Speaker A [00:00:10]:
Welcome back, Carly and Julie to the Amber Stitch Show. Thank you for being here for our third episode of our wellness series.
Speaker B [00:00:16]:
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Speaker A [00:00:18]:
All right, this month is an awareness month that's close to heart, right, Carly? So it's the Alopecia Awareness Month. Correct?
Speaker B [00:00:26]:
It's Alopecia Areata Awareness Month. It's actually more common than you'd think. It's 10% of people who are experiencing hair loss. It is a stress or an autoimmune type of hair loss. More people think that they have that than really do have that. Like we were talking about earlier, about 90% of people out there with hair loss have a genetic type of hair loss, whereas 10% out there can be medication related, surgery related, or autoimmune related.
Speaker A [00:00:52]:
I felt like in the last few years, you've told me there's a lot of things going on, just most recently with viruses and COVID being one of them, but it could be surgeries and stress. I know that I had COVID after a surgery and probably some stress as well. And so I had gone to my hairdresser, she took a look, and I have all this hair, but I was missing hair. And so we made a quick call, and that afternoon or the next day, you got me in. You take people under the microscope. It's not just about looking straight down. You get the iPad out and you have a special microscope to check it out.
Speaker B [00:01:23]:
Yeah, well, and the way that we need to look at the scalp and magnify the scalp, we can see where people are going to have their next batch of hair loss. We can see where there's inflammation if there's miniaturized hairs that we can actually reverse. So really, if we can get you under the scope, we can have a better idea of what's going on. But, yeah, something like you had dealt with very common, and we're seeing it more with kids than ever. And a lot of it can be what we were talking about, environment EMFs and stress. So we are seeing a lot of areatas. And so for everybody who doesn't know what an areata looks like, it's usually a round circular patch that's completely gone, and it's smooth like a baby's bottom. It's not at all waxy looking, it's just smooth and it's stick gone. And all the hair around it is healthy. And I always liken it to a turtle. When a turtle is scared, it goes into its turtle shell, and then as soon as it knows that that aggressor is gone, it starts to poke its head back out. And that's when your body is literally pulling from that area. They go into hiding. And we've got to figure out why they're going into hiding. There's a lot of ways to wake them up. We got to figure out why they went into hiding in the first place.
Speaker A [00:02:36]:
So you're stimulating the area and then depending upon the need, there's different treatments that you do, whether it's red light therapy, stimulation, maybe a combination, but that's really what you can advise people on once you see the microscope. You told me once about the shiny surface versus that other surface you just talked about. Can you speak to that a little bit? Because you said sometimes by the time it hits a certain type of look.
Speaker B [00:03:00]:
It'S to late, right? So the number one thing that we see is genetic hair loss. So for women it always happens very similar where we keep our hairline and right behind it that part line gets wider and wider and we start to feel like our ponytails were big and now they're getting smaller. In fact, if you Google what is the top cosmetic procedure that's actually Googled right now? It's hair loss. Because of COVID pandemic, all of these things. Ozempic all of these types of fad diets surgeries. We're seeing more hair loss than ever before. And it's because our body is going through a massive jettison and it's literally forcing the hair to fall out. So when we see a problem the very first time we say I look a little off there, do I see scalp? 50% has changed. So if you tell me I lost hair starting five years ago, it really probably doubled. That is when it started because it's like a wrinkle, it's been happening for years before you noticed it.
Speaker A [00:04:00]:
So what was funny about you being not only a provider to some of my personal needs, but being my friend, I didn't come to you right away and say I'm losing all this hair because you've told me before you should wash your hair more frequently than most people do and you should have so much hair loss. And so I waited for a little while going Carly's going to say, all right, Amber, that is just normal. But then it kept going and then my hairdresser identified that. Do you mind talking about how some people just to mythbust this dry, shampoo, fad and what's really happening? Because even my husband was washing his hair loss as he was seeing hair loss. And you said no, you're causing a problem.
Speaker B [00:04:35]:
I just had a gentleman yesterday who said he washes twice a week. And here's the thing, you can do whatever you want with washing, but if you think about just sitting in my office, how much dead skin, dirt and oil is collecting and the you literally.
Speaker A [00:04:50]:
Marry not your office. It's beautiful.
Speaker B [00:04:53]:
Now you're going out and you literally have, I don't know how many human beings, debris on you and that to me mentally made me just start washing very frequently. But if you have hair loss, we always say that actually washing your hair more is better. So the average person out there should be losing five to 700 hairs. You should be having that shed out and I liken it to a tree, leaves fall off in the fall you don't worry that the health of the tree is bad. You know that it's the cycle we cycle. Now the problem is you've been losing that much hair your whole life, but when you see a problem now, every hair becomes like a piece of gold and you're very concerned about it, but you've got to figure out, is the hair getting finer? That's usually the permanent type of hair loss. The shedding is never a permanent situation. So it's not that you have to wash your hair every day for every single person. Caucasians, we say wash a little bit more. If you have textured hair maybe once a week, it depends on the type of ethnicity you are and your oil glands, everything like that. But washing your hair when you have hair loss is better. And you think of it like acne. If you have acne, what do you use more? Tonifying cleansers. So when you have hair loss, you a lot of times under the microscope have all this pitting around you're inflamed, and a lot of people just use a very gentle shampoo and you really need to use a tonifying shampoo to cleanse that. The get a lot of debris and a lot of people think that they have dandruff and they don't. It's just the way that that hair is manifesting because of the hair loss.
Speaker A [00:06:25]:
Julie, you treat people from the inside out when it comes to the hair loss?
Speaker C [00:06:28]:
Oh, absolutely. And as we talked about in the previous segment, it really is two components that we look very heavily at the side of the nutrition and there are very specific nutrients that affect hair loss hair shedding, hair regrowth, and obviously those are going to be surfaced if the individual is suffering from some of those challenges. But we also, as I mentioned, need to look heavily at the environmental issues because they do play such a big role.
Speaker B [00:06:51]:
Yeah, if you have, like, for instance, you, you had a spot that was just gone, that's not normal if you all of a sudden have a clump of hair gone, and usually what we'll feel is you'll feel an itching or a burning and then you wake up and it's gone. So when it's that rapid type of hair loss, then we know. And for instance, I'll give you an example of an 18 year old I'm working on. She went to Mexico and she thought she got food poisoning. January New Year's Eve. She lost. By the time I saw her three weeks later, she had lost almost 80% of her hair. And she thought, well, maybe it was her diet, whatever. Well, when we actually did a scan on her to see what was going on, she had high amounts of parasites and a lot of different other issues that were going on that caused her to lose literally almost all of her hair. And now she's completely lost every single hair.
Speaker A [00:07:43]:
No way.
Speaker B [00:07:43]:
We were able to get her in with a correct doctor, get stool samples, things like this. But her dermatologist was telling her, wait till you lose more or let's give you a bottle of Rogue Game. It's putting a band aid on it and that's where we have to go. Listen, this poor girl is 18, she has no hair. What are we going to do? We've got to figure this out and you have to realize that that is just one mechanism of your body going, we have another issue that we need those firefighters to go to and we've got a fire down here, we've got to address it.
Speaker A [00:08:15]:
I mean, that's stressful the confidence level. But gosh, if you can then start working from the inside out, you're going to feel so much better regardless of the hair or not. So it's really those are indicators you shared about those in the first couple of episodes. There's clues but sometimes, like Julie said, you can't always see them. Sometimes we don't want to really appreciate the stress is there and acknowledge it because sometimes we just have to suck it up and go. Most of the days we have to get through life but there's resources and there's tools and so for the awareness month, would you say, Carly, that it's helping people identify those certain indications that are there, which is so different from I think men tend to look at this but women almost dismiss it. You've told me I think as early as 20, even if you don't see the thinning hair loss, the typical cul de sac bald spot that we all think about, you're saying in your 20s you might be needing to take a look.
Speaker B [00:09:09]:
We see people 1718, even younger. I think as soon as you see anything going on in your scalp, you need to see a specialist in your area because something could be brewing much faster. And with areata, for instance and the reason why there is a whole month dedicated to this is because we are seeing so many cases of this now and if you look at the common area cases, it is younger people and a lot of it has to do with their immune system being so low. So we have immune suppressants that help. They're doing clinicals all the time to see how we can wake up those hairs but again, it's really where we're at mentally. Are we helping these people with that aspect? What's going on that they're exposed to? And then how do we physically try to trigger and wake up those hairs? A lot of times we can wake them up but if you can't keep them out then it's just going to go right back into that dormancy. So by the time you have your one like you, you had that areata, that hair came back triggered, right? Your hair went into shock and it actually grew back totally white.
Speaker A [00:10:10]:
Totally white, yeah, totally white.
Speaker B [00:10:12]:
And so it's like I always look at, like, corella de bill. They've got that little white stripe. We see this a lot. When hair goes into shock, you can actually shock the pigment out of it, but 50% of the time, your first time, it's going to come back on its own. The more flare ups you have, the slower it is in coming back. And then that spot can get bigger and bigger and bigger and it can start to leak together. So really putting your head in the sand on this is not an option. You need to deal with it as soon as you can so that it doesn't progress into something more significant.
Speaker A [00:10:43]:
Yeah, I feel like I came to you right away. I almost felt like I was being a little dramatic. I'm like, okay, thanks for getting me in, but my hair grew back within two months, easy. I can say maybe I'm lucky, but I did the work. And so we do have to take some accountability to find out the information, reach out and then do the work to say, okay, Julie told me this, carly had this, or whoever the teams are. And you always innovate there's new information. Like you said, the younger are coming to you. Well, there's other things happening and you keep learning and working with people that are doing the research, but we have to do some of the work to be, okay, what are we going to do about it? And take some action. Which flows through to my mantra with a lot of the financials too, is we could try little things, get the information and incorporate little steps that can help us. But we'll feel so much better for it.
Speaker B [00:11:27]:
And I can't stress enough, being your own advocate, when you are reaching a specialist, if you have somebody who's dismissive, they keep giving you the same answers and they're not really changing it up, move on. Because I hear this more and more where they want to just do an injection in the scalp or they're not really listening. Everybody has their specialty that we've talked about, and I'm talking derm because of the hair loss. A lot of dermatologists will see that. Some of them love acne and they're great at that. And I would send anybody to them. Some of them love Rosacea. Very few like hair loss because of the fact that it's emotional. And you've got about six minutes with that client. And they refer a lot of their clients to us because we can spend that time with them. So if we're just, again, putting a band Aid on a situation, maybe you do injections and the hair comes back, we will always suggest doing that. But if you're having flare up after flare up and there's not an alternate treatment, you need to go to somebody who has a little bit more on that. And hair loss is becoming so widespread that thank goodness physicians are getting more education on the different ways to now treat this so that people have more resources than ever before.
Speaker C [00:12:35]:
There's so many elements and in order for know, we're all individuals and so many of these factors are not cookie cutter and they really need to be evaluated as standalone, isolated things that are affecting that particular individual. And I think that's one of the things that NHL does so well is.
Speaker B [00:12:54]:
To step back and say, here's the.
Speaker C [00:12:56]:
Broad environment of know, hair loss in general or lack of growth, know lack of luster, whatever the situation might be. But what are the specifics that are causing this individual to go through this journey in this way? And that's where that specialty and that know, focused care really makes such a big difference.
Speaker A [00:13:15]:
Julie, I think that's a good place to stop for today or to land with that. But before we do the advocacy and what you just said of the individual, Carly, would you say that sometimes the family or people close might not champion they won't treat the symptoms as a real thing or the providers? Might say that it's not really happening and they feel like they're not getting help, but they're like there's something really I know my labs are normal, and you guys will do consultations with people to listen to the story, to at least is that true? That where you can say we can help here or here and and have.
Speaker B [00:13:47]:
That combination of absolutely always an and we give you from the smallest steps to take to the largest, you need to have the knowledge on what to do now. And to me that just helps. Like we said, knowledge is power. And I think you have to be able to do a consult. Sometimes people feel like, okay, I've gone to my doctor so many times they think that I'm crazy, right, or I'm being neurotic. I know that there's something wrong with me. And that's why I said be your own advocate. If you feel that way, then you need to change a provider and get somebody who's taking that care. And like we said, we are not the specialists on everything. We know hair, but we work with providers who are going to take that next step and walk with you and really dig deep. Because if we just try to say, well, you've got a little spot there, let's stimulate it. It's like that turtle, we've not fixed. Why he's getting scared? You've got to fix the internal component to that.
Speaker A [00:14:40]:
And you literally have told me just a couple of weeks ago, one of your providers is making calls and showing up for some of your patients, not just by phone. And so you're aligning yourself with people that are great. And even in my industry, independent thinking, if there's an advisor or a provider that's really not willing to work together with others, that should be an indication that there's something maybe wrong. They're not open minded to think there's other possibilities outside to maybe learn more about something, especially if there is an interesting situation. And so I feel like with my practice, we always talk about independent and brokerage so that we can shop in a different world. You guys are doing that for people in the more medical space, so we'll definitely be able to provide links to.
Speaker B [00:15:21]:
Your website and also just before and after pictures. And we'll even provide a link that if you have questions that you want to just email us about, we can do that. I always think, too, whenever people keep things real close to them, I always wonder, how good is their business? Why are they holding it in? The people that freely share and that are helping other people usually have very successful businesses. People who are holding it in, they're maybe struggling. And so, to me, that's my first line of thinking they could be really successful. But I always think, why are you being stingy with that information? You should want to be able to help with everything, I think, just be successful and care for other people. And like you said, network with the best.
Speaker A [00:16:02]:
Well, I always love talking business strategies with you, Carly, and then Julie. You've been so helpful to my family, so I hope that this has helped the listeners find out some resources, learn a little bit of something, if they need to take action. I know that I'll put some information out there so they can find you and your practice. And so thank you so much. I know that I've wanted to do this for a long time, so I really appreciate your time.
Speaker B [00:16:23]:
Ladies, thank you so much for highlighting something like this. It's really important and we super appreciate you and all that you do too.
Speaker A [00:16:30]:
Awesome.
Speaker B [00:16:31]:
Yes.
Speaker C [00:16:31]:
Thank you.
Speaker B [00:16:31]:
Amber.
Speaker A [00:16:35]:
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Amber Stitch Show. For more information about out, the podcast, books, articles and more, please visit me@amberstit.com. Until next week, enjoy your journey at home and at work. Thank you for listening.
