A (0:00)

There are so many different reasons for hair loss and there are so many different treatments out there that I really want to go over the reasons so that you can check all of those boxes and then let's break down some of the treatments, call out some bullshit on the ones that don't work and focus on the ones that actually do work. Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones, especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism. I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and hair loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town that you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. Healthy hormones begin with healthy cells. So when we talk about thyroid or hormone health, we usually focus on lab supplements or symptoms. But there's a deeper story happening in your body, and that's one that begins in your cells. Every hormone your body produces relies on healthy, energized cells to do its job. And at the heart of each cell are the mitochondria, your energy centers. As we age, or when the body is under stress, mitochondrial function naturally declines. That can show up in so many ways. Fatigue, slower recovery, or just simply that feeling off. This is where Timeline Nutrition's breakthrough Mito Pure comes in. Mito Pure is a highly pure form of a nutrient called Urolithin A, if you've ever heard of that. It's backed by over 15 years of research, multiple human studies, and has been shown to support mitochondrial health, muscle function and overall cellular performance. By helping your mitochondria work more efficiently, you're supporting the foundation of your energy and your long term wellness. I personally found that this deeper cellular approach to health is a powerful complement to everything we do for thyroid and hormone balance. It's not about quick fixes, it's about building resilience from the inside out. If you're ready to support your body at the cellular level, Mito Pure offers a clean, clinically backed way to start. So you are going to go to timeline.com. Dr. Amy so that's T I M E l I n e.com I forward/ D R A M I E. And you're going to see the code on there. Dr. Amy 10 D R A M I E 10. But if you want to try the gummies, the mito Pure, it's actually going to give you 20 off your order. So just go ahead and click that code D R a m I e 10. You'll see it on the page or you can add it at checkout. You're going to save some money while giving new life to your cells. I completely and totally hear you and I see you and I understand you and I know exactly where you're at. You're gaining weight. You can't lose. You have all the symptoms that no one's listening to. The fatigue, the hair loss, the brain fog. You can't remember why you walked into a room. You don't want to get dressed and go out because you know if you have that glass of wine with your friend, if you have that dessert with your husband or even order an appetizer, you're going to be five pounds heavier the next day and your clothes are already tight. Every single doctor is telling you that you're normal and everything is fine. You've been to multiple conventional medicine doctors trying to use your insurance, hoping to God that somebody has an answer. Then you've dropped thousands of dollars on functional medicine or integrative medicine because you keep hearing how functional medicine gets to the root cause of the problem. But not every functional medicine practitioner knows the thyroid and knows the hormones and can treat you as a nuanced, personalized individual, a unique person. That is exactly what my team and I do. We specialize in thyroid problems. We specialize in hormones. You can't do one without the other. You cannot just see someone for your thyroid and have them ignore your hormones or have them half ass your hormones. They better be a hormone and thyroid expert. If you are going to spend your time, your energy and your money, if you are going to invest in functional medicine, they need to be a thyroid and hormone expert and treat you as an individual. They can't have a cap on how much T3 that they're going to give you. They have to personalize your treatment plan to get you feeling your best, no matter what that looks like, so that every system in your body functions at the very top, at the very best. And that is exactly what we do. I made it my mission because I went through this. I was dismissed, I was gaslit, I was misdiagnosed and I dropped thousands of dollars before I found an answer. That is why I made it my mission to be able to treat people in all 50 states so we can prescribe via telehealth, thyroid and hormones and peptides. Yeah, the GLPs as well, to all 50 states, most of Canada and now Puerto Rico. That is my mission to be able to help you wherever you are because I want you living your best life. I want you to join me in optimization land where you can go out and love life and go out with your friends and go out with your partner and not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. Yes, we do have financing options available. I'm talking like 0% or 12 months, the whole thing based on your credit score. We got you. And our programs are affordable. They're completely and totally affordable. And they will get you from point A to point B. They will bring you into optimization land. So please don't waste another moment struggling, please. I want you living here with me, a great, happy life in optimization land. So go to my website@dramy.com, click the Become a patient button so we can have a chat. Let's talk it out. Let's hear what you've done, what you haven't done, what's worked, what hasn't worked, and let's get you on the right path to feeling your absolute best. If you can imagine the best life ever that is absolutely possible for you. I'm not BSing you. I am not BSing you. I was in your shoes. Many of my patients have been in your shoes. We will get you there. And that is my promise to you. Before you blame your hair loss on your thyroid, I want you to listen to this and no, this is not a plug for a product or some type of hair solution or a supplement. This is real science, information, science backed information because that's really what we need when we're talking about hair loss. It's already so devastating when a woman, especially a woman, loses her hair. Now guys, I know it sucks for you as well. For you it's pretty straightforward. It's genetics and dihydrotestosterone because when you are making enough testosterone, hopefully you are, or when you are replacing your lack of testosterone with trt, which hopefully you are, that can convert over into dihydrotestosterone. And that DHT is what causes male pattern baldness. So that's basically that receding Hairline that guys get. Now in women, yes, this can happen as well. Because ladies, we want you to have adequate amounts of testosterone. We don't want it converting over to dihydrotestosterone. But for women, the DHT expression in the hair follicle is more of diffuse thinning or diffuse loss. It's not necessarily a receding hairline, although women can get a little bit of a recession anyways. As our forehead turns into a five head in menopause, we can see DHT expression pulling back our hairline a little bit. But really for men, that's where it affects you. When your DHT levels rise, you get that receding hairline or male pattern baldness, which can also include that, that little bald spot at the back of your head. So you might get a bald spot there, receding hairline in the front, and then you all try to kind of hold on to what's left as it goes around the top and the sides of your head. Again, for women, more diffused. But that's not the only cause of hair loss and that's what I want to dive into today. So, yes, this is for men and women. Hair loss, like I said earlier, is just so devastating. I can't even tell you the amount of patience, the amount of people in my audience that have shown me pictures of the hair clumps that come out of their head, especially when they shower. There's literally PTSD from hair loss where people don't want to even wash their hair. They're going a week without washing their hair because every time they do, they get a new bag of hair that they start collecting in hopes that somebody, somewhere, maybe a doctor, will listen to them and give them the answer or care enough to dive into this. Unfortunately, when we're talking about hair loss, it is so multifaceted. There are so many different reasons for hair loss and there are so many different treatments out there that I really want to go over the reasons so that you can check all of those boxes and then let's break down some of the treatments, call out some bullshit on the ones that don't work and focus on the ones that actually do work. Okay. First and foremost, reasons. You know, we all go to the thyroid and the thyroid plays a huge role in hair loss. So when you are hypothyroid, hypo, low and slow, number one, maybe you're hypothyroid and you don't even know it, but one of your symptoms is hair loss. Get your thyroid thoroughly checked. Free T3 reverse T3, the thyroid antibodies are the most important. Don't just look at your TSH and your free T4. That's not going to tell you anything. Look at how much active thyroid hormone you have. Look at your reverse T3, the antithyroid hormone that can put your body into survival mode. Look to see whether or not you have antibodies. And what I want to do is take those tests and break them down and show you how they correlate to hair loss. So, number one, free T3, the active thyroid hormone. If free T3 is low, meaning it's not in the upper quadrant of the range, because, remember, we look at optimal, not just normal. You're not just looking at your standard lab panel and saying, oh, well, I fall into that range. No, that's the normal air quote, normal range. That's where your doctor is looking to see if there's an H or an L next to your lab marker next to your result. And if there is, okay, great. Then we check a box and say you're good. But that's not the full story. We need to know whether or not you are optimal, not just normal. So we want that free T3 in the upper quadrant of the range. If you're not there, that means that you are still very hypothyroid. And that can be a direct contributor, a direct cause to your hair loss or your hair thinning. Now, reverse T3, I mentioned that that is one of the most important markers that you need to get in your thyroid labs every single time you have them done. If reverse T3 is above a 12 now, this is whether you're on thyroid hormone replacement or not. If reverse T3 is above a12, it's putting your body into survival mode. It's basically locking down your body. And when your body is in that survival mode, when it's in what we call human dormancy syndrome, it's like you're a hibernating bear. Or we can also attribute it to lying in the ICU or the ER fighting for your life. Because many doctors will say, well, we only test reverse T3 in a clinical setting, meaning when you're in the ICU or the ER well, that's when we expect it to be high. That's when it should be high. That's our body saying at that point of time, you don't have to grow your hair. You don't have to burn body fat. You don't have to have a libido or think clearly. You need to lie there and survive. And we're going to Shuttle all the energy to healing. We're going to take it away from your hair and we're going to shuttle it to healing your body and keeping you alive. So if reverse C3 is above A12, that can be a direct cause and a direct reason why your hair is falling out or why it is thinning or breaking. Now, the thyroid antibodies, if you have Hashimoto's, remember, any antibody is an antibody. So I don't care if it falls under the. Again, standard lab value range for TPO less than 34. Well, if you come in at 20, that means you still have 20 soldiers that are going out and beating up your thyroid gland. Now, those 20 soldiers can multiply very easily and they can also attack other areas, meaning your hair follicle directly. There is an autoimmune condition called alopecia areata. And that is when your soldier's autoimmunity attacks the hair follicle. It thinks the hair follicle is a bad guy. Now, not to scare you, but yes, we have seen people go completely and totally bald when they have alopecia areata. So we need to check that. If you notice that you're having bald patches, and especially if you're a woman and you're having actual bald patches, if your hairdresser is pointing out that there are sections of your scalp that we can clearly see where there is little to no hair in those sections, that is the time to go see a dermatologist or, or a hair specialist, a trichologist I believe is what they're called. And what they will do is. Now, I've never had this done, nor have I done it to anyone, but they'll actually biopsy a piece of your scalp. I know it sounds kind of scary and crazy. It might even just be taking some of the hair follicle itself. But they do it in a way where they can actually check to see whether or not you have alopecia and whether that's actually being that that hair loss in that patchy area is actually caused by an autoimmune condition. Now again, when we see one, we see more than one. So it serves you to know whether or not you have Hashimoto's to possibly explore whether or not your hair loss is related to an autoimmune condition. Now we're going to move on to hormones. Ladies, as you're going into perimenopause and menopause, you are losing hormone function. You may have heard me say this before, but the see through old lady hair, when you look at Your grandma who got her hormones ripped out of her hands decades ago because of the Women's Health Initiative study. Now we see the government is removing that black box warning off of hrt. Back then it was, oh my God, hormones are going to cause cancer. Give me those hormones, ladies. So our grandmothers, our mothers, got their hormones ripped out of their hands unnecessarily. And what we end up seeing is when you look at your gram, she's got her nice little gray hair within a perm, you can see her scalp. That is loss of estrogen. Estrogen is huge when it comes to keeping our hair volume our thickness. That, that those luscious locks depend on estrogen. Now they also depend on testosterone. High or low testosterone can cause hair loss. So when we have too high of testosterone levels, let's say in the case of a pellet, we see this over and over and over again in the clinic. When women come to us from a different provider or from a different pop up hormone clinic that just stuck a pellet in their butt to make some money, we see levels go up into the 8 hundreds and 9 hundreds for total testosterone. For women, that is equivalent to a minimum male optimal level of testosterone. And remember, once that pellet's in, you have to ride it out and you have to wait for your levels to come back down. In the meantime, you're losing your hair. When women have that high of a testosterone level, it's going to convert to dihydrotestosterone, which we already talked about. That DHT will present as diffuse hair loss in a woman. But when you hit an 800 or a 900 total testosterone level, you absolutely can get the receding hairline and male pattern baldness as well from that high of a DHT level. So yes, too high testosterone or too low of a testosterone level for women will absolutely affect hair loss. Now optimal Testosterone is above a 50 total. And the free testosterone we'd like to see in the upper half of the range going back to estrogen. My apologies, I did not give you the optimal range for that estradiol. We want above a 50 as well. 5, 0. That's where we see the bone, brain, breast and heart protection from estradiol replacement. But most women, I would say, do their best. 80 to around 120, 150, maybe even up to 200. If you're like me, that just thrives on higher hormone levels. But if your estradiol is less than 50, if your testosterone is less than 50, then yes, you may suffer there, you may suffer and I know I'm giving out US standard lab value ranges and not going into the the other countries. I know the measurement is different, but just note this and we can absolutely do a formula to convert the, let's say 50 nanograms per deciliter of total testosterone in the US measurement to whatever measurement your country uses. You can absolutely, I mean chat GPT that, it'll give you that all day long. 50 nanograms per deciliter or more for testosterone in women. Now the upper limit of total testosterone for women is very, very individualized. DHT expression in the follicle can actually vary from person to person and it can also tie back to your SHBG level. What do I mean by that? Sex hormone binding globulin will bind to dihydrotestosterone, testosterone, estradiol and T3. So if your SHBG is above an 80 then you have too sticky of a train. That means your hormones are stuck to it. Now where this is a benefit I'll say is when your DHT levels are really high as well. So if you have an elevated DHT and you have an elevated shbg, that SHBG is going to bind a DHT first. So that's where it becomes very unique, very individualized, very personalized for each woman. Where you have to have a practitioner that literally asks you those four most important words. They can ask you how do you feel? And they listen to you and then go deeper and explore what is best for you. What do I mean by this? Let's say we have a patient come into the clinic, we put her on testosterone therapy, she is all of a sudden losing her hair. We look at her DHT level and it's elevated. Well then we know that her testosterone is pushing to DHT and we need to bring that DHT level down. Because when we move over here and look at her SHBG, it's well below an 80. It might even be a 30 or a 40 where her body is literally getting 110% of that testosterone that we're giving her. So then we adjust her testosterone level, we add in DHT fixer to block that testosterone to DHT conversion. If she's not on testosterone yet and she comes into the practice and she has a low T level but she already is losing hair, we start her on DHT fixer first before we add in the testosterone. So we basically build her body up to prevent that DHT from expressing itself in the hair follicle. Now the other example would be is if Someone has an elevated SHBG and an elevated dht, and then we start her on testosterone. That elevated SHBG we don't touch because it's binding to her dht. But we also add in DHT fixer as another layer. And because those are kind of playing together, we can give her testosterone replacement therapy safely and she won't experience the hair loss. That's one that you might have to replay a couple times to completely understand it. I know it's a lot, but it totally makes sense when you listen to it and kind of play it out while looking at your own labs. Another factor of hair loss is low ferritin. Ferritin should be 80 to 100, sometimes even above 100 if you have Hashimoto's. Low ferritin levels will mimic hypothyroid symptoms. So the weight gain, the hair loss, the fatigue, we want to bring your ferritin levels up. And for that we use ferrous bis glycinate. Some people who are total non responders to a gentle form of iron like ferrous bis glycinate, we'll have to do an iron infusion. If ferritin levels are, let's say single digits, a six, a nine, definitely an iron infusion is warranted at that point. Most people respond really well to adding in things like iron fixer, which is ferrous glycinate, and that will work to get your iron levels up. In addition to eating red meat, sometimes we'll add in a liver supplement as well. Not liver fixer to support the liver, but actual, like beef liver. If you're not down with eating beef liver and organ meats, like I'm not, then I'll add in something like a beef liver supplement. Or I'll use pluck seasoning, which is Oregon meat seasoning, just to get that extra layer of natural iron coming in. Next up in the hair loss category, things that contribute would be low protein. Now, there are different layers to this. This can come from you not eating enough protein. And ladies, let me side note this. So many of you listening right now would say, I eat enough protein, I eat enough protein, I know I need enough protein. Have you tracked it? Have you written down literally everything that goes into your mouth in a day and preferably over the course of a week to get a nice average. Have you tracked it? Because when we do the math in our head as to what we actually consume in a day, we are 99% of the time wrong. And I am one of those people as well. I'M speaking from experience, I am not speaking from pedestal. When I track my food, it's eye opening, I mean jaw dropping, eye opening. In my mind I will easily total 130 grams of protein. In my mind, I'll total 50 to 60 grams of carbs. When I write it down, the reality is 120 grams of carbs and usually around 80 grams of protein. You need to write it down. Okay, so that's part one. Part two is the quickest quality of protein. If you are a vegan, you are always going to struggle with your hair. If you're a vegetarian, you will always struggle with your hair. And I know there's going to be one vegan out there listening to me right now because I have lush, beautiful hair. Okay, I get it, there are outliers. I get it. There are always outliers. However, I'm talking about the masses. The majority of people, if you go into, go to a vegan convention, go to, go to the Whole Foods co op, not Whole Foods Market, but like go to your Whole Foods co op in your town and the people working there are usually vegan and vegetarian and you just gotta, gotta look at their hair like it's all like, like frizzy and thin and kind of flying all over the place. You'd have to see me on YouTube to really get the full expression of what I'm doing right now and get a good laugh at the same time. But no, it's a pattern that I see that vegans and vegetarians, because they're not getting those animal based protein sources, they're not getting the complete amino acids, they have really bad hair. They just do. And when we add in those amino acids, because our hair is made up of amino acids, keratin, collagen, I mean it, it, it relies on those building blocks to grow. It relies on those building blocks to be healthy. It relies on those building blocks to be thick and plump and not thin and wispy and flyaway and dry and frizzy. We need protein in the form of amino acids, specifically complete amino acids, complete protein sources from animals, animal based protein to properly fuel our hair, to give our hair the building blocks it needs. Let me give you this example. I haven't used this in years, but it's so important. Our heart, which is a muscle, needs approximately 50 grams of protein to beat every single day. If we do not give it adequate amounts of protein, if we don't give our body adequate amounts of protein, and yes, we can argue that other cells, our cell functions, things like our hair, muscle contraction, all of that needs protein as well. But let's keep it real simple. Our heart needs 50 grams of protein to beat. If you're not getting in at least 50 grams of protein, then your body, being way smarter than you are, will steal it. And it will steal it from your hair, it will steal it from your muscles. Do you ever feel like your energy is just off? Like you're not fully alive during the day and then you're restless at night? Chances are your circadian rhythm, your body's natural clock, has been disrupted by a lack of sunlight. So what's the solution? This is where I bring in the Mitolux sun lamp. It is designed to mimic the best of the sun, helping restore your body's rhythm. UVB for vitamin D, that helps our energy. Red and infrared light for mitochondrial support. And let's not forget our skin and collagen formation. It's amazing. It's like a reset button for your health that you just turn on and then sit in front of and enjoy. And during those long gloomy winters, those long days, it's a lifesaver. No more winter blues, by the way, improves your mood. No more low energy. Improves your energy. So you need to get yourself a Mito Lux lamp. It's so portable. It's so easy. I sit it on my desk, I take it with me to my bathroom. I stick my face in front of it. After I wash my face, put on my serum. It is amazing for your skin, but amazing for your energy, amazing for your mood. You want to go to mitolux.com forward/doctor Amy so that's M I T O L U x.com forward/d R A M I E. You're going to use the code? Dr. Amy they are giving me the code to give to you for 10% off. You will not regret it. This is the best, best, best red light, hands down. I have many of them in my house. This is the only one that I use. It is so easy, portable and it works. The most important thing is it works. So my deluxe.com forward/doctor Amy don't forget to use the code. Doctor Amy. It will steal it from wherever it can in your body for survival. Very similar to lying in the ICU in the ER and having an elevated reverse T3. Your body is going to do what it needs to do to survive. It doesn't care if you have a nice head of hair. It really doesn't. It doesn't care if you're overweight. Actually, it's not going to burn fat, it's not going to grow your hair, it's not going to give you energy, it's going to survive. If you don't have enough protein to beat your heart to survive, it's going to steal it from wherever it can. And your hair will suffer for sure. Your hair will suffer. Now let's say you're getting in 60 to 70 grams of protein. Well, there's enough for your heart, but then there's only 10, 20 grams of protein left over to fuel all of your muscles, to give you energy to grow your hair, to strengthen your nails. That's not enough either. One gram of protein, animal based, not vegan. One gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. Meaning basically you're fighting weight, like your happy weight. That's your lean body mass. 1 gram of protein per pound. That's what I want you to aim for now. Yes, absolutely. All day long. You can add in amino acids as an amino acid supplement to kick that up a notch. You can add in collagen, that helps with your hair as well. But really focusing on those protein grams are key. Now I mentioned carbohydrates and tracking your carbohydrates. It's also relevant to mention the fact that if you, you're eating crappy carbs, if you're eating inflammatory carbs, any kind of inflammation, anything that's going to kick up your insulin and insulin we like below a six. So if you're insulin resistant and your insulin is above a six, then yes, we can see hair loss from that because it creates inflammation at the follicle level. Whenever there is inflammation in the body, systemic full body inflammation, circulation is down, Nutrients cannot get to your cells, nutrients can't get to your follicles, to your hair follicles. So eating crappy food, not so great. Along those lines of being in a state of inflammation, stress, cortisol. Cortisol will destroy your hair. And here's where you actually have to sit. Just sit back and think about this. Our hair responds to things that happened about 60 to 90 days ago. Now I want you to think back to good old 2020 when we were all getting Covid. If you had Covid, think about three months after you had it, two to three months, did your hair fall out? Did your hair break in two like mine did? A viral infection or stress. And the body can be under stress from a viral infection, it can be under stress from a surgery, or it could have just been a very stressful event or it could just been being locked in your house, Right. With no social connection, it could have meant that you were under pressure to keep your job unless you said yes to the vax, which the vax alone also caused hair loss left and right two to three months after. So any stressful event will cause hair loss two to three months after. And we tend to want to think about the now. Now, that being said, let me back up for a moment on the stress piece. If something traumatic happens, yes, all day long we can see immediate hair loss, the death of a very close loved one. My gosh. The death of a child, of a spouse, you being a caretaker, the death of your parents, the death of your pet. That immediate high, high stress moment can absolutely affect the hair follicle in that moment. It doesn't need two to three months to respond to that. However, usually those low grade stressors that you kind of have to step back and think about and you go, oh, yeah, you know what? Yeah, a couple months ago, it was really, really stressful. My kid moved back home, was freaking me out. Yes, Those times it would be a delayed response, high stress, anti stress, it can be an immediate response. High cortisol in general will produce inflammation in the body. High cortisol will also drive up blood glucose and create insulin resistance. It will also downregulate thyroid hormone production and interfere with T4 to T3 conversion, which then pushes up your reverse T3. So you can see how everything is connected. Ooh, another connection that I forgot to mention. Let's circle all the way back to protein. If you are not digesting your protein protein properly. So let's just say you are one of those people that says, I am getting in enough protein. I track it. I know it. These are my grams. Okay, well then are you assimilating your protein? So this is where I want you to look at your comprehensive metabolic panel. And I want you to look somewhere around like the albumin marker, there's a protein marker. I want that to be 7.0 or above. If it's not, then you might need some digestive enzyme help. So your body can actually break down and utilize those amino acids in the adequate amounts of protein that you're getting. Circling back once again to T3 because everything is so beautifully connected. So I was on stress and cortisol, but now I'm kind of coming back to T3 a little bit. Remember I said low free T3 that is not in the upper cortex quadrant of the range can be a factor. Elevated free T3 can be a factor as well. If you happen to have hyperthyroidism or Graves disease. That can also cause excess hair shedding. Now, one thing I do want to clarify. When you're starting T3 therapy, so let's say you are working with someone who knows what they're doing with a thyroid. They get you out of that T4 only box that never, never works. And that does nothing but raise your reverse T3, which also contributes to hair loss. So let me just back up. Let's just say you're working with us. We see that elevated reverse T3, we see the fact that you're on T4 only. What are we going to do? We're going to lower that T4, we're going to add in T3. For the first time in your life, you're getting active thyroid hormone. For the first time in a long time, you actually start to feel like yourself. Your energy starts to come up, your metabolism starts to come up. Now, metabolism is not just fat burning. Metabolism is the function of the cell. So that can also mean a speeding up of your hair growth cycle. So there are three phases to hair growth. There's a resting phase, a growing phase, and a falling out phase. And these are natural phases that we go through. I'm sure you've heard, oh, it's normal to lose about a hundred hairs a day. It is normal to lose. If we didn't lose our hair, we would, we would look like cousin it, you know, I mean, we would just be one big hairball. So we have to lose the hair as well. But oftentimes when we increase metabolism, we see excess hair shed because metabolism is speeding up and thus your hair growth cycle is speeding up. So you're moving through those phases at a faster rate. These are just some of, not all, these are just some of the factors that can cause hair loss. We can't always blame it on the thyroid. It can play a role for sure. But we have to look at everything because there's been many times where we've optimized someone's thyroid and their hair starts to grow back and their hairdresser will say, oh my gosh, I'm starting to see hair growth here, here and here. But there are other times where we optimize someone's thyroid and the hair is still not responding, or it can take six months to a year to actually respond for that shed to stop and for the growth to occur. And because hair growth is slow, what, a quarter to a half an inch per month, I think is the average rate. There's no way you're going to See significant growth of new hair for about six months to a year now. What are the things we can actually do about it? Well, I just went over a multiple multitude of them about getting your thyroid optimized the right way. Bringing up your free T3, bringing down your reverse T3, making sure your estrad levels are adequate. Ladies, as you go into menopause, making sure your testosterone levels are not too low or too high. Men, making sure your testosterone levels are not too low or too high. Checking that DHT level, checking your SHBG level. Looking at your ferritin, looking at your insulin, your blood sugar, your cortisol. Looking at your protein intake as well as your protein marker on your cmp. Controlling for stress. Supporting your immune system. Viral. Right, viral infections are a stressor as well. So not just avoiding Covid, but even just supporting your overall immune system. The common cold or a kick up of Epstein Barr virus that can trigger hair loss as well? Yes, of course the big ones like lime, mold, heavy metals, toxin exposure, all of that can contribute to hair loss. So supporting your body and its detoxification pathways, supporting your liver, all play a role. But what about the over the counter things? What about those things? I mean from red light to the topicals to prp. So let's break those down. Red light does show a great deal of promise when it comes to supporting hair growth and improving the hair follicle. Now many times with red light you don't need to buy necessarily an expensive cap. It seems like those caps are way more pricey than just a red light panel that you could stick your head in front of. Now I get it. I mean when you're in that desperate state and you want to cover the whole head. Okay, maybe the cap is the, the way to go, but you need to make sure that it's high quality and make sure that you're not just shining a red light on your head. You want the, the wavelengths to be adequate for hair hair growth and the stopping of hair shedding. There are different topical treatments out there that usually come with a dermal roller. So literally. This sounds crazy, but hopefully you've seen this and it doesn't freak you out when I say it. Literally puncturing holes into your scalp. Just like we can dermal roll our face and then put a nice serum on to actually get deeper into the dermal layer. Same thing with the hair. We can dermal roll our hair. It's usually a little bit of a deeper, let's say needle on the little dermal roller that goes deeper into the hair shaft, it wouldn't be one that you would use on your face because it would destroy your face. But on our scalp we need a little bit of a deeper penetration. So derma roll scalp and then put some kind of serum on top of it. Preferably something containing GHKCU copper peptide. Amazing. For hair you can also inject copper peptide. So my favorite site, Biolongevity Labs, you can go go to biolongevity labs.com Dr. Amy and you can use the code Dr. Amy. We'll stick that in the show notes. My absolute favorite peptide company, they also have GHKCU strips. So if you're kind of injectable phobe, you're needle phobe and you don't really feel like poking yourself with a needle every single day, then you can absolutely get the dissolvable sublingual. So not oral, we don't want to use oral peptides that have to go into the GI tract. The sublingual dissolvable peptides in the GHKCU form. Amazing. For skin and hair. My hair fixer is truly, I mean it has shocked me quite honestly as to how much that has helped the quality of my hair, the thickness, the plumpness of hair. Iodine. If you're not taking iodine, that directly affects hair, hair loss, hair growth, hair strength, hair thickness. It's also affecting your immune system, your thyroid hormone production. Reverse T3, T4 to T3 conversion, anything you can do to help T4 to T3 conversion helps as well. Now PRP injections are also very, very beneficial and very effective for hair loss of any kind. Those have to be done at a dermatologist office, your plastic surgeon office, or you're seeing a hair loss specialist. They can also do PRP injections right into the scalp where we're taking your blood, we're spinning it out, we're getting platelet rich plasma and we are re injecting it into your scalp. I've not heard many things about stem cell injections for the scalp directly or for hair loss directly. We are seeing more and more stem cell therapies used for regeneration joints, muscle injuries, repair all the way to skin and aesthetic health. But I've not directly seen evidence that stem cell therapies help with hair. They most likely would indirectly as you're improving the health of all of your cells, basically putting in stem cells of a 20 year old. And this is not a podcast on stem cells. So please do not message me with the legalities around stem cells and umbilical cord and autologous. And I get it. That's a whole other podcast episode that we'll get to eventually. But that is a therapy to look into PRP for sure. For the scalp. Now, things like Minoxidil or Rogaine. It's important to know that if you use these therapies, once you stop using them, your hair can fall out. So you have to be very, very careful with things like Minoxidil, Rogaine, the over the counter topicals, because there can be some unwanted effects after you discontinue use. You really want to be using something that you can successfully and safely use ongoing or that you can kind of one hit wonder like a PRP injection and experience the results right away. So things like ghkcu, hair fixer, iodine, those things you can use ongoing with no detrimental side effects. I would not want to use Rogaine or an oral Minoxidil or things like Dudasteride or Finasteride long term. Dudasteride and Finasteride or DHT blockers. Don't want to use those long term. There are side effects associated with those medications. So anything that we can do naturally to support our hair, that's what we want to do. That's what we want to do. Now, things I would stay away from would be anything on Instagram that is gimmicky. Believe me, I've bought things on IG that I really wish I wouldn't have. But any of the gimmicks on Instagram, cheap red light caps on Instagram, usually, you know, you just kind of want to stay away from those. And quite frankly, even Nutrafol, I'm not, I'm not sold on Nutrafol. I know they have a huge marketing campaign. I would have to see a study done where someone used Nutrafol, let's say for 10 to 12 weeks. Not someone, we're a group of people. Like a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial of neutral. I would have to see those results documented in order for me to buy into it. Right now I just think it's just another supplement out there with a lot of marketing money behind it. Hopefully this episode has clarified in your head as to why. Why we blame our hairline loss on our thyroid and why we might need to expand our thinking beyond just the thyroid when it comes to things like supporting our hair, our hair health, hair growth and stopping hair loss for good.