I did a quick search to see if my question's had been covered but couldn't find anything, so..
I was wondering if anyone else has bizarre patches of hairless skin in amongst their facial hair? I've been growing thick black hairs on my chin and neck for a few years now, but they started life as fuzzy white hair before shaving and stress worsened them. I now pluck, but have noticed more and more patches where the usual black hair isn't growing and the fine, soft hair of my earlier days is back - as in the kind before any problems started there. I'm hoping this is a sign of improvement??
I wish the same thing happened to me. I have been plucking for more than 20 years now and the problem is only getting worse. Are you on any medication?
I wish the same thing happened to me. I have been plucking for more than 20 years now and the problem is only getting worse. Are you on any medication?
I'm not. I'm pretty much treating myself, the natural way. I changed my diet to a version of low GL which is just basically healthy eating, cutting out as many nasties as I can (and there are lots of them), plus vitamins, a few choice supplements, keeping active with things like yoga, and unactive in the right ways to avoid stress.
Sounds like an improvement to me! This could be a sign that your androgen levels are lower. (BTW, shaving and stress won't make your facial hair worse. It's androgens.)
My facial hair was the *first* thing that improved after I modified my diet and started to exercise. First the hair growth slowed, and then I stopped seeing so many coarse hairs. I still get 3-4 coarse black hairs every couple of days, but for awhile I was getting 10-15 coarse black hairs every day.
__________________ PCOS symptoms since age 11 (heavy acne & oily skin, minor weight issues & hirsutism) Irregular AF (38-45 days) after stopping BCP at age 29 Dx PCOS at age 32 Hypoglycemia and IR
TTC #1 since 08/08 08/09 1st Clomid cycle 50mg No O... Provera...
Paleo Diet Yoga, outdoor activity, and weights Acupuncture & TCM Fish Oil, Cal-Mag, & multi-vitamin
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Sounds like an improvement to me! This could be a sign that your androgen levels are lower. (BTW, shaving and stress won't make your facial hair worse. It's androgens.)
My facial hair was the *first* thing that improved after I modified my diet and started to exercise. First the hair growth slowed, and then I stopped seeing so many coarse hairs. I still get 3-4 coarse black hairs every couple of days, but for awhile I was getting 10-15 coarse black hairs every day.
Have to say I beg to differ on the stress being a factor, I'd say it has a huge effect on health as a whole which impacts the PCOS too. Androgens being a chemical word for a bad side effect of the body not working properly. Speaking holistically, when we're stressed, there's the effects of bad energy flow that do us absolutely no good. I see a marked regression in my symptoms if I'm having a bad time. Working with my mind aswell as the body has helped me immensely.
Overall the amount of hairs coming through has about halved since I changed the lifestyle. On the other end of the too-much-hair spectrum I don't have enough on my head, and that seems to be improving too.
It's amazing what the body will do when healing and righting itself, and what it'll do when it's out of synch as I'm sure everyone here knows.
You give me hope. I have just started to eat a better, lower calorie diet, avoiding sweets and bad carbs in general. I have been doing this since the beginning of this month and I've lost 5 pounds. I want to lose 5 more pounds, to reach my ideal weight. I have never been overweight but I've put on a few pounds that I want to lose. Anyway I wonder if diet changes can make a difference in facial hair if you aren't overweight.
How long did it take for you to see results after starting to eat a better diet?
You give me hope. I have just started to eat a better, lower calorie diet, avoiding sweets and bad carbs in general. I have been doing this since the beginning of this month and I've lost 5 pounds. I want to lose 5 more pounds, to reach my ideal weight. I have never been overweight but I've put on a few pounds that I want to lose. Anyway I wonder if diet changes can make a difference in facial hair if you aren't overweight.
How long did it take for you to see results after starting to eat a better diet?
It took a few months to see improvements symptom-wise, but in myself I felt better really quickly. I'm still improving on my diet but it gets tough when you run out of money to change what you eat. Eating as much organic as possible is an expensive business! Without writing an essay on how things like carbs affect the body (especially ones like ours with hormone problems) the best diet I've found isn't a diet at all; it's a way to live. At my peak weight I was a UK size 26, and I'm only 5ft, and had tried a load of different diets with little effect. I would try anything, including not eating, thinking if I could just lose the weight then I'd be healthy and thin again and I could eat what I wanted. I lost a good amount with Weight Watchers and that's sort of what triggered me into thinking it's just common sense eating that helps; eating right, and for life too, not just a short period to lose weight. After a bit of research into how my body's dealing with food (namely a bit of insulin resistance) I got into the low GI/GL way of thinking which lead to my current way of eating. I don't monitor calories or fat, but I do watch sugars and carbs are kept to a minimum. With those changes and across a period (hah) of about 3 years, I'm down to a size 16 and still losing.
My weight and diet were some of the reasons I chose to ignore the doctor's advice and treat myself. I found a lot of them weren't listening to me and didn't seem to care much about my general wellbeing, and were homing in on the PCOS to "treat". They didn't listen when I said eating healthily was helping me lose weight, or that my cycle was regulating itself (I'm now 5-weekly after a time of having none for about two years), they just kept saying "You gained weight, found it hard to lose, periods stopped, yep that's PCOS; go on the pill, and this pill and if that doesn't work, this pill.", which seems to be their approach to a lot of conditions. It's their job to treat things I know but I can't help but feel they're missing out a huge chunk of the problem by not looking deeper into diet and lifestyle, and considering them a factor in what we experience physically. At least, they don't look until it becomes a serious problem like heart disease or diabetes.
Must say also I'm not advising everyone to ignore their doctors and take things into their own hands. This is only my experience. Just know that there's an alternative way to do things.
Thank you sharedsoul for your reply. I'm glad you were able to improve your symptoms just by making lifestyle changes. I hope that a better diet will help me, too, although I don't want to lose too much weight, I'm British size 12. If I lost more than 5-6 pounds, I would look too skinny. Anyway I'll try to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet as much as possible. It won't be easy because I crave for it, I've always had a sweet tooth and baking cookies is one of my hobbies.
Thank you sharedsoul for your reply. I'm glad you were able to improve your symptoms just by making lifestyle changes. I hope that a better diet will help me, too, although I don't want to lose too much weight, I'm British size 12. If I lost more than 5-6 pounds, I would look too skinny. Anyway I'll try to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet as much as possible. It won't be easy because I crave for it, I've always had a sweet tooth and baking cookies is one of my hobbies.
See that's the thing with diet vs healthy eating, if you're eating right for life and not just to lose weight then you shouldn't keep losing weight once your body reaches it's natural size. Given you maintain that healthy eating, as oppose to changing back to old ways 'cause you're "normal" weight again, it should stay that way. In theory of course, we're all different so it can take a while to find the right foods for the way we work.
As for the cravings, they fade after a month or so of cutting back but they will come back if you indulge, so it's important to know the ways of replacing sugars. Agave syrup/nectar is really sweet but fructose based so it has little impact on blood sugar. Or you can sweeten with fruit juice, depending on what you're making. I use them when making my own cereal bars. You can also get powder based fructose to use in baking to replace white cane sugar.
Agave syrup/nectar is really sweet but fructose based so it has little impact on blood sugar. Or you can sweeten with fruit juice, depending on what you're making. I use them when making my own cereal bars. You can also get powder based fructose to use in baking to replace white cane sugar.
As any diabetic can attest to, fructose does have an impact on blood glucose levels. My doctor calls it "tree candy."
Fruit juice is worse. The sugar in fruit may be released more slowly into the blood stream, but when you juice the fruit, the sugar becomes more available. Most fruit juices has just as much sugar as soft drinks.
__________________ PCOS symptoms since age 11 (heavy acne & oily skin, minor weight issues & hirsutism) Irregular AF (38-45 days) after stopping BCP at age 29 Dx PCOS at age 32 Hypoglycemia and IR
TTC #1 since 08/08 08/09 1st Clomid cycle 50mg No O... Provera...
Paleo Diet Yoga, outdoor activity, and weights Acupuncture & TCM Fish Oil, Cal-Mag, & multi-vitamin
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As any diabetic can attest to, fructose does have an impact on blood glucose levels. My doctor calls it "tree candy."
Fruit juice is worse. The sugar in fruit may be released more slowly into the blood stream, but when you juice the fruit, the sugar becomes more available. Most fruit juices has just as much sugar as soft drinks.
Course, I didn't mean it has no impact at all; you have to be smart about where you use it, just like any other kind of sugar. Like you said it does get released slower than raw sugar, so while the amount may be comparable to a regular soft drink, it's distinctly different in how the body deals with it. Drinking fruit juice alone will have more impact than having added a few ml to a mix then baking it. When using it to sweeten something like that the other ingredients, especially oats and nuts, will slow the release right down. Also with agave and fructose powder you use small amounts compared to raw sugar given that fructose is ten times as sweet to the taste.
Different fruit juices have different concentrations of sugar too. Pineapple being a higher one and apple being a lower one. So I use apple or grape juice in my recipes. And when drinking them neat, I water them down one part juice to two parts water and always drink it with something that'll help slow the release down like oat crackers and cheese.
Hairless patches in facial hair?? 
