(no subject)

[camwyn]

Does anyone reading this have any experience with or knowledge of conditions that can cause a hair follicle to temporarily stop putting color into a hair shaft? I was just looking in the mirror and spotted a gray hair. Not a big deal, I've been seeing them on rare occasions since high school. I pulled it out- and found that it was about two or three inches long, and that only the inch or so at the end was colorless. The part of the hair shaft closest to my head, the part that had still been growing out of my scalp, was the same dark brown as the rest of my hair.

There don't currently seem to be any other gray hairs or partially gray hairs up there, or anywhere else for that matter. Can a mole or other transient skin condition do that to a hair follicle? Or nutritional issues, or something else? It just seems weird to have hair start growing gray and then go back to normal color. Is this something likely caused by "oh, you were eating poorly and now you're eating better", or something that ought to be taken to a dermatologist? (Or just my body messing with me, which I would not put past my body at all.)

Comments

[attractivegeekery]

Maybe it got kind of distracted?

[shati]

That seems most likely to me.

[feonixrift]

Being low on B vitamins can sometimes do it.

[feonixrift]

Also maybe it accidentally dipped in bleach?

[camwyn]

It was growing out of the back of my head, and it's only about three inches long, so that's probably not the case unless something happened during my last haircut and nobody told me.

[camwyn]

This one is a possibility. I'm not sure how fast my hair grows, but I wasn't exactly trying extra hard to eat properly during the month or so leading up to my move to Massachusetts.

[in_the_blue]

I don't know, but this page about it made me both laugh and cringe.