Hair loss and changes to fingernails

According to MEpedia, hair loss is an occasional symptom of ME:

https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Hair_loss

Like @BrightCandle, I had some initial hair loss, adding insult to ME injury.

I had already been hypothyroid for a decade before the ME, so was taking meds, and my thyroid blood tests were fine.

 

I suffered hair loss in about 2015-16, 20 years after developing ME. Quite large amounts were coming out, which was rather alarming! It eventually stopped, and I just lose normal amounts when I brush or wash it now.

 

Well done Prof Jason. Good job.

My scalp hair was not affected but if you will pardon me mentioning it, for the sake of medical accuracy, my pubic hair definitely was and thinned a lot, was falling out at one point and became permanently less in number, lighter in colour and finer in texture and that was in my 20's after onset at 22 ish in 1986.

Also my finger nails became weak and split a lot more easily, marked with heavy ridges along the axis of growth and corrugations across it, which was not the case before ME but has been ever since.

 

I think that my fingernails are better since taking quite high-dose calcium. I take a gram a day, plus magnesium and other things.

 

Yes, I had significant hair loss in the early years of ME.

 

I am glad that works for you.

My fingernails seem to improve a little with biotin supplements if I can remember to take them. I do remember biotin was one of the things marked as showing deficiency in the analysis of Witney Dafoe's and other's metabolomics by his father Prof Ron Davis.

At the moment, post covid with possible longcovid, I find calcium supplementation difficult, as it appears to encourage migraine like episodes of vasoconstriction.

 

I had a lot of hair loss from a relapse after having M.E for 11 years. My free T3 (thyroid) level dropped below normal so that might have been an issue. My hair eventually stopped falling out after 2 years and I haven't had any major hair loss since.

My nails are another story. I've had vertical ridges since the onset of M.E. I've tried supplements but nothing helps.

 

I wonder if that's an issue of differentiation between types/causes/even genders?

I became really ill on biotin - perhaps permanently but at least pretty long-term.

I also very rarely get migraine.

 

I also had hair loss in my first year of illness.

But it was more of large amount of hair shedding all at once rather than permanent hair loss. My hairdresser pointed out a lot of new hair growth when I went in for a haircut some time later on (weeks? months? don't remember).

 

I think I’m developing hair loss and I think it’s due to ME. (I’m only 20 and there isn’t much history of significant hair loss in my family).


(my hairline used to be straight in the corners and now it forms a sort of inward circle)

I guess in general me being very severe was bound to have other effects on my health. I wonder if it’s vitamin D deficiency linked with being in the dark all the time. I take a weekly vitamin D pill as perscribed but I wonder if that isn’t enough.

(Because vit d deficiency is linked to hair loss).

 

Thanks @Trish

Annoyingly, I am well enough to have blood tests once in a blue moon, but I am not well enough to have blood tests at 8am. I “sleep” from 11pm—1pm and anything much shorter than that leads to significant PEM. Unfortunately the nursing service in my area only does blood tests at home in the early morning.