Hepatitis Hair Loss

Hello Everyone!!!!!

Boy am i stressing, I am a 43 year old male who finished treatment a month ago. I have type 2b and did the interferon/ribo treatment. I am having a huge issue with my hair. Didn't really seem to loose much on treatment, but now it seems like it is really thinning out. I am noticing some bald spots all of a sudden, also and the texture is also changing. My questions to the group are this....

Why is my hair falling out now and how long can I expect this to continue for after treatment???? And secondly, is their a good chance that it will grow back????

Please help

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I'd say Greyhackles' take on "timing" sounds about right. I completed 48 weeks in late November (four months post tx now) and my hair did not start falling out right away, it took a while. I have very long hair, and prior to treatment a rubber band only went around my ponytail twice. Now it goes around the ponytail 6 times, so that gives you an idea how much hair I started with and how much I lost.

In the months since tx ended, the hair loss did NOT stop right away, but continued. Once the hair loss began in earnest, "It was normal" for me to run a brush thru my hair, hold it up to look and there would be something I'm guessing like 30 - 40 long hairs flying in the wind. My hair came right out from the roots. No doubt there was breakage as well, but mostly I noticed the long, full length hairs :( Many people
seem to cut hair and go short for the duration of tx but I chose to keep it long, because short is MORE work for me (curly hair - not a pretty sight upon arising in the morning) Leaving it long allowed me to keep it in ponytail, much less work and anything that was less effort for me was A-OK.

The good news - just this past week, I was brushing my hair and upon lifting my bangs, realized that new hair is growing in finally! Yeah! If I lift my bangs, I can see a thin fringe of new down along the hairline, about half an inch long. But I don't think it fell out in "patches" tho there were a few times when, trying to comb it out after washing, that there were little "clumps" that pulled right out.

Texture change seems to be a common complaint - ie from thick and curley to thin and wispy, but people seem to agree that when it grows back, for most folks, it grows back normally. Now if only my bones and muscles would quit aching constantly, I'd really be on my way ;)

Source: Hepatitis C Newsgroup

More Hair Loss and Hair Removal Information at: Hair Removal Chat