Hair Loss & Crohn's

[Keish2008]

Good afternoon from the East coast in the US! I was diagnosed with severe Crohn's with anemia in August of 2018. Around October I found two large patches of my hair were gone. My hair had slowly thinned for almost four years. Have any of you dealt with this?

Any help/advice you can offer would be great! Thanks!

[SORRELHIPPO]

I have had Crohn's for 30 odd years. My thickness of hair has come and gone, sometimes linked to a bad bout/flare of the Crohn's sometimes to the medication. Some meds have made me itch a bit, so of course if I scratch my scalp, i then get bald patches. I eat good food when I can and take some supplements, to try and ensure my diet is reasonable, but I consider the thinning and sometimes loss of bits of hair part of the whole package. I also can get quite brittle nails after a flare.

[willow24 Administrator]

Yeah Iv found my hair goes thinner depending on meds and flare ups. since I have been on folic acid it seems better. I also dont use shampoos/conditioners with parabens and sls as I find I get a scabby scalp, and I prefer the ones with coconut oil/water. I also henna ever 3 months. I use traditional henna, but senna (yes really!) is a brown henna and is great for conditioning and thickening hair. You can get also get henna for blonde hair too, and Indago henna for black hair. Its not cheap (cheap ones are not true henna) but I believe its well worth it

[Issycarter]

I was put on Azothiaprine and lost all my hair! Horrendous side effect. It’s so upsetting. We can hide our illness but our hair gives us away. I tried the caffeine shampoo and head massage helped being it back over time.

[Mines-a-merlot]

Hi there. When I had a really severe flare up some years ago I had really bad hair loss. I was more upset about that than the diagnosis of crohn's itself would you believe. One of the symptoms of anaemia is hair loss and if your iron levels are still low you will find you still get some thinning of your hair. Also if you are not absorbing nutrients from food due to diarrhoea and inflamed mucosa, you are in effect suffering from malnutrition which also causes hair loss. When I was really ill I lost about half of my hair. Once they got my symptoms under control, the hair did start to grow back. Would say it is now about 3/4 of original thickness. When I have had subsequent flare ups and become anaemic again, I do get some hair fall again. I try to have a diet that is as nutrient dense as possible and as well as my prescribed iron tablets I take a multivitamin supplement. I think that using a shampoo that contains caffeine is supposed to help, but I have not tried that personally.