Thyroid hair: look at the health of your scalp
The health of your hair is directly linked to your thyroid gland, but I didn’t know that the health of your scalp is just as important. And your scalp is skin.
What does it have to do with hair loss? What I learned, is that your scalp health may impact your hair.
Checklist of thyroid-related skin signs
Researchers have found that thyroid dysfunction (both underactive and overactive thyroid) can profoundly impact our skin, nails, and hair. Here are a list of skin-related (cutaneous) symptoms listed by researches, from a study in 2014 and as recently as 2021:
- Dry, pale, cold skin
- Dry, coarse skin
- Hair loss
- Course scalp
- Puffy edema (such as a puffy face)
- Pruritus (itchy skin)
- Decreased sweating
- Ivory yellow skin
- Brittle nails
- Purpura/ecchymosis (small bleeding under the skin)
- Urticaria (hives – which is a kind of rash)
- Keratoderma (marked thickening of the skin)
- Delayed wound healing
In one study, researchers found that you can have skin problems even if your TSH is normal but with elevated thyroid antibodies (hence why it is important to have a full thyroid panel blood tests done, including thyroid antibodies):
- Melanin spots in Centro-facial location (central part of the face)
- Vitiligo
- Chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis
- Herpetiform dermatitis (bumpy, itchy skin rash)
And if you have Hashi’s, certain skin conditions are commonly associated with Hashi’s:
- Pemphigus and other bullous diseases (blisters of skin including mouth, nose, throat, eyes, genitals)
- Scleroderma (hardening & tightening of skin)
- Reticular erythematous mucinosis (bumps on mid-back or chest)
- Urticaria (hives)
- Dermatographism (scratching your skin causes raised, inflamed lines or welts)
- Angioedema (swelling under the skin)
What to do
If you have a skin condition that may be related to thyroid dysfunction, speak to your doctor about having a full thyroid panel blood test done, and then getting on the right treatment to support your body’s thyroid hormone needs (which may be to change to NDT or include T3 meds). It is important to work with a doctor that understands thyroid dysfunction, and I recommend that you see a functional medicine doctor.
Sources:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3726898/
- https://lupinepublishers.com/medical-science-journal/pdf/LOJMS.MS.ID.000226.pdf
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