The Perimenopause Husband
Perimenopause Hair Loss: When Her Hair Comes Out in the Shower
Her hair was coming out in the shower.
Not a few strands. Actual clumps, coming away there and then.
And at the same time it started turning up where it never had before. On her chin. A pair of tweezers by the bed, and a pluck every night.
Is hair loss a sign of perimenopause?
In our house it was one of them.
It sat on the same list as the fog, the heat, the nights awake at three, the hip and the heart. Hair going from her head. Hair arriving on her chin. Both at once.
On the way through to menopause, her body is going through a hormonal, biological change, and it does not ask first. Hair is one of the places it shows up.
Hair can have more than one cause, though. If it is coming out fast, it is worth her seeing a doctor or a specialist in this field. That is a question for them, not for you. Not every change is perimenopause, and she deserves to know which one it is.
What did I get wrong about it?
I'll be straight. I filed it under getting older.
I spent a couple of years calling all of it getting older, because nobody had ever given me a better word. The tiredness went in that file. The fog went in that file. The hair went in there too, and I closed the drawer.
Getting older is a shrug. It means nothing to be done, and nothing to understand.
It was not a shrug for her.
Why won't she talk about it?
Because nobody warns a bloke about this one, and she is not going to be the one to bring it up.
Think about where she is with her body by then. Uncomfortable in it while she is doing everything she can. Feeling like it will not respond to anything she does. And now her hair, the thing nobody even thinks about until it starts going.
My wife said to me once, I don't feel like myself any more, and I don't know why. The hair is part of that. It is hard to feel like yourself when the mirror keeps changing on you.
You do not need to be a doctor to get this. Just imagine carrying all of it, and still being expected to front up and function properly every day.
What should I say when my wife's hair is falling out?
Here's one of the tools. There are plenty.
Most days, the answer is nothing. Say nothing about her body unprompted. That is its own rule, and it holds here.
This one is for the day she brings it up herself.
When she raises it, do not make it smaller.
Not "it's only hair". Not "I can't even tell". Not "everyone loses a bit". Every one of those is meant kindly, and every one of them tells her she is making a fuss.
She is not making a fuss. She has watched it go down the drain.
Take it exactly as seriously as she does. Not more, not less. Let her say it, all of it. Then ask her one thing: do you want to get it looked at?
If the answer is yes, that's a job you can help with. If the answer is no, that's hers to decide.
Will it come back?
I can't promise you that, and neither can anyone who has not seen her.
What I can tell you is that the way you answer her the first time she says it out loud is the bit you control. Get that one right and she will tell you the next thing too.
Start With the Weather
The Weather Report is the two-page guide to reading these days: telling a storm warning from an overcast day from a fog day, and knowing the one thing to do in each. Free, on your phone in thirty seconds.