Bipolar Disorder Medications Destroyed My Hair

I’ve been on abilify and Lamictal in the past two years, but then my psychiatrist put me on Lamictal and lithium instead. Now the weird thing is that only since two years ago, my hair became very curly and I wasn’t even born with curly hair and it has never been curly my whole life. Also, it stopped flowing naturally on my forehead, instead it would always look like it’s pulled backwards only from the top of my head. This is really annoying me, especially that doctors keep telling me that my hair is pulled backwards from the top of my head because it’s falling out and that I need to treat that first. But even when I used hair growth solutions, my hair would still look like it’s pulled backwards and it won’t stop falling out either. And none of the doctors know why my hair has become so curly. One doctor told me that I can get my hair straightened, but I don’t want to chemically straighten it. I just want my old hair back! My hair also completely stopped growing like a year ago and has become lifeless.
I asked my psychiatrist about the side effects of the medications I’m taking and what happened to my hair but he doesn’t see any correlation between them.
So can you please help me find out why this is happening to my hair and if there’s any way to fix this damage? It’s really affecting my self-esteem and I’ve become very self-conscious going out in front of other people with my hair -which used to be very healthy, long and shiny-looking like that.
And I can’t change medications because I tired a lot of medications with side effects like weight gain and I had to stop taking them because of that.

If it's a side effect of the meds, there's probably not much that can be done about it. I don't know those meds well enough to comment on the likelihood that it is a side effect.

But go to your Dr.,and ask to have your Ferritin levels checked. I was losing hair, and went to my Dr., and she checked my Ferritin and sure enough it was really low, so she put me on an iron supplement and my hair started to grow back. I also use Rogaine for Women - it's expensive but it does help. Now after several months, my hair is growing back.

splitimage

—I found biotin to be extremely helpful

b-vitamins and antioxidants really help with my hair. oh, and taurine.

Biotin and selenium helped me. I was told to take centrum silver because it contains these and it helped. I also used Nioxin products to help it grow back.

I lost a lot of hair on depakote/lithium/lamictal combo and then later from lithium toxicity and undiagnosed hypothyroidism.

It did grow back. My hair has always been and still is curly so can't help you there I'm afraid.

Have you had your thyroid function checked?

WC