How to Naturally Cope With Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Hair Loss

Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, and today you're going to learn how to naturally cope with benzodiazepine withdrawal. Hair loss. Millions of Americans have found themselves swept away in the current culture where Xanax, Ativan, and other extremely addictive benzodiazepines are being prescribed by the medical community for everything from backaches to test anxiety. But what they don't know is that benzodiazepines are among the most addictive substances on earth. After years of debilitating side effects and still suffering from the symptoms they originally started out with, many are trying to conquer those addictions. But they don't have the resources to do so. Today we will be talking about solutions for one scary and embarrassing side Hair loss. We need to start by understanding how hair grows. Your hair forms from proteins located in the follicle or the root of the skin. Blood vessels feed the skin and enable the cells to divide. And then your hair pushes up through the skin and grows nearby. Oil glands lubricate the hair to keep it healthy and strong. Interestingly, we are all born with a set point of about 5 million hair follicles and do not develop anymore throughout our lives. So what causes hair loss? Hair follicles go through periods of resting and growing at different intervals, and some of these follicles stop stop growing as a person ages. During the resting phase, the follicle releases the strand of hair and you lose the hair. Once it resumes the growing phase, it will grow new hair. The average person loses between 50 to 100 hairs a day. Many things can cause you to lose more hair, and I'm going to give you a list from the American Academy Dermatology Association. Benzodiazepines are among the top medications that can make you lose your hair. We also want to think of cancer treatments and antidepressants. There are genetic causes of hair loss. The gene associated with hereditary hair loss comes from your grandfather on your mother's side of the family. There's also alopecia areata. This is caused by your immune system actually attacking the hair follicles. Thyroid disease can cause your hair loss and stress. Stress changes your hormones and impacts the hair growth process. Androgen dominance. High amounts of male sex hormones like testosterone are associated with hair loss. This is common in men and in women who have polycystic ovarian syndrome. And hair care products can actually make you lose your hair, like hair dyes, perms and treatments to relax your hair. Other hair care products can cause hair loss as well. Pulling your hair back tightly in a style that pulls at the hair follicle can cause you to lose hair. We also know that infections of the scalp, psoriasis on the scalp, and sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis can cause hair loss. There's also scarring alopecia, which is caused by a condition where there's inflammation that damages the hair follicles themselves. Deficiencies in nutrients like biotin, iron, zinc, protein can cause hair loss. Friction or rubbing against the hair like always wearing a hat can damage the follicle and cause hair loss. So let's talk about how to prevent benzodiazepine withdrawal, hair loss and how to counteract the hair loss side effects of your benzo. We have some pretty fabulous tips to help you keep your hair and even possibly grow your hair back. I'm going to share with you three Main Steps to Prevent Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Hair Loss in this section I'm going to share with you the three main steps you need to take in order to address benzodiazepine withdrawal hair loss and and prevent benzodiazepine induced hair loss. If you love the information in this article and in this video, please share because there are so many people out there that need to hear this information. Okay, let's jump in. Step 1 the first step is to know which benzodiazepines are the most common culprits of benzo caused hair loss. I have written down below in the blog a short list of the benzo class of drugs, but keep in mind that those medications that have a high probability of hair loss will be more like Lorazepam or Clonazepam. You might also look at Clozapate, Midzolam, Trizolam, Oxepam, Diazepam and these all have different half lives but are associated with benzodiazepine induced hair loss. And so if you're on a benzodiazepine that is associated with hair loss, then you might ask your doctor about switching to one that has a less hair losing side effect. So if you're taking Lorazepam or clonazepam, those are the two that put you at the highest risk of hair loss. These medications are also more difficult to taper off of than some of the others. So the solution you might consider asking your doctor about is Diazepam. Diazepam has a lower incidence of hair loss and it's my go to in terms of a safer and easier taping process. Step two is to support gaba. Benzos can cause hair loss and tapering down on your medication will help you get on the right track to reducing unwanted side effects. However, as you taper down on your benzo because the body develops a physical dependence on this drug, you may begin to experience symptoms of low gaba. These may include benzo withdrawal symptoms like panic attacks, insomnia, high blood pressure, anxiety, seizures and so many other symptoms related to the nervous system. Remember, never go cold turkey off of your medication. Take your time and follow your doctor's directions. Slow and steady wins the race. You can support GABA with safe and powerful natural solutions. First you want to enhance the benzodiazepines efficacy so that lower benzodoses will work and then secondly we want to reduce withdrawal side effects. Here are my top three tips to support GABA production. First is Passionflower. Passionflower extracts bind to GABA receptors and is widely recognized by the medical community for its use in aiding medication detox. Due to its wide range of effects on the nervous system, Passionflower is useful in the following irritation of the brain and nervous system, difficulty sleeping from overwork, worry, anxiety, neurologic pains, exhaustion, spasms, twitching, soreness of the muscles, headaches, anxiety, depression, difficulty breathing and heart palpitations. As you see, these symptoms are quite similar to those seen in benzodiazepine withdrawal. My second go to is Happy Sleepy Powder or hsp. HSP is a combination of ingredients that aid in your body's production of its own gaba. It contains inositol, glycine, taurine, theanine and phosphatidylserine. I typically recommend starting with each ingredient separately so that you know how you feel with each and then slowly add one at a time and work your way up in dosages until it feels right. Of course, talk to your doctor before starting any new supplements or herbs. You can order Happy Sleepy Powder and learn more about Happy Sleepy Powder by going to my website and clicking on the shop under drnicolecane.com the third plant that you have to know about is Avena Sativa. Avena Sativa is considered a chief restorative. This plant has been used for decades to help people give up substances, detox and to recovery from the effects of medications and drugs. Avena Sativa is healing, relaxing. It lifts the mood while reducing anxiety, it improves concentration and it's safe to use over a long period of time. The next step Step three is to support your hair follicles and your hair health itself. We want to address the cause of your hair loss as well as improve the health of your hair and promote hair growth I'm going to give you three tips for healing your hair follicles and promoting hair health and growth. Number one is to balance your hormones. Hormonal changes that are either caused by symptoms that led you to being prescribed benzos, or hormonal issues that occurred as a result or with benzo use can all cause hair loss. Specifically, elevated androgens, which are male sex hormones like DHEA and testosterone. High cortisol is also associated with hair loss, as is low thyroid. My first solution for this is Centella asiata. This is otherwise known as gotu kola. And gotu kola is one of my favorite plants. It improves vessel integrity, it helps reduce the symptoms of connective tissue disease, and thus gotu kola stimulates hair growth, nail growth, it increases vascularization, it's anti aging, it helps balance connective tissue building. And another thing worth mentioning is that gotu kola is amazing for the nervous system. It lifts brain fog, it improves your concentration, brain health, memory, it lifts your mood, prevents brain degeneration, it reduces anxiety, and it's considered anti aging in the research. Also, we want to have you on a physician grade multivitamin. Inflammation, nutrient deficiency, mineral deficiency, all contribute to loss of hair, skin and nails. And you can start to rebuild that by giving your body what it needs to get those luscious locks of hair. The most important nutrients for hair growth are vitamins A, C, B vitamins, folate and biotin. You also need zinc, copper, manganese, calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus. Make sure that your multivitamin has collagen. Bone broth is another great source of collagen. Silica, horsetail, phosphatidylcholine, paba, inositol. These are all amazing solutions for getting your hair back to the luscious full self that you've been wanting. So I know it was a lot, right? And again, I have it all written out for you and you can print it and share it and then take it to your doctor and create a protocol that will get you your life back and your hair back. You shouldn't have to pick anxiety or hair. Do I want to have this luscious locks or do I want to have panic attacks and insomnia? It shouldn't be that way and it doesn't have to be that way. The information in this video is intended to empower you with knowledge that you can talk with your doctors and solutions that work. So in conclusion, in this article we discussed how benzos can cause hair loss and that benzo withdrawal can cause benzo withdrawal caused hair loss. I give you some of my exclusive tips on preventing hair loss for While you're tapering off of your benzodiazepine. We talked about how you should never go cold turkey off of a benzo. We talked about how you can support benzo tapering with amino acids that increase gaba, and we also talked about plants that are great at helping the brain and the body adjust to tapers. We talked about the nutrients and the strategies that you can start using right away to increase the health of your follicles and help your hair grow. You might check out if you're working on tapering off of your benzodiazepine. I have an entire course called the Medication Tapering Course, which you can find by going to drnicolecane.com, click click on the Courses tab and then scroll to where you see Medication Tapering Course. If you'd like to learn more about how to get off benzodiazepines, there's a ton of free information on that course page. We also want to talk about how to help you have a healthy body and having a healthy gut is foundational for that. We have tons of free resources about this especially and including gut health and so check out the Gut Psychology program and and the other things that we have at our website on YouTube and our social media. Our handle is DrNicoleCane and you can find us almost anywhere. Thank you so much for watching this video and I wish you all of the joy, all of the luck and all of the luscious hair growth that you can have. Much love.