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I realize that hair typically grows one-half to one inch per month, but I'm lucky to get only a quarter-inch per month. I was wondering if this is a nutrition deficiency or some other type of disorder.
Any input from y'all would be greatly appreciated. :)
Start taking a one a day vitamin and mineral suppliment and you should see an increase. I have been taking One Source multi-vitamin Multi-mineral Adult High Potency for quite some time now and have seen great results in my over-all health and hair growth. You can get this at Wal-Mart. Peace!
If you have straight hair, and have slow growth, thats not SO bad. But if you have curly hair and slow growth then....MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL! >:( With curly/slow growth, it will take a very long time for hair to "look" long. And your awkward stage would be so long, it would send any normal person into a hyper-venthilating blubbering mass of goo. We are talking 2 plus years to have "longish hair". So depending on your hair type, this could be a BAD thing, or a VERY BAD thing. Whats your hair type?? Hope you have straight, then your less likely to give up when the awkward stage hits, especially with that slow growth. Take your vitamins and hope for good things!
I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond and to help me with my problem.
I admittedly have a rather poor diet, but I do take a multivitamin everyday. I could never hope to be a vegetarian, but I am not opposed to it, since the majority of us omnivores eat WAY too much meat anyway. I go for walks around my neighborhood, but that's about all the exercise I get. Recently, though, a storm knocked out power to about 75% of the city in which I live, and I've been without power for 8 days now, so lately I just want to "go outside and play".
Unfortunately, my hair is way beyond curly; we're talking mega-frizz here, and I had an afro before it grew to its current length of mid-back (when I stretch it out). People actually used to ask me if I was part black (I am white and Native American). Oddly enough, my nails grow rather fast.
Once again, I really appreciate the input, and I like the fact that I helped get a discussion going here. Thanx, ever'buddy! ;)
On average, adult scalp hair fibers grow at up to 0.35mm per day. Notice that the keyword is "average", so it might be that you're genetically programmed to grow a quarter inch a month. Nutrient deficiency can reduce hair growth and it might be that your hair is not growing at its optimal rate because you're either on a junkfood diet or a vegetarian (vegetarians are wussies).
hmmmm, i'm a vegetarian and i don't consider myself a "wussie"
mabye try a daily multi-vitamin or try and eat more protein?
are you sure that it's SLOW growth? sometimes when your deep in the awkward stage it seems like it's not growing at all, i have really curly hair and i felt like that too but it slowly got out of it
That's very positive! He he he ... ;)
I'll elaborate on this a little. Here goes: In order to optimise your potential to develop and maintain a healthy head of hair you need to provide the proper environment and nutrition. With respect to hair and skin growth some nutrients have an especially important role. These nutrients include proteins, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Without an adequate source of the required nutrients, signs of deficiency will be noticeable, such as dull, dry hair, or even thinning hair. A high-quality protein source in the diet with all the essential amino acids (building blocks of protein) is necessary to ensure that the hair is able to grow without being limited by a poor protein supply. Now, the best sources of protein are animals. Like it or not. You may not give it much thought when you sink your teeth into a chicken breast, but the content and balance of amino acids is what determines the value of a protein food or supplement.
i don't mean to start a flame war over this or anything,
but it is definetly possible to eat healthy and eat enough protien without it being meat
i've actually been a lot healthier since i changed my diet to cut out meat, also it's been a lot easier for me to build muscle, and i'm not sure what caused it but my hair used to be very dry and dull when i ate meat and then when i stoped it became very shiny and soft, and i didn't change anything else i usually do with it
also i don't think it has as much of if you do or DONT eat meat as much as it does if you eat good or eat junk
because you can be healthy if you eat meat and eat the more HEALTHY types like fish and chicken, or you could be very unhealthy if all you eat is stuff like burgers
just the same goes for vegetarian diet, if you just eat junk then you will be unhealthy, but if you eat healthy and get all your needed vitamins then your fine , or even more healthy then a lot of meat-based diets
again i'm not bashing you, i'm just saying it's pretty easy to not eat meat and be very healthy
You are so right. There are so many misconceptions about vegetarians not being as healthy or getting as many vitamins. I actually get as much if not more protein since i gave up meat and I really try to be healthy in what I eat.
Usually, since well-planned (that's the key expression!) vegetarian diets are sufficient on paper, overt deficiencies are rare (other than of vitamin B-12 occasionally in pure vegans not taking a supplement). However, there is much that is still being discovered about nutrition, and--as is discussed elsewhere on the site--given that vegetarian diets are not the kind of diet that the human species evolved on, it may be there are dietary factors, particularly micronutrients, that don't measure up on diets that significantly deviate from our natural one. Or some elements in the diet may not be extracted as efficiently from plant foods, whether in general, or by certain individuals.
Animal foods are in general more easily digested than plant foods, for structural reasons: plant foods come encased in cellulose cell walls, which are hard to penetrate and digest. Ruminant animals such as cows, fed animal products in their feed, have no difficulty digesting the animal protein, even though it is arguably "unnatural" for them to eat animal foods. The evidence of fossil records is, by and large, clear: Since the inception of the earliest humans (i.e., the genus Homo, approximately 2.5 million years ago), the human diet has included meat. This is well-known in paleoanthropological circles. The evidence that meat has been part of the human diet for ~2.5 million years, thus, directly implies that meat is a "natural" part of the human diet, where "natural" is defined as: those foods one is adapted to consume by evolution.
Do you eat fish though?
nope, no fish,chicken or any other kind of meat
I find this statement to be offensive. I respect the vegetarians that I know very much.
Oh, I have nothing against them whatsoever. It's just that most of the vegetarians that I know look like their about to pass out. They look like walking corpses because they lack nutrients in their blood. That's a fact - I'm not making that up. There are exceptions of course. You shouldn't take me so seriously though.
Understood. No hard feelings!
What's your diet like? Do you take a mutlivitamin? How much exercise you do get? Smoke? Drink? Drugs, RX or otherwise?
I have noticed that since I started working out religiously (my personal eight week "boot camp" program), my hair seems to be healthier and shinier. Maybe it's just the sun...
The funny thing is that many rock stars, a group of individuals associated with long hair, live(d) on a steady diet of junkfood and booze, supplemented by cartons of cigarettes and an assortment of dubious pharmaceuticals. For example, the amount of heroin that went through Keith Richards' veins is enough to paralise a herd of elephants. YET, very often they have very good looking hair. Take Ozzy for example; he still has a healthy head of hair after years of smoking and alcohol abuse. The bottom line is that much of it (maybe most of it?) has to do with genetics. Now I'm not saying that a healthy diet won't help, because it certainly does; it makes good looking hair look even better.
Same here. But it's probably because I started eating healthier plus I increased my protein consumption. My nails grow much faster too.
LoL. It seems everybody has started working out. I started about a week ago. Mainly upper body weight lifting.
Don't forget the legs, man.
-- enable Austrian accent --
You need tzoo tuhrain your legs of yoo dohn't vant to bee a girlie man
-- disable Austrian accent --
Good for you, Aaron. Just be careful, and if you don't know what you're doing, ASK somebody. You're a young guy, and injuries you sustain now could haunt you for years, so if you need to hire a trainer for a session or two, DO IT!
Make sure you're warming up and stretching before lifting. I like to jump on a treadmill and run it in 1 minute invervals: 5.5MPH, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 4.5, 3.0. That seems to work really well for me; YMMV.