Prematurely Greying Hair – Shaft/Root Structure Abnormalities?
Dec 16, 2014 • 10:18 AM UTC
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laurelkroo
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Location : United States
Motivation : Why am I getting strands of white hair?! What do they look like close up / is there a difference in microstructure along the shaft? Does the follicle or root look any different?
Methods : I looked at several different strands of my own hair – a couple of white ones (fig. 1A-C), one normal dark-brown one (fig 2A-B), and one from my arm/wrist (fig 3).
Findings : I found something really bizarre! My brown hair appears very healthy along the root and shaft – both strands of white hair, however, are grooved with a deep, longitudinal crack all the way down to the core of the hair – from the root all the way up the shaft (see figure 1A). I did some reading but have never heard of this being a thing in prematurely greying hair. I thought it just meant it looses pigment! Weird. Anyone on this website a dermatologist / might be able to shed some light on this? Again, it appears to be only the white ones! Maybe this is also just an imaging thing, where we can see the core through the non-pigmented hair… interesting mystery..
The root part of the white hair appears fine – just in a later growth stage than the brown hair.
Finally, the arm hair has a but bigger root compared to the diameter of the hair (which is much less than head hair!). Very neat microscope!
Motivation : Why am I getting strands of white hair?! What do they look like close up / is there a difference in microstructure along the shaft? Does the follicle or root look any different?
Methods : I looked at several different strands of my own hair – a couple of white ones (fig. 1A-C), one normal dark-brown one (fig 2A-B), and one from my arm/wrist (fig 3).
Findings : I found something really bizarre! My brown hair appears very healthy along the root and shaft – both strands of white hair, however, are grooved with a deep, longitudinal crack all the way down to the core of the hair – from the root all the way up the shaft (see figure 1A). I did some reading but have never heard of this being a thing in prematurely greying hair. I thought it just meant it looses pigment! Weird. Anyone on this website a dermatologist / might be able to shed some light on this? Again, it appears to be only the white ones! Maybe this is also just an imaging thing, where we can see the core through the non-pigmented hair… interesting mystery..
The root part of the white hair appears fine – just in a later growth stage than the brown hair.
Finally, the arm hair has a but bigger root compared to the diameter of the hair (which is much less than head hair!). Very neat microscope!
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