Hair Solutions Work When They are Targeted to the Hair Problem

I spent 4 years on social media sharing my family’s mold related health battles. In that time as a RD, I got Dr. Shoemaker & Dr. Crista trained went on to help hundreds of families heal from the multiple ways biotoxins deter from health; it was a purpose filled season professionally speaking and it paralleled our personal life.

As this journey ramps down personally, my focus for myself is shifting to rebuilding what was lost, recognizing myself in the mirror & it being a reflection of all my efforts to strengthen internal & external health & feel good in my skin.

Given this, my purpose is evolving to help support women who are also moving forward and in their own growth era, but with a very specific emphasis on…..drum roll please………………………………..

Regrowing & maintaining thicker, healthier & longer hair.

It’s personal to me, and if it’s personal to you, Welcome!

In real time, again I’m sharing my health journey but this time not CIRS, it’s hair regrowth and all it entails. I’m overcoming about every hit to one’s hair and scalp that you can imagine & I’ve learned so many things the hard way so I decided to simplify and streamline it at all for you! Just like my Mold Recovery Program where I took everything and put it into a stepwise start to finish roadmap, but now I give you: The Hair Growth Program.

If you are in your HAIR GROWTH ERA, you have come to the right place – from someone who personally “gets it” with the clinical training to back it up and 15 well rounded years of experience as registered dietitian.

So let’s get into what got me stuck, how I am getting unstuck and how you can implement what I am going to teach you so you avoid all sorts of trial and error & completely bypass the whole “you don’t know what you don’t know” phase that just wastes time, money and sanity.

But first…the backstory. Let’s start at the beginning of Katie’s Hair Saga

• 1988-1995: Completely unaware of hair, avoids brushes, is a kid
• 1996-2000: Mad I have curly hair for the 1st time as slick straight is in style
• 2001: Figured out how to style curls in middle school & bought a diffuser
• 2002 to 2006: High school time- curls are popping; my trademark
• 2006 to 2013: Learned how to style with a round brush, bought a big girl CHI straightening iron & versatile options between curly and straight
• 2013: childbirth = hair changes and massive hair loss the first time in life
• 2014 to 2017 ish: Went on a hair brand binge to *attempt* to get my hair back as didn’t know then that your shampoo & conditioner is just one factor and many like me over focus on this. I collectively was not wowed by Kerastase, Redkin, Nioxin, Biolage, Pureology, Paul Mitchell, DevaCurl, Kevin Murphy, Living Proof, Bumble, It’s a 10, Big Sexy Hair, CHI, Wen, Bed Head, Kenra, Wella, Aveda, and I’m sure there is more which is pathetic. To this day I like Malibu & I respect Color Wow. But to add insult to injury, this western med only RD (at the time) was completely oblivious to functional health or thinking about any labs above what PCP orders, or my environment…big mistake that will later be my downfall.
• May 2017: I started using a new product line from a company called Monat. What’s hilarious is my husband, Nate, (Monat is pronounced “Moe-Nate”) said to try it after someone posted about it because he was over all my Ulta and Sephora trips (because let’s be honest: endocrine disruptors weren’t on my radar either then).

Below was about 2 years into Monat products – I believe this was taken in 2019:

Monat was the first thing in 29 years that I actually liked & stuck with for years. The products have a patented blend of oils which transformed and healed the hair strands from the inside out, got off all the waxy silicones from the former brands, and my hair became manageable & shiny & thicker & held a style better & less breakage/more retention so it go the longest in my life too!

I didn’t care much then but do now that the EWG ratings are pretty good which means it’s a relatively “clean” line compared to other salon brands.

Monat is a salon line and has a stylist program and back bar options for licensed stylists. Check out Monat Haircare HERE

Everyone kept noticing and commenting on my healthy, denser hair for the first time in my adult life so I eventually started sharing my URL and I seemed to have a team and a downline around 100 customers really fast. I went to conferences and trips and loved it!! Despite rumors, the truth is Monat has never been found legally guilty of causing hair loss and the smear campaign led to defamation countersuits. Monat actually rapidly became a multi billion dollar haircare company – so those numbers really speak volumes.

So loyal use paid off by 2020- at least the hair and scalp routine is effective as hair health is the totality of many things I will come to find out. I was just so thrilled my hair had became long and shiny less greasy- like I always had a fresh gloss treatment, and I had very happy customers.

And then I got sick….and lost about 75% of my hair

And then we moved into our new home that of course passed inspection because home inspections are piss poor mold inspections…and so we got sick 2021ish. Our life became mold and CIRS and ICU and just a whole huge tragic story. And then I lost about 75% of my hair from CIRS, Lyme Disease, Insulin resistance, SIBO, Nutrient Deficiencies, suspected endometriosis, Trauma, Scalp fungal infections, low progesterone, low testosterone, etc. I was thrust into this season of life that I didn’t want or ask for.

In tandem, I was rapidly growing a private practice where there was a huge demand for my mold illness expertise because our story went viral and I was a rare insurance accepting mold illness practitioner; and this honestly did give me purpose amidst my life falling a part, I got a ton of experience & it is very rewarding even though it wasn’t about me – it was about guiding people to heal.

Bottom line: I didn’t want anyone to go through the horror we went through & I was full speed ahead raising my voice and 12 hour patient care days to pay off all the mold crap and medical bills. Haircare and Monat just wasn’t a priority during an unexpected pivot in my life.

But I was near bald by 2022/2023

And I felt I could no longer say “look at the amazing haircare I’ve been using” because my hair looked …trashed. Any intelligent person would know it was from medical problems and trauma (not the shampoo I had used religiously for 5 years) and there was 1 bad bleach job in there which didn’t help either…but I knew the internet trolls couldn’t make those distinguishments and would blame topical products. So I kinda stopped talking about Monat. And I had to chop my hair off because it was so stringy (& it still looked so sparse!) as I got so physically unhealthy and in survival mode for my son who had the worst health problems from the mold.

So fast forward another few years, working on treating lyme and resolving more water damage issues in the house. Got hair extensions which helped me feel normal again. Hair plus getting a weft = having good days and bad days and trying other product lines. But my wefts kept getting orange so fast – Finally got a good showerhead filter as porous wefts made me realize that our hard water was another culprit too of my thin, dry, and now brassy hair as all those contaminants in the tap water also trash the strand integrity (ruins hair retention) and another ding towards scalp inflammation.

Then it just keeps getting juicier…I saw Derm for annual mole check & out of the blue learned Malassezia (fungus) had overgrown on my scalp too. This also causes inflammation & shedding.

Okay. Officially hit my hair rock bottom.

Ugh! What else could go wrong to contribute to my bad hair – when all I wanted to do was get back to:

• Pre mold health
• Pre mold hair
• Pre mold life

Started doing interventions to kill off the fungus and reduce the inflammation along with my toolbox of tools (to support my scalp and hair) I had gathered along the way. But damn, it all hit me how many things subtly added up for me, and went wrong and got missed to collectively take me from the best hair of my life for years…to the worst hair and scalp health.

Whew. So long story – but big picture is there was a lot of variables to my hair issues and it’s a challenging situation but I will get through it as I’m using all the right tools now and my whole poker hand is on the table now so we know every card I was dealt. But it had me thinking:

How many women are also struggling with hair loss from a VARIETY of reasons not just one factor- so they need a variety of targeted solutions like me!!!

But the reality is many women are sold just ONE solution – which doesn’t always work.

Enter in my least favorite fav phrase ever: “you should try Nutrafol.” Talk about nonspecific advice and an $80/month shot in the dark.

There is a more strategic way to grow long, thick hair!

People need a precision game plan that is based on data & is multi angled because it’s very possible there are multiple areas of dysfunction cascading to hair issues.

Now obvi, I am not a doctor & not going to diagnose medical problems. You need a thorough Physician. But I can provide medical nutrition therapy, I can order lots of bloodwork & functional labs in my scope of practice & interpret, and I now know a ton about the problems and then the solutions you aren’t considering for your actual scalp and haircare routine and daily consumption patterns.

How I delayed my hair growth progress & how you could be too (AKA what NOT to do)

(That was outside of medical management because this is a factor too)

• Not proactively doing a full nutrition panel and just checking iron and vitamin D and assuming other labs and cofactors were okay when in reality it was partially responsible for driving down the ferritin leading to thinner hair
• Not considering excess actinobacteria (kit 21 to test skin) in the home and waiting late to test for it which can colonize on skin and scalp and is inflammatory and can drag out CIRS (self order CIRS panel here) and inflammation leading to a low VEGF and hair loss
• Not considering insulin resistance for awhile because my a1c was normal for years but needed to check my fasting insulin which was high and likely increased DHT = excess shedding & now tackling that
• Not taking targeted supplements to block DHT internally which we can see if high on DUTCH test (self order a DUTCH urine test here) and it’s linked to hair follicle miniaturization
• Not taking targeted supplements to block DHT internally which we can see if high on DUTCH test and it’s linked to hair follicle miniaturization
• Straying from Monat products and then using other brands that don’t block scalp DHT the way Monat does, don’t have peptides/capixyl found in Monat, and didn’t have antifungal properties making it easier for malassezia to easily overgrow on the human scalp especially since we had dealt with indoor mold
• Thinking I was too young for scalp serums (I use IR clinical) and not starting sooner to better anchor strands and keep in anagen phase longer
• Using weak shower head filters/not changing often so essentially have tap water promoting scalp inflammation which tap water one factor in scalp inflammation; hard tap water leads to build up suffocating hair strands and trashes the quality of the strand and maintenance of the length
• Not being consistent with red light therapy on my scalp each day and daily scalp massages to bring more oxygen to the scalp to promote growth

The good news is there is SOLUTIONS for all sorts of root issues driving excess hair shedding and/or thinning and/or hair loss (as technically not all the same)

The Hair Growth Program provides access to labs, titratable protocols and product recommendations and regimens that focus on:

• Finding and fixing all nutritional deficiencies, not just a low ferritin
• Screening for & correcting dysfunctional labs (access given to self order) with protocols provided that you can reference and compare to your own labs
• Using the right products not just “professional” products because the ingredients might be nice but may or may not be targeting your scalp problem or hair strand needs
• Getting and using a growth serum consistently- they spend way more time on your scalp than shampoo or conditioner ever will
• Avoiding products that actually fuel malassezia which promotes inflammation and shedding
• Being smart about environmental factors like avoiding tap/shower water unless its filtered well
• Screening your home for clinically significant levels of mold and actinobacteria, and if elevated, getting a certified mold inspector out to the home for professional remediation and small particle cleaning
• Leveling up: using peptides (strands of amino acids) consistently
• Consistency with red light therapy to stimulate follicles but making sure using a brand that has the proper wavelengths that are effective
• Not believing the fallacy that washing your hair often leads to MORE shedding. Your hair is gonna shed when its gonna shed based on a lot of factors. Now it can be drying but good shampoo isn’t the thing thinning you out. But not washing it often enough can lead to DHT build up and malassezia. 3 to 5 times per week is sweet spot for washing. If ever sweaty scalp, needs washed same day

Get the Hair Growth Program for all this spelled out for you in a stepwise fashion so you can take the right action, not random action.