I’ll be visiting Africa in the near future, so yesterday I got some vaccinations: one for Hepatitis A, and a booster shot for some things I have already been vaccinated against as a kid. I received one shot in each arm; each was a barely noticeable pinprick. The next day, my right arm felt slightly bruised, as I had been told might happen, but without visible discoloration.
However, in the spot on my right arm where I received the injection, or close to it, there is now a single hair growing. It is about 4cm long, and seems much thicker and darker than the rest of the hair on my arms. In fact, that part of my upper arm is almost hairless, so it rather stands out. I noticed it this morning and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there the day before. I haven’t noticed such stand-alone hairs anywhere else.
So, is this a side effect of the vaccine, a reaction to the needleprick, or just a coincidence? Does the hair have an evil intelligence of its own and is it plotting to do away with its host body in a gruesome horror-movie scenario? (I got the shots on the 7th, not the 6th, otherwise the explanation would be obvious) How long can I expect it to become?
I’ve been going bald for a couple of years now – is there any chance that this effect can be harnessed as a new type of hair-growth medicine? Would it be a good idea to try stabbing myself in the scalp a few thousand times with a sewing needle?
What’s happened is that since your vaccination you’ve become acutely aware of that part of your body, which you probably ignored before, and so an oddity like a large, out of place, hair has attracted your attention.
I’m betting on coincidence. Hairs do not grow 4 CM in one day. Cut it (don’t yank it, as that’ll pull out the bud too). and see if it grows another 4 CM.
I’ve got one of these on my back. Regardless of attempts to pluck it, it grows back in. It’s not caused by vaccinations; it’s just an aberrant hair. For what it’s worth, I’m also balding. While I’d be fine with transplanting hair to my head[sup]1[/sup], I would not want a head full of those bristly wiry bastards.
Note: I don’t actually care about balding. I freckle in the summer, and get a nice buzz cut, so my dome is all shiny and speckled like a big egg.
Sadly, I have one of those on the tip of my nose that started after a very severe zit in high school. It’s thin, but gets steadily more visible as it grows. Now, I just have to pluck the little scamp regularly before it gets too visible.
I have had several hairs pop out of my body that were quite long. Very clearly they had been growing under the skin and finally broke through. I think if you receive an injection or something else irritates your skin in the area of hair like that you might unconsciously scratch the area freeing the hair, or perhaps skin irritation in general leads to the condition where the hair can emerge.
John Allen Paulos, writing in his book Innumeracy, tells us that he used to challenge his students to estimate the rate of their hair growth in miles per hour.
(The point being, that the typical student had no concept that hair growth was a thing that could be measured in miles per hour.)