The return of…Eyebrows!

Just a short filler post looking back when TBB was determined to do it all 🙂

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First, a few things. I have now deleted ALL of the blogs in the world renowned TBB Ignore List from my Feedly and it feels GREAT! No, it feels AWESOME! I must admit it was an excellent way to lose weight due to all the hideous non stop pumping attacks on my beautiful eyes that caused barfing episodes. I had kept View from the Wing, One Mile at a Time due to an occasional decent post and Frugal Travel Guy purely for entertainment purposes (by the way, the founder of that site who has been trolling my blog since it was started about 29 months ago came back at the comments to whine about…my pumping, I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up!).

Second, it looks almost certain now that my son will attend the University of Michigan as two out three California schools said no! Best news I ever heard lol! So, you are all safe, I am going to cut down my pumping lol.

Sometimes readers refer to some old TBB posts. I usually never go back to read older posts, I like to look ahead and, you know, keep evolving. Reader Ramsey referred to the “Eyebrows” post a long time ago (May 26, 2013) when I was so into it to this dopamine infused blogging thing. And then I found it, read it again and I was entertained again even more thinking all along “Hey, how in the world did I come up with some of this stuff!”. So, since many readers have joined since then and I AM making a very conscious effort to spend less time dopamining (just made up this word) myself here, I take the easy way and give you a filler post as I am not going to pretend that is not one! I could have gone the even easier way and pasted the “Top 10 Credit Cards for Month X” or First Friday or just pick the credit card product du jour or something.

This is a warning to aspirant bloggers: Watch your eyebrows!

 

TBB
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Part of the mission of TBB is to educate. And today you will be educated about…eyebrows!

The oddest thing happened to me. I felt something odd in my eyebrows last week but never really noticed it until Wednesday night when I looked closely in the mirror. The hair in my eyebrows started disappearing! For those who know me you will likely say this is a good thing as I have used to have the thickest eyebrows of anyone I know. They looked something like this:

So thick in fact that I was contacted by some agency in Tajikistan to model my eyebrows only…who would want this face to be modeled after (maybe a zombie movie or Hostel 5)?

So…I look in the mirror and I see about a third to a fourth of my right eyebrow’s hair GONE!

And then I look in my left eyebrow and I see about a fifth to a sixth of the hair gone too! Why not the same for crying out loud? Out of ape like hair all over my body why only the eyebrows? Is this some type of cruel joke? Did the North Koreans finally get back to me for all the crap I have given them since Day 1 of this blog? Or did some bloggers I ranted about got together and came up with a sinister plot to taint some Vanilla Reload cards at the CVSstores I frequent with a substance that attacks…eyebrows?

So here I am on Wednesday night looking at myself in the mirror horrified and thinking “Holy Crap, what the *&%$ is going on here?” If this hair loss continues, by June 1st instead of being first at CVS buying and reloading vanilla ice cream I would be at some hospital going over options to get my eyebrows back! I would be walking down the street and hearing others say “hey look, it is THAT guy with no eyebrows!”. If I come out of the gym people may pass me and give me their change thinking I was someone down on their luck and whose drug addiction obviously messed up big time! I could look like this, oh noooooo!!!:

So first thing Thursday morning I call my doctor’s office and frantically ask for him to drop everything and make time for me because this is, obviously, a very urgent matter! In a typical fashion, the lady at the doctor’s office says “Doc can see you Friday morning”. But lady you don’t understand, I am losing my eyebrow hair fast, maybe I have been poisoned or something. She raises her voice and says that the earliest is Friday morning. I was too distraught to pour on my charm like I usually do with gate agents and hotel front desk clerks. All day Thursday I kept checking my eyebrows and I noticed that the hair loss continued. Or perhaps I was just getting too paranoid. Doing some research online about the possible causes contributed to my pananoia!

Here are the three possible causes in case this happens to you:

Alopecia areata: An autoimmune condition where a person’s own antibodies attack hair follicles, can create patches of hair loss on the scalp and can affect eyebrows and other areas where hair grows.

“Hertzoge’s sign”: Loss of hair on the outer third of the eyebrow. This is sometimes associated with low thyroid conditions (hypothyroidism) or endocrine imbalances.

Telogen effluvium: A temporary condition where excessive hair falls out, can affect eyebrows as well as scalp hair. This is a normal “resting” stage of hair growth that can occur periodically. It can also be precipitated by medications, stress, trauma, or medical conditions. It can be a fairly rapid type of hair loss. It is more noticeable when hair is also being lost through normal aging.

As usual, the visit with my doctor was a waste of time. He said he has not seen this in over 25 years! Gee, thanks a lot doc for confirming I am becoming a freak! He, again, punted and said “you need to see a specialist”. He prescribed a cream for Alopecia areata and told me “to watch it”. Great. Only positive of my visit was the nurse who took my blood pressure told me it was excellent. So, appointment with specialist is set for June 7th. Will I have any eyebrow hair by then?

So I have applied the cream several times since I got it at Walgreens. I used the Walgreen loyalty card and I got 500 bonus points (on top of what I earned for buying the cream!). I am seeing some hair is growing back but I have a long way to go to get my eyebrows back to its former state!

My gut feeling is that this is the third cause, Telogen effluvium. Why? Because it is indeed rapid. And I think stress may had something to do with it. Running a part time blog is no part time endeavor! I hope it is nothing medical and I sure hope I have eyebrows left or I see myself doing this:

Until June 7th rest assured I will be applying the cream and looking in the mirror closely several times a day getting depressed about any more hair loss or jumping up with joy after seeing former bold areas growing back some hair!

In other news, I went on a long bike ride yesterday and when I got back I fell asleep on the couch like a baby. And darn it I forgot to apply the cream! This morning I think I noticed a tiny bit more eyebrow hair loss. And it looks like the hair (whatever is left) is getting so soft and dry they may just fall off suddenly! Or maybe I am hallucinating. Sometimes I just don’t know anymore…All I ever wanted was to get my eyebrow back and get back to my Tajikistan modeling career:

I will leave you with two words:

Google Wallet. [Update: Killed by bloggers too lol]

Thank you for reading my blog.

TBB