Effective Treatment for Alopecia - Part 2

I am not a doctor. I am not prescribing this plan in an attempt to treat a disease or illness. This is merely my opinion and the results of my own experience. Consult with your doctor before ceasing any medication.

Here we go, Part 2 of this blog series on how I effectively treated my Alopecia. I have gotten a few questions, so I wanted to address those in this blog.

How long were you on the diet?

I have now been on a modified version of the vegan diet (as mentioned in Part 1 of this blog series) for nearly a year now. I say modified because I cheat - often! I cheat out of laziness, being so busy, and pure cravings. However, I eat vegan more often than I do not.

How much hair growth did you have?

I only did the Fish Oil for about a month. I gave my bottle to a family member who needed it worse than I did. However, I am buying a new bottle today. That said, in the month that I did the fish oil, I did have peach fuzz on my head and nothing more. This is significant because I have had AU for over 25 years with no regrowth.

I am not going into this to grow hair but rather to build my cells and immune system. Hair growth would just be the icing on the cake.

Where do you get your calcium if you are not drinking milk?

This is a big one! Here is a FAQ that answers the why and now I will answer the what! I get my calcium through natural plant sources and then supplement with Vitamin D so that it is better absorbed.

Here are some plant sources of calcium (as found on Livestrong.com):

• Green Leafy Vegetables
• Legumes
• Nuts and Seeds
• Whole Grains

In Part 3 of this blog series, I'll answer more questions and maybe even throw in a delicious non-dairy milk recipe!

Effective Treatment for Alopecia - Part 1

I am not a doctor. I am not prescribing this plan in an attempt to treat a disease or illness. This is merely my opinion and the results of my own experience. Consult with your doctor before ceasing any medication.

While speaking at Alopeciapalooza last week, I made mention of how I used my diet to effective treat the symptoms of Alopecia. It is my desire to use what I have learned to help other, and not to profit from my experience. So here it is (for free) my personal treatment plan.

Omit from your diet:
All dairy and as many animal products as possible.
I completely removed milk, cheese, yogurt, and anything else containing dairy. I saw immediate results with this. My IBS symptoms disappeared and I saw much less joint pain and headaches.

Watch out for hidden sources of dairy. You do have to read labels. I'll be sure to list some calcium sources in my next blog along with other valuable information, including how to respond to negative comments about your diet. This will help it to not seem so overwhelming!

I personally removed almost all animal products. I occasionally enjoyed a little seafood and rarely some free range chicken or an egg. Other than that, animal products gone! It was easy once I got used to it. Trust me - healthy tastes much better than animal products.

Gluten be gone! I'm currently seeing a connection with gluten as well. I have found that if you remove all the processed junk, you remove most of the gluten. More fresh fruits and vegetables equals less gluten! I also cut out as much bread as I can, this helps as well. I try to buy gluten-free options when possible and affordable.

Supplement with:

• Pharmax Fish Oil (daily) - providing much needed Omegas. I believe this was a key contributor of my hair regrowth.
• Juicing - My favorite recipe. (As often as possible - at least once or twice a day. Don't let the word "weightloss" throw you - it can be used as a snack instead of a meal replacement.)
  Store bought juice does not count. This has to be freshly extracted juice made from a juicer - not a blender.

Improvements include:

• My monthly cycle completely regulated itself.
• IBS symptoms gone.
• No more headaches.
• Joint pain gone (including pain from ruptured discs in my back).
• Energy renewed.
• Glowing skin!
• Nails became healthy.
• A little hair growth.

What the *BEEP - VEEP!!!

So I see a post on Facebook by my good friend, Georgia Van Cuylenburg that the show VEEP has dissed our peeps!  Really Veep?  Here is her post:

This week on VEEP Julia Louis Dreyfus' character (the Vice President of the US) said "The kids had alopecia and the mothers were on crack. It was a freakshow!" - this makes me sad! Words can hurt no matter how funny you think they might be (coming from an alopecian comedian!)

Freakshow?  Kids with an incurable auto-immune disease compared to "mothers on crack?"  Wow...

After years of being teased and being laughed at and made to feel like a freak, it comes to this.  After being suicidal as a teenager because I believe I was a freak, it comes to this.  After counseling young children with Alopecia that they are "beautiful just as they are," it comes to this.

Perhaps the writers of VEEP are the ones on crack.   America - this is why Alopecia Research gets no funding or attention.  This is why the suicide rate is so high.  

Forget the Zombie Apocalypse - there's 4.7 Million freaks among us!

CHALLENGE:  Go to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and the mountaintops if necessary and shout our battle cry - "WHAT THE BEEP - VEEP?"  Use the hashtag #veep and #whatthebeepveep to spread the word.

We have a new bully in town in HBO - you've picked a fight with some little freaks who have some big freaks on their side.

Camp Cuisine

I spent the week at Alopeciapalooza. It was a great week. I made new friends and got to catch up with some old ones. Flew bald - that was pretty awesome. (If that just totally confused you - just read my bio and it will all make sense).

I was really worried about being vegan at camp. Vegan - at camp! One more time, vegan - at camp! You know camp, ice cream, milk, cheese, yogurt, hamburgers, sausage, hot dogs, pizza, bacon, CAMP! I am proud to announce that I totally did it with only one slip up - I did have some chocolate cake with some vanilla ice cream. It was a childhood thing - had to relive it.

I ate salads at lunch and dinner and fruit at breakfast. It wasn't really all that hard. I even had a vegetarian pizza in the airport! I'm pretty awesome - I'm just sayin...