Hair…

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

I’ve never been an incredibly vain person.  I’ve tried a few times to use makeup… but I’ve never really been much of a girly girl… make up never really cut it for me.

When I was growing up, I remember seeing my momma’s hair thinning and her hairline creeping backward, slowly.  I always has thin hair but it was never a big deal, it was always able to stay in a pony tail and that is really all that I ever cared much about, out of my eyes, off of my neck.  I was always told (among other things) that if you pull your pony tail too tightly  it will make your hair fall out.  I was told that I had a high forehead and I should brush bangs down over my forehead.

What I See...

This is what I see when I look in the mirror.

Still… most days I really don’t CARE… most days I don’t even really notice that much… but sometimes when I look in the mirror it strikes me that… one thing that RA really has taken away from me is my hair.

It makes me self conscious.  I think about it.  I don’t freak out.  I don’t wear a wig yet… I doubt I ever will… it seems like an awful waste of money… but I still think about it.  I still pull my hair back in a pony tail… it’s just that the pony tail holder holds much less hair now.  It can be smaller, it slides out easier.  I used to be able to comb my hair down across my face and you couldn’t see my eyes through the hair.  That is no longer true.

On the ‘bright’ side… if I ever quit taking methotrexate my hair will probably start to grow back… unless I am put on some other meds that cause the same or similar things.

The reality is that the pain of joints and the aches and swelling and inflammation  is only part of the things that come along with RA.  Some of the other things are less obvious but no less a part of reality.