Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now. I'm Dr. Aviva Ral. Hair loss. It fills our brushes, our synced rains, and it can feel like the stuff of nightmares.

It also brings a lot of women to my medical practice.

Brittany is one, the first patient of the day, one fine spring morning, this 36 year old

graphic designer by day and yoga teacher on the weekends, the epitome of New York City

sheik, cool casual elegant with shoulder length

brunette hair pulled back in a low ponytail was rocking a crisp white t-shirt

faded blue jeans and ankle-high. However, cool and casual isn't at all how she felt.

Dr. Aviva, I'm more tired than I should be. I'm not going to the bathroom regularly, and I have this chronic low-level depression

that's just always there like it's nipping at my heels. I try to eat well, get

enough sleep and practice regular self-care. My periods are irregular and sometimes they're real gushers

but can I tell you what? I would gladly deal with all of that if I could just have one

symptom go away. My hair is falling out and I hate that. It's causing me a mild panic

every single time I wash my hair and see it going down the drain, when I see how much is in my hairbrush, or when I just catch myself in the mirror.

I'm really freaked out. She was painfully self-conscious and was also experiencing new anxiety

over whether her less abundant hair would affect her work and with it her income.

Not an unrealistic concern in an appearance-driven world, including the Yoga and Women's Wellness World, and she had to be on video

on a regular basis for her yoga classes. So she decided to try inserts while working on it at a

root cause level, but she really felt like the inserts

were inconsistent with her sense of self as someone who tries to do everything naturally.

Book ending my day, that same day in my medical office was Kathleen, a 51-year-old

tall woman with sandy blonde hair with threads of silver just starting to show. She

was wearing brown slacks and a light blue sweater and she

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