u/Professional-Back422

My dermatologist wants to prescribe me oral minoxidil for TE but i’ve got tachycardia and arrhythmias and am on a blood pressure medication and I’ve read on some other posts that minoxidil has caused heart palpitations and dizziness. I wanted to know if anyone else here has also taken minoxidil with irregular heart rhythms and if it’d be safe to take? I can’t take topical since I’ve got pets but I’m so tired of losing my hair.

about a week ago i adopted a 3 month old kitten lola. i do have another cat callie and i’ve noticed for the past 2 days that she hasn’t been eating or drinking. i’m assuming it’s stress due to the new kitten but they are separated in different rooms and have been since i got lola. callie wont even eat treats. i did notice that she even threw up recently too and has barely gone to the bathroom. i’m calling the vet today as i know it’s dangerous for cats not to eat for 24/72 hours but i just don’t know what to do until i can get her in to the vet. callie grew up with my other cat who passed last year and she never had any problems with her. i know it can take awhile for cats to get used to other cats being in their home but i don’t want her to be so stressed that she doesn’t eat. does anyone have any advice on what to do?

about a week ago i adopted a 3 month old kitten lola. i do have another cat callie and i’ve noticed for the past 2 days that she hasn’t been eating or drinking. i’m assuming it’s stress due to the new kitten but they are separated in different rooms and have been since i got lola. callie wont even eat treats. i did notice that she even threw up recently too and has barely gone to the bathroom. i’m calling the vet today as i know it’s dangerous for cats not to eat for 24/72 hours but i just don’t know what to do until i can get her in to the vet. callie grew up with my other cat who passed last year and she never had any problems with her. i know it can take awhile for cats to get used to other cats being in their home but i don’t want her to be so stressed that she doesn’t eat. does anyone have any advice on what to do?

24F i had an appt with my derm and feeling even more hopeless after. I believe i have recurring TE. it first started two years ago after surgery and i'm going through my third round of losing 100 hairs a day. i’ve got low vitamin d (which i’ve had for years even before my hair loss) and my ferritin is around 55 but my vitamin d levels haven’t changed despite supplementing for a year and my doctor won’t allow me to take a higher dose. i’ve got systemic inflammation and no help with that either. my derm doesn’t seem interested in helping diagnose what’s actually going on (she said even with my vitamin d deficiency that’s probably not causing my hair loss since lots of people are deficient) and she never even looked at my scalp. my hormones all seem normal on blood tests. after my second round of TE i never noticed any regrowth and i’m worried that it unmasked AGA despite no one in my family ever having hair loss. i don’t have any of the AGA hair loss patterns, it’s more just density has gotten more sparse but if i don’t know what type of hair loss i have then i don’t know the proper why to treat it. i’m thinking of getting a second opinion from a different derm but this is all so frustrating. i also can’t take minoxidil due to abnormal heart rhythm's and having cats. any tips or advice? 

I had an appt with my derm yesterday and I told her how I’ve had 3 episodes (currently going thru my 3rd) of TE in just under two years and how during those periods of no shedding I’m not seeing any regrowth and that my hair texture has changed. I told her I was worried that something deeper could be going on (AGA or recurring triggers). she didn’t look at my scalp, didn’t even do a pull test to confirm TE, told me it’s hard to pin point a trigger and that even if I do have deficiencies it’s rare for my hair to fallout from those because most people are deficient but have healthy hair and she also said that my hair looked fine despite the fact I told her I’ve lost 60% of my density and that it’s dry and frizzy. all she did was order some updated blood work and tried to put me on OM which I can’t take due to arrhythmias and I can’t take topical due to having cats at home. so now she wants me to wait 6 months to see how i’m doing.

Blood test results 

• TSH 1.63

 

normal range 0.270 - 4.200

• Iron 96

normal range 41 - 186

• Ferritin 54.3 went up from 40 back in Oct

 

normal range 14.7 - 205.1

• Vitamin D 27.5 went down from 30 back in may

 

normal range 31 - 80

should I seek another opinion or do I just ride out the TE again? is there really no other way to stop this without minoxidil? i just feel like im never going to make progress if i don’t find a cause but she seems uninterested in finding one. she said i could supplement vd if i want but I’ve already been doing that for almost a year with hardly any progress. 

I’m going through my third round of TE in just under two years and I feel so defeated and confused. In just these past two years I’ve lost at least 50 to 60 percent of my hair and my texture has completely changed, it’s frizzy, dry and flat. I had some regrowth after the first round but not nearly enough to make back what I originally had and now it looks like I’m losing that regrowth. I have no idea why this keeps happening to me and it‘s breaking my heart. I’ve had low vitamin d for years way before my TE but supplements aren’t doing anything and iron is ‘normal’ but not optimal. I just don’t really know where to go from here.

My derm recommended I could take oral minoxidil but I’m hesitant due to the side effects of facial and body hair and I‘ve heard they cause palpitations and I already have cardiac arrhythmias which I’m on medication for. She also told me topical doesn’t have the same results as OM does. Does anyone have any advice?

sorry for the lengthy post but I’m desperate 😔

So I had TE back in Oct 2024 after having surgery and it lasted about 4/5 months and then eventually it stopped. I lost prob about 40/50% of my hair. about a month or so after the shedding stopped I had some regrowth but it was not nearly the same amount that I had lost the first time but my derm said it can take up to 6 years to get my full density back (i have long hair). but then i got sick in June of 2025 and about 2 months around Sept I started noticing more hair fallout then usual and was more than likely experiencing another TE episode. this time thankfully was not as bad as the first episode. it again lasted about 4 months and around Jan/Feb it slowed down. i waited to see some regrowth from that but never did. just recently I’ve noticed I’ve started having more fallout in the shower and when running my hands through it again and I’m worried that its TE again. I’ve lost 70ish hairs today just from running my hands through it which I know is still within normal range but wasn’t prior to my first TE episode. I’m assuming it could be from clogged sinuses I had for 3 days back in March. I’ve noticed that some of the hairs that are coming out are the same length as my regrowth that I had from my first TE episode as well as long hairs. my crown also looks a bit sparse but I don’t know if that’s just from having two TE episodes within a year of each other or if something else is going on. now prior to my first TE episode I did have low vitamin d which is maybe why I didn’t have much regrowth. I believe it was around 7 before my surgery but was 27 around Oct last year and only went up to 30 after supplementing 2000 since Oct. my iron and ferritin were also on the lower side but I never had hair loss until the surgery. my hormones were normal, I don’t have thyroid issues but I do have elevated muscle enzymes indicating inflammation. I also have anxiety/depression/ocd. overall my density is not at all what I had before all this, my hair is dry, flat and brittle and I’m worried it could be chronic TE or AGA. idk how much hair fallout was normal for me prior to TE so Idk if what’s happening now is normal or not. I just miss my hair so bad and so desperately want it to go back to normal.

I have a derm appt in 2weeks but if anyone has any advice or any clue as to what could be going on pls help me out! (I also can’t take minoxidil due to having arrhythmias)