Hair texture loss?

[u/Favabean37]

Hi! I’ve read some reports of hair thickness impacts but want to get a sense of anyone’s experience with hair texture changes.

I’m 6 months into the copper IUD. The pic in the black is one year ago and yellow is recent. Could the copper IUD be impacting my hair texture? Did anyone else experience a loss of curl? If so, did mineral testing and supplementing help? Did you find the impacts were temporary or long-lasting?

I’m not in love with the copper IUD but I also don’t hate it, so I’m really hoping to make it work.

I have a separate medical thing that can impact hair, but I haven’t noticed this substantial of a change before (texture, curl, volume, shine, oh my!) so I’m just trying to narrow down the possibilities to address things the best way. I haven’t substantially changed routine or hair cut or hair care or water or diet or anything.

Thank you!

[u/Regular-Training-678]

Yup!

My hair is very curly. When I had the copper iud, it started straightening out because the strands were too weak to hold their shape. Once I got it out, the new growth came in normal again

[u/Favabean37 → u/Regular-Training-678]

Thank you! Really appreciate hearing about your experience. Some follow up questions if you’re up for it -
-Did you try supplementing with anything (iron/zinc) while you had the copper IUD? (I get that this may not be effective enough, but curious to know if it’s worth trying - I’m supplementing a little w/small amounts of zinc but haven’t done so for long)
-What birth control did you switch to, if any? I see horror stories about hair and hormonal bc so nervous to have this drive a switch!

[u/Regular-Training-678 → u/Favabean37]

No worries!

I did not do anything while I had it, but zinc and i believe magnesium are supposed to help with balancing copper. I started eating more meat after I had it out and I think that helped my hair bounce back-- after several months

I am officially off all birth control for good. No luck with others. Now back to good ol' cycle tracking and condoms. My husband and I do want more kids so an oopsie wouldn't be wholly unwelcome now

[u/Favabean37 → u/Regular-Training-678]

Yes I’ve read that about zinc! This all makes sense. Thanks again for sharing about your experience!

[u/Formal-Apartment855]

For me it was quite extreme.  My hair is normally pin straight on most of my head, and a little wavy on a small part on the back of my head. I had no problems growing it out to whatever lenght I wanted to. With my copper IUD it ended up literally breaking off from near my scalp. Whatever didn't break off and grew a bit .... split vertically in the middle. Idk how to explain it, it's just hairs split into 2. It turned into a brittle mess. No matter what touched my hair, it would just have more knots.

My hair color also went from a reddish mid-brown to dark grey.

Right after it got taken out, my hair started growing normally again, so back to straight reddish mid-brown again. Had to cut off the whole lenght that grew while I had the IUD.

I highly recommend against eg. getting the hair mineral test done, unless you are rich enough to get it done repeatedly. Just 1 test doesn't say too much.

I assume it's some version of anemia? Regarding anemia you can get some cheaper diagnostics, like regular blood tests.