I’ve heard stories about people who had cancer, lost their hair to chemotherapy/radiation, and then it, say, grew back curly where it had always been stick straight before. Or vice versa. I believe I may have had a similar experience, but I’m dubious about the reasons. My hair thinned quite a bit due to rapid, massive weight loss and now I have what I like to refer to as my afro. I don’t believe I ever had really curly hair before and now it’s out of control.
Isn’t hair type genetically determined and permanent? Why would this happen? Is it a myth? My hunch is that possibly hair changes with TIME…so you may be styling it the same way, but if you lose it all and start over during a time that coincides with the usual aging process, you NOTICE that it’s now different all at once. Maybe I just didn’t realize that it was getting more difficult to straighten and smooth my hair until a big life event brought it to my attention?
My mom’s hair changed from very fine and straight to thick and curly when she was in her 50’s. It was definitely not due to a change in styling products or the way she cuts her hair. I suspect it was due to changes in hormones as a result of menopause. Whenever I complain about my fine, thin hair she says “Just wait until you get older!”
Hormonal changes can certainly affect hair; it’s not at all uncommon for women to find that puberty, pregnancy, and not being pregnant any more changes their hair. Mine has been all over the spectrum from quite curly to only sort of wavy.
I don’t know about chemo/radiation, but I don’t find it hard to believe; body changes do affect hair.
I wonder how hormones affect hair type? I certainly buy that more readily than the “it fell out and grew back different” thing. it seems somehow natural that it could change during puberty or as hormones change when you age, not that I understand the mechanism. Mine went wild curly at somewhere around 35 though…I don’t think I was going through any big hormone swing, but who knows. Maybe I was. I’m 39 now and it hasn’t gotten any better.
Very old women often have wiry hair, maybe I’m just a rather young “old crone.”
Me too. I know that hormaones can affect how much hair you have. Increased testosterone can contribute to guys losing hair and when post-menopausal women’s bodies make more androgens than estrogen, they get a 'stache like my grandma had, but I don’t see how it would change your head from straight to curly.
Yup I was a dirty blond till I hit puberty and have been a medium brown ever since. And while I’m not sure it’s my hair that changed exactly, after I had my daughter, the ‘dirtyness’ factor changed significantly. Before, my hair would look horribly greasy just after one day of not washing it. Now it doesn’t get to that point at all. Kinda nice actually.
I have observed two dramatic hair composition changes in others.
The first was in a friend of mine. Around the age of 12 he dove into a pool, hit his head very hard, and was knocked out. His head was shaved to treat the large gash he received. It grew back extremely curly, as opposed to his previous lightly wavy hair. He was nicknamed Brillo, after that.
The second was a man I worked with. He underwent chemo, and lost his hair. His previously grey hair grew back the jet-black of his youth.
Mom got Scarlet fever when young, and her curly hair went straight. My brother has curly hair and I have really wavy hair, so I don’t doubt we got from somewhere.
My hair had changed dramatically over my life time but the changes have taken place over long periods of time. from golden blond to brunette to nearly grey=30 years. From fine and straight to coarse and wavy=10 years (last 10 years, which were my childbearing period.)
An acquaintance of mine lost her hair during chemotherapy treatments and her hair did indeed grow back very curly. However, a family member did not lose his hair during chemotherapy and did not have any changes to his hair texture. I don’t know if the difference is the loss of hair, or if it was because individuals react differently to chemo and that is one of the differences.
Okay, so I’m not going crazy. As I went through my 30s for whatever reason, my hair just kept getting curlier and curlier. I was blowing it dry and any “weather” – humidity, wind, whatever, would just make it keep getting bigger and bigger. One day my husband said, “I don’t know why you do that to your pretty curls.” And I said, “Curls? Well, okay then.” And now I look like this:
Anyway, there are no bones about it, it’s CURLY. And I’m still figuring out how to manage it. I keep trying different stuff to manage frizz. But it’s still a lot easier to take care of than it was and I DO get compliments on it.
I suppose going from more than 300 pounds to less than 130 probably REALLY messed with my hormones, so maybe that was it. I just always thought of it as a genetically pre-determined thing that you had your whole life. I knew dopers would have some answers for me!
My cousin, whom I see about once a year, had a big change from mousy brown and straight to dark brown, curly, and massively thick over the course of one year. We were about nine or ten at the time, and I don’t remember the details, but apparently she had some severe allergic reactions to her house/pets, resulting in the tearing out of all the carpet, a breakup with the family cat, and the loss of a lot of her hair.
Trauma to the follicles, I’m guessing, is behind many of these instances. See also “chemo curl”.
