All Discussions Tagged 'Depression' - Alopecia World2024-03-29T00:06:21Zhttps://alopeciaworld.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=Depression&feed=yes&xn_auth=noXeljanz Depression Side-Effect?tag:alopeciaworld.com,2018-10-15:2022678:Topic:14304022018-10-15T16:57:18.388ZChrisPowershttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/ChrisPowers
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I posted this on the Xeljanz discussion, but thought it might merit its own thread too.</p>
<p>Has anyone who's taken Xeljanz noticed a side-effect of depression, anxiety, or any other negative effect relating to mood?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because I came down with the flu on Thursday night (four days ago), stopped taking the Xeljanz since Friday morning just to be safe, and the depression and anxiety that I've been struggling with for over the past two years practically…</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I posted this on the Xeljanz discussion, but thought it might merit its own thread too.</p>
<p>Has anyone who's taken Xeljanz noticed a side-effect of depression, anxiety, or any other negative effect relating to mood?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because I came down with the flu on Thursday night (four days ago), stopped taking the Xeljanz since Friday morning just to be safe, and the depression and anxiety that I've been struggling with for over the past two years practically disappeared overnight.</p>
<p>I felt pretty OK toward the second half of Friday, which in and of itself is a rare occurrence for me, and have only felt better and better each day since then. I'd say yesterday is one of the best days I've had in years, and it was also one of the most stressful days, so I don't think present life circumstances are at play.</p>
<p>Literally, the only other recent change is the flu itself. I've changed no other medicines, supplements, my diet or anything else. Every other aspect of my life is unchanged. It's quite bizarre.</p>
<p>I had increased my dosage of Xeljanz maybe six weeks ago or so, and was starting to get some fuller results on my face, so I'd hate to have to discontinue it, but if taking it versus not is the difference between feeling the way I do right now and the way I have over the past two years, then forget it, I'm ditching the stuff. I feel like myself again, finally. I'd forgotten that guy.</p>
<p>Anybody have a similar experience?</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>Chris</p> THIS is how I will defeat alopecia universalistag:alopeciaworld.com,2016-02-18:2022678:Topic:13048582016-02-18T00:36:36.530ZWILDSTARhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/WILDSTAR
<p>Hey, guys. I'm Anakin Wildstar from Washington State. I'm a 46 year old male from the Seattle area. I've had thick brown hair every since 1995, when I noticed a very small nickel sized patch of hair loss right on the hair line above my right ear. I thought nothing of it and just continued with my life. About a year later, I noticed another patch on the left side of my hair line above my ear, but was a bit bigger. I started thinking:"Hmm, something's not right, here", but I have an…</p>
<p>Hey, guys. I'm Anakin Wildstar from Washington State. I'm a 46 year old male from the Seattle area. I've had thick brown hair every since 1995, when I noticed a very small nickel sized patch of hair loss right on the hair line above my right ear. I thought nothing of it and just continued with my life. About a year later, I noticed another patch on the left side of my hair line above my ear, but was a bit bigger. I started thinking:"Hmm, something's not right, here", but I have an introverted internal dialogue which, I guess, was a conditioned thing to not deal with things of this nature, so again, I just shaved my hairline on each side a bit higher and colored the rest in with my sister's eyeliner. lol.</p>
<p>In October of 2001, I woke up one day and noticed the right side of my head had a much bigger patch of missing hair along with a dime-sized patch on the back of my head(which quickly grew back, for some reason), but the ear patch on the right stayed bald. I quickly went to my Physician to figure this out and all he said was: "It's stress, relax and it will eventually grow back". I still felt something else was going on, but I wasn't sure what. So, I shaved the sides of my head, and got a leopard tattoo in the bald spot above my right ear to kind of 'turn something bad into something cool' type of answer. The tattoo hurt like HADES, I even had a panic attack in the middle of the session and had to go back the next day to finish it off. He shaved a lot of my hair off to perform the tattoo, so I decided to shave my entire head with a low setting on my clippers, thinking it would all come in evenly and together. It never grew at all. I just shaved it with a razor afterwards, because during that time, I noticed bald spots on my wrists, legs and one on my eyebrow.</p>
<p>I went to another Doctor and they pretty much said the same thing: stress. I DID have some stress going on, but I ALWAYS had stress going on in my life. I couldn't put 2 and 2 together on what was happening to my body hair. Then, in the spring of 2003, it went from A.A. to A.U. i had no hair on my head at ALL, but i had a beard, brows, lashes, and some body hair. And in the summer of 2003, I watched it ALL fall out, mustache(I had one since i was 12 and always loved it), eyebrows, eyelashes, armpit, pubic, leg, arm, name it, it was ALL gone. I had NO idea how to act/react. I was in complete shock. I had to wear a NIKE beanie and big eye glasses to hide my hair and eyebrow areas. I became extremely depressed, house bound and had NO idea what to do. Doctor's said it was stress. Made no sense to me, again, I always stressed the same way/mindset.</p>
<p>Something triggered my hair loss and I started diving into websites that could help me understand this dis-order. It was my genetic predisposition+_________. I tried to fill in the blank with 'stress,diet, environment, toxins, viruses, infections,' etc,., and nothing made much sense to me. So, I just lived with it. Wore a hat everywhere I went(store, college classes, etc,.,), but I rarely went anywhere anyway. Once, I tried "moducare", an immunomodulator that claimed to hault alopecia and i started growing my hair back in one month(as the book said), and i figured out it was nothing but the placebo effect growing my hair back, which all fell out a few months later. I tried every kind of snake oil on the market and nothing worked, except Kenalog eyebrow shots in my eyebrow areas, which subsequently fell out after a few months. It was like a cat chasing its tail. The moment one area grew hair, the others would fall out, but at least i had SOMETHING and could wear a baseball cap the right way, instead of wearing it way down on my face so you couldn't see my eyes. I just accepted the fact that my body wasn't balanced.</p>
<p>To make a long story short, I had no hair at all since 2003(except a few months with eyebrows with Kenalog), and every day living was crazy to put it lightly. People looked at me funny. Family members made rude comments, like "Wtf happened to you?", or "You look like a monster". I took it with a grain of NaCl, lol, because my family just spoke out loud what other people were thinking on the street or work inside. Didn't bother me as much though, because I HATED shaving and showers only took 5 minutes, now.</p>
<p>That was the ONLY up side to A.U. Down side was I couldn't get a girlfriend unless I paid for her. No social life what-so-ever. Finding a job was next to impossible. How in the hades could I dress nicely for an interview, unless it was something like a second rate warehouse job??!!?? I gave up, hid in my grandma's basement from about 2003 to 2011 when she died. I took care of her while she took care of me, reciprocation. I got a large inheritance of 40K$(which my 'dad' tried to steal, and eventually did steal 5K$ of it-another stressful event in my life's journey), but I was too shaken up to spend my 35K$ wisely, drinking heavily and getting a few tattoos and t-shirts was all i had to show for it. I was broke, and barely surviving being homeless, bouncing from family member to family member, all of them taking advantage of my generousity and money. (another set of horrible events in my life). I ended up being homeless finally, in late April of 2014, after my own kid tried to throw me under the bus(yet another putrid event), and I gave up. No home, no hair, panic attacks, broke, drinking heavily, and extremely depressed and suicidal, picking fights on the streets and sleeping underneath bridges.</p>
<p>I got lucky in June of 2014 with a random encounter, meeting a councilor who helped me get low-income housing, and i've been here every since. I met and married another homeless woman by the way, and bought her a van so we can spend nights together in while we stay here in the day(rules only allow guests from 9-9pm daily). We're both Altruists/Atheists, so we both always help others before ourselves. Must be some kind of intrisnic value we both possess, but we clicked from the very beginning. We're never separated, except the bathroom, lol. **I'm just laying out some of my history, is all** I happen chance to have found this website and joined it about a week ago(Feb 7th or 8th), and I like what I see, with the new options of JAK-Inhibitors and cream versions coming out(or already out?).</p>
<p>I just set up a Doctor's app't for March 8th to get the ball rolling with the R/A drug "Xeljanz"/Tofacitinib, by Pfizer. I've read/heard a lot of good things about this immuno-supressant and how most are regaining some/most/all of their hair. I'm concocting a regimen of Xeljanz,Moducare,WhitePeonyTea,LowDoseNaltrexone,and Another "Booster drug" to kick-start the Xeljanz and others into growing my hair back, along side being vegan and taking lots of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, teas, etc,., This WILL be the method to get my hair back, at least until they perfect the Stem Cell Therapy treatment for AA/AT/AU. I began my regimen Monday, and my goal is to have my hair back by the end of the year.</p>
<p>I thank you all for taking the time to read some of my life's experiences( a lot of bad things happened that I didn't add that stressed the sh** out of me ), but I'll add those in forthcoming comments as I document this '''WILDSTAR vs A.U.''' journey. All comments and advice are welcome! WISH ME LUCK & HERE I GO...........</p> Alopecia and depression - new research: Inflammation-induced depressiontag:alopeciaworld.com,2014-02-17:2022678:Topic:11548382014-02-17T15:53:19.638ZMaudy NLhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/Maudy
<p>I came across this following article, published by Floor van Heesch, PhD at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>It doesn't handle Alopecia in specific, but as it discusses an overactive immune system as a possible cause for depression, I thought I might post it and inform my hairless tribe of this new revelation.</p>
<p>The bottom-line is: not the fact that the patient has a decease, but the over-active immune system itself makes the patient depressed.</p>
<p>The inflammation…</p>
<p>I came across this following article, published by Floor van Heesch, PhD at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>It doesn't handle Alopecia in specific, but as it discusses an overactive immune system as a possible cause for depression, I thought I might post it and inform my hairless tribe of this new revelation.</p>
<p>The bottom-line is: not the fact that the patient has a decease, but the over-active immune system itself makes the patient depressed.</p>
<p>The inflammation (in our case of the hair follicles) can cause anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure)</p>
<p>So if you feel low, it might not be because of your mental inability to cope with your hair loss.....<br/> Mind you, this study has not been repeated with human subjects, but I find it interesting nevertheless.</p>
<p>Who knows, in some years time, we're able to blame our over active immune system for our bouts of depression!</p>
<p>Ps it's a bit technical, but feel free to google around for a less scientific article.</p>
<p><a href="http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/288214">http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/288214</a></p> Feeling overwhelmed and angry about my diagnosis and I don't know what to do (my story)tag:alopeciaworld.com,2013-06-29:2022678:Topic:10640342013-06-29T17:29:54.152ZRachelhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/Rachel305
<p>I was diagnosed with alopecia areata about two months ago. I noticed a spot about the size of a golfball near the temple of my head and ignored it for a month. Then I noticed that the golfball sized spot had stretched all the way around the side of my head and behind my ear in addition to three more spots, including a receding hairline in the back. From that day on I have never worn my hair in a ponytail. That week I saw three different doctors who confirmed my diagnosis. The dermatologist…</p>
<p>I was diagnosed with alopecia areata about two months ago. I noticed a spot about the size of a golfball near the temple of my head and ignored it for a month. Then I noticed that the golfball sized spot had stretched all the way around the side of my head and behind my ear in addition to three more spots, including a receding hairline in the back. From that day on I have never worn my hair in a ponytail. That week I saw three different doctors who confirmed my diagnosis. The dermatologist started me on the topical steroid.<br/> My parents didn't know how to respond and they still don't. My dad tried to be supported, but I could see underneath his strength that he was thinking that I would never be able to find a relationship now and that his pretty precious daughter that he had done everything for was now defective. My mother is a very superficial and jealous woman and often makes comments about how tv actresses are so ugly and whats wrong with their faces or bodies. She hates the subject of my alopecia and so does my dad, although he pretends not to. I stopped bringing it up with them because it just seems to cause stress for them and they never have anything helpful to say.<br/>
I never told any friends because I worry that they will be happy or relieved that my life is not as perfect as they thought it was and that I too have struggles. I am an only child and my parents give me a lot of stuff, such as paying for college, and they treat me really well while my friends have difficult home lives and money issues.<br/>
For a while I pretended that it didn't bother me that much, and if I went bald (which becomes more real of a possibility every day and I watch hair after hair fall out) I would deal with it then and use this condition to make me a stronger person and use it to my advantage if I could. I realize now that I was in denial and trying to appear strong for everyone else. <br/>
Inside I feel so angry and scared about my future and what it will mean for my life. I finally got things on track with school and started applying myself and doing better. And I met a great guy that really seems to like me. He is deployed right now and says he wants a relationship when he gets back. But I don't think he will still want me if he knows of my condition. Or I may lose so much hair by the time he comes back that I will be bald. I am praying desperately for my hair to fill in the huge bald patches on my head and for this condition to not get any worse. My life finally starts to be going good and this condition sprouts its ugly head where its not wanted. I feel angry that it chose me and that unlike other things in life, there is little I can do besides sit around helplessly and watch my hairs fall out one by one, feeling lonlier and more detached from everyone all the time.<br/>
No one understands what I am going through, even if they pretend they do. My dad just says well at least its not cancer, and although he is right, it just makes me feel worse for feeling sad about this disease. Who am I to feel sad about something as insignificant as hair loss when people are dying. I've been pushing my friends away and being angry and mean and I don't know how to stop. When my roommate complains that her hair is too thick and she has too much hair I want to strangle her because I would give anything to have that problem. My life feels more out of control every day and I don't know how to turn it around.</p>