work for a promotion in your job, like

you got to work for it, right? You're not just going to be lazy and, do the day to day because maybe doing the day to day is not enough. You got to do a little bit more, you got to go the extra mile, right? You have to perform with performance. Then you're able to get that promotion. You're able to be like, next in line to be partner, etcetera.

Same thing with anything else. You want to excel in school. You want to, graduate sum cum laude, etcetera, you got to work for it. And sometimes that's where people drop off, right? We all have new year's resolutions in the beginning of the year, and then by January 25th, everyone at the gym is like no longer there. Even though we've already paid for the gym membership, there's statistics on this.

People work only so much for themselves, and that's just it. This is for you, no one else is gonna relieve you of your hair loss. No other gimmick, helmet, PRP, all that doesn't work. Stop throwing your money away. So if you want to do something about your hair loss, you got to do it. This is like you, making dinner, you got to put this together. No one else is going to put this for you unless, you go out and buy dinner and then bring it back home. But that's totally different because again, when it comes to your hair loss, only you can heal it.

And so this is very important to understand is that the healing comes from you. It comes from within and it starts with believing in yourself. Let me see if there's any other questions that I got over the weekend.

Okay, so on my Instagram, I have, the same questions repeated in different manners where everyone's, telling me: Oh, there's no known cure for alopecia, there's no known cure for androgenetic alopecia. But the thing is, it's like the cure is individualized. The cure is personalized and it has to be. Because again, if you're treating an eight month old to a 15 year old to a 55 year old, it's going to look very different. The treatment's going to look different. Everything's going to look different.

And so what I would say to that is it has to be personalized. It has to be customized and it has to be tailored to each person. And this is what we do in the inside the Hair N' Heal program. We tailor this to each person.

So if you are still, hesitant or have this limiting belief that: Oh, because your doctor said that there's no known cure or that because you're so and whatever it is, naturopath, chiropractic, chinese health medicine person, etc, said no, there's no cure or because you did a simple Google search, and it says that there's no cure. And you want to believe that? Yeah. Then that's up to you.

I believe that I've healed. I believe that I'm done with alopecia and so do my clients. They see the results, they move on, they continue with their life, they continue with their activities, they continue to thrive. And that's it. We grant you the keys and the power and the empowerment so that you can not only heal, but you take control of your hair growth and your health long term, because the thing is there are no short term gimmicks.

You have to take the long route. You have to take the long way. And once you do, you see the fruition, you see how this upgrades you in every way. And I'll say this, that I healed my alopecia and then I got pregnant at 40. And, I had my baby and it was amazing. And so the fact that I was able to do that, I know that my body was primed, I know that my body was very healthy and that's another probably podcast episode that I need to talk about is the importance of being healthy without alopecia before you get pregnant.

And just to give you a little snapshot, the data shows is that when moms get pregnant with alopecia, with full on autoimmune alopecia, they pass on the antibodies in their babies. So their babies become more susceptible to getting that. And this is not the genes. This is the antibody. So for example, when you're pregnant as a female, and let's say you have a herpes outbreak and the baby comes through the birth canal. but you have a, a herpes outbreak, then guess what?

Then the baby is more susceptible to getting herpes and contracting that, right? So it's the same thing where if you have an outbreak of alopecia and you start to get these spots, because I will tell you, many times, most of the time that I've heard and that I've seen, through my clients is that pregnancy does not heal alopecia. It's just the opposite. It makes it worse.

Because the hormones are fluctuating because the hormones in the body is actually attending more to the baby. So then guess what? So then as it is pregnant women are more susceptible to things, they're at a higher risk, you need to be protecting your health and yourself more while you're pregnant. Hence COVID lockdowns, hence all these other things that were happening just a few years ago.

But at the same time, going back to this outbreak, if you have an alopecia outbreak, guess what? That susceptibility gets passed on to your baby. And so in my case, I healed my alopecia before, got pregnant and then had my baby. Now do I fear that my baby can have alopecia at some point? No, I don't actually, I don't fear it. And if it were, let's say, if it were. Then, I would have the tools to heal him really quick without any medications without having to waste time or money with a dermatologist or anywhere else because I already understand like that process.

But what I have noticed is that when a mom has not cured herself, and healed herself from alopecia, guess what? Her kids tend to have it as well and they tend to have it at a younger age. So many times the healing starts from within and I will probably create a different podcast episode because there's a lot more information that I'd like to share, but just keep that in the back of your mind.

If you plan on getting pregnant, if you want to have children, it's important to heal first. It really is. It's better for you and it's better for the baby because. At the time that maybe that you want to start the healing process and you're already pregnant, yes, you can start the process, but it would be a lot better to have done it beforehand, and I understand sometimes you're in the middle of something and then: oops, you're pregnant.

I get that. No problem. We can work with you. We can get you on the right path. But at the same time, like the full scope of healing wouldn't be able to happen until maybe after you stop breastfeeding, right? Because there's a conscientious, timeline. And then also you want to be careful with that baby, right? The baby comes first.

And so this is where. Yeah. Before baby, it's so much better to heal yourself first. So I hope this answers some of your questions. If you have more questions for me, please let us know. You can always email us at [email protected] and then you can always, send us messages via Facebook or via Instagram, Alopecia Angel and then we'll respond to you. And then we'll also use your questions for our podcast.

If you have any other comments or feedback, let us know. You can always reach out to us. I look forward to talking to you next time.

Take care.