Hair Loss

Good Morning Everyone!

I am working towards a having a Gastric Bypass done hopefully surgery in the next few months.  At my first appointment with the surgeon he told me to get Weight Loss surgery for Dummies and read it.  Which always the obedient patient I did.  One thing I did read in this book was that you could expect to have significant hair loss at the 8 month mark.  I'm just curious if any of you experienced this?  How much did you lose? Did it Grow back?  Thank you all for your input

Have you had children?  If so, you know that period after you have a baby where you lose more hair than normal.  My "hair loss" after surgery was like that, it lasted a few months, but wasn't noticeable to anyone but me.

Just make sure you keep your protein numbers high and you should be ok

Google telogen effluvium.  The hair loss is from the anesthesia and the trauma of the surgery on the body.  You can expect to start losing hair around the three month mark and it begins to grow back at around the 9 month mark.  I lost about half my hair.  Nobody seemed to notice it but me.  I got a cute, short hair cut to get me through it.  My hair grew back just as thick and curly as it was before surgery.

There is not much you can do to prevent it from happening.  Save your money and don't buy into the special shampoos and Biotin. Biotin may help your hair grow back stronger, but won't prevent the hair loss.  Making sure you get your protein in will also insure that your hair grows back strong.

Rocky how long did it take for your hair to grow back to presurgery stage?  I had very thick hair prior to surgery and didnt start to lose it till about my 5th-6th month post op.  I have since stopped losing but my hair is very thin and consequently I am very self conscience about it.  Any suggestions? 

I don't know when you had your surgery, but I am 8 months post op and I have stopped losing hair now.  It's starting to grow back and I can see the baby hairs around my hairline.  I think it will really depend on how fast your hair grows naturally.  Since you're not losing anymore, it just just grow back as normal now.  At least that's what I'm hoping.

Also, a side effect I had after surgery... my hair lost it's curl.  I was never super curly, but it had long ringlets that I could encourage with the right product.  Now those curls are gone and I'm just wavy.  weird.

I am 8 months post op as well, August 11th, down 140lbs.  Honestly if this is the least of my worries then I am thankful so I hope I dont come across vain.  I too have naturally curly hair but havent noticed that changing as much as I have the fullness.  Thank you for your input.  

I had mine a week before yours!  Great job on the loss.

Oh, I meant on the weight loss, not the hair loss!

for the record, not everyone experiences hair loss - I didn't.  And for most, it's not really noticeable to anyone but you.  I've read on forums about people who lose huge, noticeable clumps of it, but from what I can tell, that's not very common.

I lost a bit of hair, I got it cut shorter to look better, it grew back, all good.

I am told I lost less hair than a lot of patients, because my diet was high in healthy fats.  But yes I did lose some.

I am losing hair again now btw thanks to a ruptured appendix and emergency surgery in November... I figure I'll do the same thing now as I did four years ago... use it as an excuse to get a cute shorter cut, stick to my low carb, high-healthy-fat diet, and wait for it to come back. 

Or maybe it's time to go all Sinead O'Conner-ish.... hmm... think of the shampoo bill I'll save...

Audrey