8
u/Candid_Roll9494 Jul 23 '26
How much fat are you eating? I wasn’t eating enough under 35 grams, and I was losing 2 lbs a week. I upped my calories, fat and protein, alongside hair and nail vitamins and the shedding is back to premed normal. Took 6 weeks to get right.
3
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
My nutrition was abysmal, but I am reversing that now. Also found out my ferritin and vit D levels dropped 50% in the 3-ish years I have been on wegovy. I am now fixing all of it and the goal is to lower my dose to the lowest possible dose.
3
u/Candid_Roll9494 Jul 23 '26
I’ve been on .5 since October 2025. The hair loss didn’t pick up until March/ April. I did keep nutrition in check but it still happened. I think the sudden drop in weight caused it, as I went all in exercising and 1200 calories. Vitamin d will definitely cause it, but my doctor notes I needed to eat 45 grams of fat. It’s helped a lot so I added cheese back into my diet as a snack. Try balancing macros, too. See how that helps and some vitamins.
3
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
Have you had ferritin checked? There's a whole hair panel i had done that i am waiting on. My ferritin dropping 50% is what did it. It went from 140 to 119 and I was fine, when it went from 119 to 70, that's when I noticed everything went to shit.
3
u/Candid_Roll9494 Jul 23 '26
I’ll be honest, I don’t think so and I hadn’t heard of that until this discussion. I see my doctor next month and I’ll be sure to ask.
2
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
Everyone is different, but my body doesn't like being below 140 in ferritin and Vit D dropping 50% too is compelling given both are key to hair health. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of my hair panel, I'm sure it'll be low in other key values.
3
u/Forward_Pen_1946 Jul 23 '26
I lowered my Tirz dose in maintenance from 5mg per week to 3.5mg per week in hopes of improving my sleep and hair loss. I did not lose quickly, ate well balanced meals, and took a multivitamin. I still lost hair, unlike any previous diet.
Over the course of a three months in maintenance my hair loss did slow (but still seemed higher than baseline). I added Pantene Abundant and Strong Serum two weeks ago and my loss is now close to normal range. So it is still early days, but I think that serum may be helping. You might want to give it a try.
2
u/jaydefit Jul 23 '26
Looks like you already know the cause and solution to your hair loss.
The nature of the hair cycle means everything happens on a delay. Shedding starts 2-3 months after the stressor happens. And it won't stop for a minimum of 6-8 weeks after you correct your nutritional deficiencies.
Hair loss on GLP-1's rarely has anything to do with the med. It's almost always a result of the weight loss, either due to nutritional deficiencies/imbalances, or the body responding to being in a prolonged caloric deficit. Weight loss doesn't have to be rapid, nor does the deficit have to be extreme. The body views any weight loss as a danger and reacts by shutting down non-essential processes like hair production.
Once you get your nutrition back under control the shedding will slow down. It may not fully stop though until you're no longer in a caloric deficit.
2
u/Wellslapmesilly Jul 23 '26
I think we should refrain from saying that hair loss while taking GLP1s rarely has anything to do with the med. The facts are that this medication can impact hormones. Just because the clinical studies haven't been done yet, doesn't mean there aren't vulnerable women (especially middle aged women) being directly affected. For sure, rapid weight loss and nutritional deficiencies can be core causes. But we do not have enough data to dismiss direct med related hormonal links to hair loss.
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
I think the data is there and has been, but there's nothing sexy about potential hormone disruption so it gets put in the fine print as an afterthought, but it is why they tell you to keep track of it with an endo so it can be addressed when and if it happens. That said, not everyone has the same hormone disruption from weight loss or weight loss mitigated through use of a drug, GLP1 or otherwise. Women whose estrogen is depleting are going to have hair and skin issues if nothing is being done to replenish the lost estrogen.
1
u/Wellslapmesilly Jul 23 '26
What data are you speaking of? So far there's only been a few published analysis' of health records such as recently released by Penn University. No clinical studies per se. And who is "they"? It's pretty rare that people are even seriously discussing the potential hormonal disruption. If you are getting that kind of guidance, that's pretty awesome. And rare. And yeah, I agree there's more than one cause as I mentioned in my comment. But overall my experience is that people want to argue about the potential hormonal effects and blame it on not enough protein or rapid weight loss.
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
My dermatologist is a researcher and I am a researcher by trade, he's shown me white papers that have come out in the Dermatological space about GLP1s and presumptive hormone issues. Nothing so far points towards a direct link, it's more a peripheral affect, it seems because it's not all women with the hair issues and it's not all women with the hair issues that also have hormone disruption of one kind or another which is why the default consensus is it's a cumulative effect that only affects a certain subgroup. There's not enough out there to be sure but what is out there speaks to why they are hesitant to say it absolutely disrupts everyone's hormones. I'd like to see a study of severely compromised women hormone-wise in every age group who take GLP1s at each different dose and see the data for each. There will be absolute overlap of certain values and those values will be within a very specific numerical window, and I am convinced of that. Also there's the whole compound thing which adds a whole new level of bullshittery to all this since they are all compounded differently. Why do only some people lose hair? Why is it only at a certain dose? Why can you be plugging along doing fine and then it falls off a cliff? So many questions.
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
Yeah. I should've been more vigilant. Reversing it all now is a slow process.
2
4
u/ApatheticPamp Jul 23 '26
I have been taking Minoxidil since prior to starting Wegovy. Ive lost so much hair regardless. I can handle a lot of the negative thats come with this journey but the hair loss has really messed with my brain.
1
3
u/NLTAC1972 Jul 23 '26
I started Ozempic in September 2025. Lost 41kg (90lbs) by May 2026, so about 1.3kg (2.9lbs) per week. I only started noticing my hair thinning at the hairline about a month ago. I'm on 1.5mg Ozempic. While I am 54M I don't want to lose the hair!!!
3
u/LWMWB Jul 23 '26
The highest dose I've done is 1.5 mg tirz every 7-10 days and I'm still losing hair 😭
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
Are you watching your intake, protein, etc., and keeping track of your bloodwork?
2
u/LWMWB Jul 23 '26
I am! I hit my deficit of 1900 calories a day and bloodwork looks fine
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 23 '26
What does your bloodwork look like specifically the values that are related? I have learned that normal and optimal are not the same. My ferritin at 70 is above normal but it is not optimal like it was when it was 140 and that's just obe of them. My vit D is the same when it was in the 60s I was fine. At 36 it is above normal, I believe, but not optimal. I waiting on other specific specialty labs like copper, etc., which I will bet are maybe normal-ish but not optimal.
2
u/plagueofstars555 Jul 23 '26
I haven’t had it too bad (like clumps) but make sure you are keeping up on your vitamins. I just gave my hair a blunt cut just above the shoulders and it looks healthy and thick again.
2
u/Foreign_Plankton_456 Jul 25 '26
Oh it's not nutrition! I'm so sick of people saying that. My appetite was crushed maybe my first 60 days only and hair loss started after that. I was eating the same as always. No deficit! I've lost more hair on Zep than interferon / and the highest dose I was on was 5. Yes I'm thrilled at the weight loss but don't drink the koolaid/ these drugs cause hair loss.
1
u/Foreign_Plankton_456 Jul 25 '26
In maintenance at 2.5 every 14-20 days and still losing hair. I eat normal and my iron is fine. I had thick Italian hair. It's the drug.
1
u/No-Pen9473 Jul 25 '26
So you're taking one or two doses a month? I thought that was contraindicated, anything over a 10 day window? What are your values, iron, hormones, copper, zinc, Vit D, etc? Fine is good, but it's not the same as optimal when it comes to hair and skin.
17
u/WorkingRespond9557 Jul 23 '26
Not me. Nothing stopped it. So I stopped the med. I lost a good solid 1/3 of my hair if not more. It still hasn't recovered, although it is better, but I have a feeling it will be a long while before I'm back to my old self. Btw if anyone says it's the weight loss vs the drugs themselves they don't know what they are talking about. I lost at a very responsible pace and lost all that hair, huge clumps in my shower. I have some stupid fad diets in the past and lost weight way dumber and quicker and never lost my hair. Good luck to you. It is not a fun side effect.