I had saline breast implants in June of 2004. Six weeks later, I went through a terribly stressful period (unrelated to the surgery). Four months later, I began to lose my head hair AND the hair on my legs stopped growing. I went to a dermatologist and was told I had Telogen Effluvium and it would resolve itself in a few months. It has been over a year since the initial loss began and still I am losing the hair on my head in greater volumes (still a diffuse spread though). The leg hair began to regrow four months ago. I do take Urocit-K for kidney stone prevention and I had 3 surgeries this year for stones. Is that the reason? Will my hair ever get back to normal? And, could the implants be responsible for the hair loss? Thank you.

Dr. Moldwin is Assistant Professor of Urology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and is Director of The Interstitial Cystitis Center at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY. He is actively involved in IC research and is a member of the ICA’s Medical Advisory Board. During the December 1998 meeting at the Southeast Florida ICA Support Group, Dr. Moldwin addressed a similar question to yours. He stated: “Most of the side effects that patients encounter occur about 3% of the time. One problem people often worry about is hair loss. It is not a generalized hair loss. It tends to be in spots. Keep in mind that everybody has some daily hair loss. It’s probably a wise idea to monitor your ‘normal’ hair loss on your hairbrush for about a week prior to starting Elmiron. Significant increases in hair loss beyond your ‘baseline’ might be due to the medication. I think that in the past many people had stopped their Elmiron needlessly since they looked at their hairbrush for the first time 2-3 weeks into therapy. They saw hair in their brush (which was, of course normal hair loss) and immediately related this finding to their medication. By the way, in the unlikely event that hair loss occurs, it’s recovered with stopping the medication.”

I think that he said what you needed to hear. You should have your scalp hair examined by a competent hair specialist to determine the degree of miniaturization that is present through the various areas. This is an important baseline to establish for long term planning purposes.

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