Episode 114 - How This Breastfeeding Mom of 3 Saw Hair Growth in Week 6!

Johanna: Hi, Jacey, how are you?

Jacey: I'm good. How are you?

Johanna: I'm doing great. You look so vibrant and you're glowing, you look so gorgeous.

Jacey: Thank you, thank you.

Johanna: How do you feel?

Jacey: I feel really good actually. You know, I feel like this whole experience has changed my life. I know that sounds so cheesy, but it's done a lot of good for me and it It feels good. It was really good.

Johanna: So how many months exactly are you postpartum? Jacey: My son turned 1 in December, so 14.
Johanna: And throughout the program, you were breastfeeding. Jacey: Yes.

Johanna: And you lost 30 pounds. Jacey: We did.
Johanna: How's the hair growth?

Jacey: It is coming and that's the most exciting part is you can't see it on the computer, but this part right here has been smooth as a baby's bottom for almost 4 years now, and since starting your program, I have significant hair growth right there. My husband can see it, I'm showing everybody, you can feel it and down here it's the biggest excitement for me because I've been trying all the things for 4 years and nothing has worked. And then in 2 months, well, not even two months in 6 weeks my hair started growing back, so it's fabulous.

Johanna: So bring us to the beginning. Did you have this hair loss just 4 years ago where it just started and it's never gotten better? Or has it been on and off through your life? Or how has your hair loss been in general before doing the program?

Jacey: I have never had hair loss up until 4 years ago. The longest, thickest hair growing up, always got compliments on it, but just so thick always. And then 4 years ago I started noticing just, you know, right here, a little bald spot and I didn't even notice at first I had to go back and look at pictures to see when it started. But 4 years ago we lost our daughter. She was a still stillborn. Up until that point, my diet was terrible. I was addicted to Diet Coke and processed foods and I just grew up eating really terribly. I was an athlete and so I could eat whatever I wanted and didn't gain weight and you know, I didn't take it too seriously.

So after my daughter passed away, my husband and I did a DNA test and then my uncle analyzed it and I can't think of what that's called but kind of tells us. What genes we carry and kind of how kind of talked us through how they react to different things, this was weeks after my daughter died.

I thought I was doing really great and then I started losing my hair and Started here and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse and I could not figure out what it was so I went to my primary care doctor, I think and he said: Oh, that looks like alopecia, you should go see a dermatologist. Went and saw the dermatologist, they said, you know, get on these steroids, try these creams. But do it fast because if you wait too long you're gonna permanently have those bald spots, so you need to get on it quick.

And I said: Well, we're trying to get pregnant again. We actually got pregnant with my first son 3 months after my daughter had passed. And so we had him and I, at that point, I still hadn't figured out what the hair loss was. And then I started going to the doctors. So sorry, that's been like, that was like a year or so of not knowing what it was and then going to the doctors. So I was breastfeeding my first son and then he turned 1, and that's when I was like: Well, you want to get pregnant again, I don't want to try the steroids, I don't want to do all of those things.

So, you know, I tried all the shampoos, the natural things, I tried acupuncture and nothing, nothing was working. I got pregnant, I had a miscarriage. And then I got pregnant with my second son. So I've been pregnant or breastfeeding for 4 years now.

Johanna: Wow.

Jacey: So my body's, you know, focused mostly on taking care of my kids, and I also think my diet lifestyle leading up to that point hurt my hair growth significantly and I think it just all caught up to me. And so going through your program and, you know, changing my diet when I really thought I was doing great things with my diet before I started your program, so that was a massive eye opener for me.

It just opened my eyes a lot and then to see the changes, the hair growth, my mood changes, my weight loss, my periods. I've always been terrible, painful, long, heavy, and they're a breeze now and it's the best. I've been able to keep my milk supply up. I was nervous, it was really important to me to be able to keep breastfeeding.

I know I talked to you at the beginning about supplements, taking supplements, I wasn't sure that I could take if it would hurt my chances with the program, but I've seen success and been able to breastfeed. I will take the supplements that I haven't been able to take once I'm done breastfeeding, I am kind of just letting my son breastfeed as long as he's feeling it. So I'm pretty happy.

Johanna: That's fantastic. So you saw hair growth in week 6 and you had a fantastic weight loss. And outside of that, what other changes did you see? You saw your period, you saw your mood, anything else? Have you noticed that potentially maybe wasn't on the top of your mind? And then all of a sudden you're like: Wow, this changed too.

Jacey: My body odor, I feel like no one was like: Oh my gosh, you stink so bad, but you can kind of notice like throughout the day, you know, different areas start to smell weird, but that went away. When I say my mood changed, before I was really quick to anger, very set off, I was set off very easily. And I mean, for me, it's kind of hard to like, why am I doing this because it's something wrong with my body or is it because I'm a mom to two really little kids?

I Was working for a while. I just quit my job maybe 4 or 5 months ago, so adjusting to you know being a stay at home mom finances Adjusting with my husband being the only one that works. So, like, what really was making me feel so frustrated and overwhelmed all the time? Is it that? Is it something going on in my body? It's both. I know it's both now, but it got significantly better when I started doing this program. I noticed that within the first 2 weeks, my toddler would do something and I could take a step back, take a breath.

Figure it out when before I was, it just set me off and there's no reason for things to set you off that easily, and so for that to change, for me to be able to communicate with my husband a little bit better, you know, we get in an argument and I'm able to listen to what he has to say instead of feel so quick to anger and that was the biggest thing for me that I didn't realize was so big. You know, I didn't realize that needed to change so badly and I didn't realize that it could change.

I thought this is just who I am, you know, probably has a lot to do with how I was raised, my dad was that way. So it's just gonna have to live with me. You married me for who I am so this is it.

Johanna: Take it or leave it.

Jacey: Yeah, but wasn't fair, you know, so that has changed and that's been a game changer and I'm very grateful. Those are the biggest things. I love the changes that this

program did for my body, that I'm not ready to give any of that up. I'm not ready to go back.

So I would say my ability to have self control, I guess is the word I was looking for, has increased and I think that has a lot to do with the program and the habits that you instilled in us. Yeah, I would say those things for the most part. I'm sure I'm missing some, but yeah major changes that have been awesome

Johanna: I mean, it all starts with you, right? That's what change is. Change starts with you and with ourselves and then from there, it goes on. Sometimes people think: Oh, I just got one spot, it grew back in, or I use some cream and it's okay and I can cover it up and I'm good. But then how many times you have to keep doing this until you're like: Okay, no, I need to do something now because what I'm doing clearly isn't working or clearly the medications that I've been taking or the other treatments or gimmicks that I've been looking into are not doing its job.

And so this is part of it until when is it enough? Everyone has a different threshold. Some people go completely bald, as you know with alopecia universalis and they're okay with the wig or they're okay with going bald or they're okay with not trying to heal, right? Everyone has their own prerogative, but for you and for me, hair is definitely important and getting it back was. a mission. And I'm so happy that you a) Joined the program, but b) You also saw the results. Cause I know that this proven framework works. And I know that just like you're able to do it while breastfeeding, anyone else can do it, even when you're not breastfeeding. So I know it's possible for everybody.

Jacey: Well, I mean, and if you think about it, when you're breastfeeding, like you're giving so much, like your body's so focused on providing nutrients and life for your baby that you're breastfeeding. If my body can heal and grow my hair back when it's so busy focusing on other, someone else, then I imagine my results would have been a lot more and more quickly if I was just focused on myself and taking everything that all the supplements that I could take, like, I imagine it would have been, you know, fast tracked. Amazing that my body can do both, so if people want it, they'll go get it. They'll do it.

Johanna: It's true. You do, you have to want it. And and like, I like to say, you know, anyone can lose weight. There's treadmills for everybody, treadmill works for everybody. It's proven, we just have to use it. So, in the same way, that's what I believe about my program and the framework, that it works for everybody, you just gotta put it to work. So, congratulations on that. What would you say to someone who was on the fence about joining the program or who was hesitant?

Jacey: Well, that was me. I, I found you through a podcast. I was so depressed one day about thinking about my hair loss and thinking Am I going to have to shave my head? Am I going to have to get a wig? Like it, it would bring me to tears. I was just. So sad about it. And so I was like, there's gotta be something out there, you know, another cream, another, something that I can do.

So I literally just hopped on the podcast app and searched alopecia and I found yours and I was doing the dishes and I just started listening and you start talking about this program and I was like: Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Like I got to look more into it. So, I looked into it that night and then I saw the cost and I was like: I'm never going to be able to convince my husband to let me pay for this. So I sat with it for a while and I just kept listening to your podcast and it was a few weeks that I was just listening to your podcast and thinking about it.

I didn't bring it up to my husband yet. And I was just like: No, it's just, it's too expensive, but then I was also thinking about this other treatment that I found that was $5000 and it's this device that they use on your head and it may or may not work, but it could. And so I was like: Oh, I should just do that treatment, but I just kept getting pulled back to this program and the things that you would say on your podcast about it's more than the stuff you put on your head. It's diet and lifestyle, managing your stress and figuring it out. And I'm like: Okay, that makes more sense to me.

So I spent a few days like being stressed and overwhelmed by it, but I mean, as soon as you jump into your program, it's like, you got this, you got this, you just, you just do what I tell you to do each week, you know, and you'll be fine. You just make it very smooth to jump right in. And I mean, this program is not for the faint of heart. It's not for someone that's not going to be committed to it because for me, it was a big investment and I'm sure for most people it would be. But what you get out of this program is life changing.

When I talk to people about this program, I always preface with like: This is going to sound so cheesy, but it literally changed my life and I didn't know my life needed to be changed that drastically, right? Like I've said multiple times, I feel like I was doing pretty good, but you go deeper than what most people think and you just take it like a step further. It's not surface level stuff. Even if I didn't get hair growth, the other changes that have been made in my life, worth it.

So to anyone that is on the fence. You gotta dive in somewhere. If you're thinking about it, then a part of you wants it. You've come across your podcast or you've come across it and you're like: Any part of you has thought about wanting it or doing it, then do it because I promise you it is worth it 10 times over, 10 times over more than that it's worth it, changes your life.

Johanna: Thank you. Thank you for saying those kind words. I wanted to ask you at what point did that hesitancy of like: Is this going to work? Or that fear? Is this going to work? Like, at what point do you realize or do you remember that it subsided?

Jacey: It subsided around week 2 I believe, because the amount of hair that stopped falling out when I would wash it decreased significantly. And I had been losing hair for so long. I had 2 babies in pretty quickly and so, well 3, and you go through postpartum hair loss, is a very normal thing. And so I was dealing with postpartum hair loss and

alopecia hair loss all at the same time for 4 years. And so the amount of hair that would fall out into the shower from both reasons was. Insane, it was crazy.

So, probably beginning of week 3, significant amount of less hair loss. And I was like: Something's working, I gotta keep going, I gotta keep going all in because if my hair's gonna fall out less, then that means it'll probably grow back. And then when I started seeing a little more hair growth, I lost it, I was so pumped, I was so pumped. I take a million pictures of my hair, I have been since this whole thing started 4 years ago and every little angle, and I'm like: Oh my gosh, there's more hair there. It's like Christmas. Every time I see more hair.

But to answer your question, probably 2 weeks in I started feeling a lot less doubt and guilt. I don't know why, but I felt a lot of guilt at first for joining the program because of the money, but you have to take care of yourself once in a while too. You are important.

Johanna: I am happy and I congratulate your father for giving you that pep talk because as parents, when you're in charge of humans to come, maybe in your case as you want to have more babies, it's important for you to be healthy. Many people come to me and they have little ones that aren't in college just yet. So you have to be healthy for them first and foremost. That's why, like on the airplane, you put your mask on first and if, and then they get the mask second, because we need to be alive in order to help them.

That's a big reason too. Like my reason was the fertility situation because I was, you know, creeping up to my 40s, but in, in many cases to now the health is the true wealth when we're able to assist and be available and, you know, be our best for them, a) To show them what this looks like, what healthy actually looks like, what true health is and how we live it and how we eat it and how we thrive in it, but then also to be an example for them day in and day out in every, in every aspect.

The more that we're able to emulate for them, the better of a society that we're creating. So it has a cycle to it and so it's, it's definitely critical for us to be our best for them to be their best. Most of the time, what I see with clients who are pregnant and have alopecia, which during this time of these last 4 years, you were pregnant and had alopecia, right? Not just autoimmune, but also postpartum, did things get worse or did they get better at all, even at one little point on its own?

Jacey: When I first I guess got diagnosed with alopecia. I had bald spots in the back of my head, all of it underneath like this top layer of my hair. So easily I could hide it. I couldn't really tell in the back until I went to the dermatologist. I had a bald spot here and like, and one here, one under here. Those have grown back and those grew back probably a year or so after they told me I had alopecia. And so I think I was probably pregnant through some of that and if I'm correct, when you are pregnant, like your hair seems to grow a lot more and better when you're pregnant.

Johanna: For most people, yes, but when you have alopecia, the opposite can happen. You can actually like lose more and lose it all.

Jacey: Well, I have lost significantly more over here on this side and then into this side, and then I started losing underneath here and I sent a picture to my parents one morning and I said: Look, like more hair loss. Cause they've been so invested in my hair loss, helping me pay for treatments to try helping, just trying to help me. They know how important it is to me, they're the most supportive parents.

So yes it has ebbed and flowed a little bit, my hair loss. Some has grown back, but this spot, nothing, absolutely nothing, not one single little hair until I did the program.

Johanna: So it's been having a vicious cycle of like ebbs and flows in and out for 4 years.

Jacey: Yeah, I would say for the most part it just has been getting worse. With a couple spots obviously that got better, but overall it just dropped, it just got worse as we went along.

Johanna: Any other questions or any other things that you'd like to share with our listeners or anything or anything else that you'd like to express?

Jacey: No, I'm super grateful, honestly for this program. It was worth it. I mean, I say was, but it's still, you know, I am done with the program, the 8 weeks I'm into week 11, I think now. So I still have a long ways to go. I tell people like: I'm so excited if I can see this in 6 weeks, like what are things going to look like in 6 months and it's exciting. I feel nervous though, like I'm not really nervous of reactions just because you get a reaction and then you deal with it when you have a reaction and you donate that food again.

I feel like I've seen such great success that I'm nervous for any reversal. So I've been very conscious of what I'm introducing, the quality of the food that I'm introducing and excited to see where it goes because it's a lifestyle change and you talk about that a lot. It's just the life change. It's not 8 weeks and you're done and you go back to eating and doing what the things you were doing before. Because obviously that did not work. And obviously this is working.

Jacey: I just say: Just do it. If you're on the fence, just do it. It's exciting, it's hard, but nothing worth having comes easy, right? They say that quote all the time and it's really true. I have been changed in a lot of different ways because of this program and I'm feeling like this hair growth is an added bonus, you know? Which is a big thing to say when the reason I did it was for hair growth. Lots of things have changed in my life and I'm still not perfect at it and I'm still working really hard, you know, there, I still get upset sometimes, but to be able to take a step back and think about different things and think about them differently or just even think about them before I react is huge.

So I just say thank you and I hope to keep in touch and like still figure things out and so, but yeah I'm all in for as long as it takes, till it becomes more normal to me. I feel like it is my life now, but to where it feels like a no brainer, you know, like I don't have to think about it, it's not a program anymore, it's just my life now and I'm excited to get to that point and I feel like I'm getting closer to it.

Johanna: Make sure that you keep tracking the hair growth because I'd love to see a full before and after so I can show you. I can't wait to see the full hair growth because when you open this up, I do see how bare it is.

Jacey: Yeah. Yeah.

Johanna: So I'm sure you want this all filled in.

Jacey: Oh, I do and I know it'll come. I know it's coming and sorry, this is long, but I think it was in one of your podcast episodes, or maybe it was but you said: I just knew that my hair was coming back, I never doubted that I was going to get my hair back and so I wasn't taking no for an answer. You said something along those lines and you've said it a few times. And when I heard that I was literally in the shower listening to your podcast, that's my, you know, washing my hair and stuff. And I'm like, you know what? She's so right.

Like I have been so negative and so I hope this works. What if it doesn't? Like I waste all that money. You know, I'm just going to be so frustrated if it doesn't work and then I heard that and I was like, no, like you're already seeing results. It's going to work. So like, shut up, change your attitude and you'll be fine. You know, and I think the words that we speak out loud and to ourselves have so much to do with it as well. And so I don't even know where I was going with that thought, but yeah, I, I know it's coming back, I know my hair will come back and I don't feel nervous about it or guilty about it. I'm just patiently waiting or impatiently waiting for more hair growth to come.

Johanna: It'll all come, I promise you, you're doing all of it. And you're seeing the fruits of your labor and you know, it's step by step. Your body is a machine, but at the same time you can't do so many things all at once, you know, there's only so much energy to be able to breastfeed, care for toddlers and take care of you and digest and go to the bathroom and, you know, have all these functions that we have and so on and so forth.

So the hair is coming, you've seen the results, you just got to keep going, consistency is key and you're on the right path. So I congratulate you and I'm very, very happy for you and for all your efforts because you're seeing it, but then even more so you get to share it with your whole family and you finally get to heal once and for all from this because that's the bigger thing.

You know, once you heal the freedom comes, the happiness, the confidence, the empowerment, the not looking back and understanding exactly where we've gone wrong, cause we all have similar stories of hair loss, but we all have our own individual

reasons of where we've gone wrong and what we've done wrong in the past as to why it led us here. And it's no one's fault, but at the same time, now we know better, now we do better, period.

Thank you so much Jacey for telling your story, for sharing your story and for all these wonderful results. And again, I congratulate you and best to you and your whole family and please do keep in touch. For sure we will keep in touch, and yeah, keep you posted on next steps and then on that next pregnancy.

Jacey: I will, thank you so much, you're amazing.

 Johanna: Take care.