Click to set custom
Underactive Thyroid and eyebrow hair loss.
One of the classic signs of an underactive thyroid is hair loss, and especially on the outer ⅓ of your eyebrow.
It may even be the first clue that your thyroid is off.
When you're not producing enough thyroid hormone, your poor little hair follicles aren't stimulated as much as they really need to be.
It may even be the first clue that your thyroid is off.
When you're not producing enough thyroid hormone, your poor little hair follicles aren't stimulated as much as they really need to be.
7 Ways to reduce Eyebrow Hair Loss before considering Microblading.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, will my eyebrows return at all?”
If Snow White had thyroid and hormone issues, she’d probably be humming this panicky tune.
Tweezers not getting the use they once did?
Learn the reasons why your eyebrows may be MIA.
In addition, equip yourself with ways to get things growing again with 7 ways to stop and reverse eyebrow hair loss.
Investigations and should you see a Dr?
Investigating eyebrow hair loss isn’t a vanity. Those sparse brows are reflective of a deeper issue. Getting to the root of why you’re losing hair means getting to the bottom of your underlying health condition.
Hair loss may be more common than you think. Around 21 million women in the USA alone are estimated to experience some sort of head hair loss and brow hair loss.
So let’s cut any renditions of the “You’re So Vain” song track that may be rolling around in your brain.
Take a look at how to optimise the health of that hair on your brow.
What to do?
If you’ve got a hunch your thyroid could have something to do with your eyebrow health, you’re 110% right. In addition, there could be other factors at play. Imbalanced hormones, toxins, improper nutrition and stress could all be playing a role in your thyroid health, and by extension eyebrow health.An Underactive Thyroid;One of the classic signs of an underactive thyroid is hair loss, especially on the outer ⅓ of your eyebrow. It may even be the first clue that your thyroid is off.
When you’re not producing enough thyroid hormone, your poor little hair follicles aren’t stimulated as much as they really need to be.Translation: your hair stops growing, and your hair falls out. It happens to your eyebrow hairs just like your head hair.
“But, I’m on thyroid meds!” you wail. “Why are my eyebrows still falling out?!” Sadly, this happens.
For one, you may not be taking enough thyroid meds to address the hair loss. Second, the thyroid medicine ingredients may be causing your hair loss.
Some Thyroid Medications;
Whilst I am no Doctor, I am a Registered Nurse/Midwife ( so be sure to talk to your Doctor /Endocrinologist about your meds, side effects etc).
Do you take Levothyroxine (perhaps better known by its brand name Synthroid)?
Guess what’s listed under adverse reactions on the prescribing information page? If you guessed hair loss, you’re right! One of the side effects of taking this thyroid medications is hair loss, which can include the hair that makes up your brows! Your body needs to be able to turn inactive thyroid hormone to activated thyroid hormone to do all the groovy things it was designed to do–including making your hair grow. If you’re taking a T4-only containing medication like Synthroid and your body has trouble changing the T4 over to active T3, your eyebrows may suffer.
Head to your Dr for the traditional TSH lab for your thyroid function.
Get a full thyroid panel which including Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, and all thyroid antibodies. You’ll want both TPO (thyroid peroxidase antibody) as well as TGAb (thyroglobulin antibody).
Once you have the correct labs, being evaluated through the lens of functional lab ranges, you’ll have a better idea of how your thyroid is actually functioning. It’s totally possible to have a “normal” thyroid by conventional testing and yet have an underactive thyroid and fading eyebrows.
Also, be aware, if you have too much thyroid medication, it can make your eyebrow hair loss worse!
2. Know Your Food Sensitivities
What you eat affects your thyroid function. Discovering and addressing food sensitivities can be one of the biggest tools in the Hashiomoto toolkit! Aim for a real food diet. Toss out those processed, packaged foods.
The biggest food offenders for Hashimoto’s patients are gluten, dairy and sugar. But the saying “Test, don’t guess” has so much merit! You may be surprised what seemingly healthy foods are a threat.
Just check out this story of this patient whose hair started growing back after we discovered her food sensitivity to lettuce!
3. Consider Hair Regrowth Supplements
Your eyebrows and the hair on your head need specific nutrients to grow. Strategic supplementation of biotin, silicon and choline may be beneficial. These nutrients will give your body the building blocks it needs to create collagen–an essential for hair growth.
You may find benefit from other supplements including collagen, zinc, primrose oil, and B vitamins, as well.
4. Check on Your Iron:
Proper iron levels and optimal thyroid function are both need for hair growth. Iron-depleting menstrual cycles and/or hypothyroidism can mean your iron stores are low. Also, a vegan or vegetarian diet may contribute to lower iron levels.
Ferritin, the storage form of iron should be tested around 60 ng/mL. Only supplement if testing shows you actually need it. Then, choose a plant-based iron supplement.
5. Balance Your Hormones;
Pregnancy and menopause are two common times thyroid eyebrow loss may pop up. This is because of the hormonal shifts associated with these stages. When oestrogen levels are high, thyroid binding globulin (TGB) increases. If your thyroid hormones are all floating around your bloodstream attached to TBG, it means they can’t be converted to the active T3 form!
Read: Hello, hair loss. Goodbye, defined brows!
6. Stabilize Your Blood Sugar;
A blood sugar roller coaster means your T4 is converted to reverse T3…which does absolutely nothing for you, your energy levels or your eyebrows.Keep blood sugar levels stable by incorporating healthy fats and proteins. Keep carbohydrate intake to real food sources. Kick any sugar habit to the curb.
7. Incorporate Thyroid NutrientsStrategy: Give your body what it needs to proper thyroid function and rebuild your beautiful brows.
Nutrients that support thyroid function include:
Hope for Eyebrow Hair Loss:Thinning eyebrows from thyroid, hormonal and toxic exposures doesn’t mean you have to kiss your eyebrows goodbye for good. Working with a functional medicine practitioner ensures you get to the root cause of all your symptoms, including eyebrow and hair loss.
So, once you have exhausted all avenues , reach out and make an enquiry on the Enquiry form or request our free information package.
Do it NOW- you are only 1 step away from beautiful and restored eyebrows.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, will my eyebrows return at all?”
If Snow White had thyroid and hormone issues, she’d probably be humming this panicky tune.
Tweezers not getting the use they once did?
Learn the reasons why your eyebrows may be MIA.
In addition, equip yourself with ways to get things growing again with 7 ways to stop and reverse eyebrow hair loss.
Investigations and should you see a Dr?
Investigating eyebrow hair loss isn’t a vanity. Those sparse brows are reflective of a deeper issue. Getting to the root of why you’re losing hair means getting to the bottom of your underlying health condition.
Hair loss may be more common than you think. Around 21 million women in the USA alone are estimated to experience some sort of head hair loss and brow hair loss.
So let’s cut any renditions of the “You’re So Vain” song track that may be rolling around in your brain.
Take a look at how to optimise the health of that hair on your brow.
What to do?
If you’ve got a hunch your thyroid could have something to do with your eyebrow health, you’re 110% right. In addition, there could be other factors at play. Imbalanced hormones, toxins, improper nutrition and stress could all be playing a role in your thyroid health, and by extension eyebrow health.An Underactive Thyroid;One of the classic signs of an underactive thyroid is hair loss, especially on the outer ⅓ of your eyebrow. It may even be the first clue that your thyroid is off.
When you’re not producing enough thyroid hormone, your poor little hair follicles aren’t stimulated as much as they really need to be.Translation: your hair stops growing, and your hair falls out. It happens to your eyebrow hairs just like your head hair.
“But, I’m on thyroid meds!” you wail. “Why are my eyebrows still falling out?!” Sadly, this happens.
For one, you may not be taking enough thyroid meds to address the hair loss. Second, the thyroid medicine ingredients may be causing your hair loss.
Some Thyroid Medications;
Whilst I am no Doctor, I am a Registered Nurse/Midwife ( so be sure to talk to your Doctor /Endocrinologist about your meds, side effects etc).
Do you take Levothyroxine (perhaps better known by its brand name Synthroid)?
Guess what’s listed under adverse reactions on the prescribing information page? If you guessed hair loss, you’re right! One of the side effects of taking this thyroid medications is hair loss, which can include the hair that makes up your brows! Your body needs to be able to turn inactive thyroid hormone to activated thyroid hormone to do all the groovy things it was designed to do–including making your hair grow. If you’re taking a T4-only containing medication like Synthroid and your body has trouble changing the T4 over to active T3, your eyebrows may suffer.
- Chronic stress: High cortisol tells thyroid hormones to take a hike.
- Inflammation: This could be a food intolerance, a gut infection or a toxic exposure.
- Neurotransmitter deficiencies: Not enough serotonin and dopamine can make brain-thyroid communication sluggish.
- Congested liver: As our primary detoxification organ, the liver has a large workload including its critical job in converting T4 to T3, the active thyroid hormone.
- Gut and Liver Problems
- Gut and liver health are at the top of the must-have list for producing that active T3. If you’ve got less than stellar liver enzymes, a sad congested liver, or a holey, leaky gut, you probably aren’t getting the T3 you–or your eyebrows–need.
- Intestinal Permeability and AutoimmunityIf you’ve got Hashimoto’s or another autoimmune disease, the chances are you’ve got holes in your gut. This means less thyroid hormone and a greater chance of eyebrow loss.
- Known as intestinal permeability or leaky gut, this condition allows undigested food particles, toxins and a host of other things that should stay inside the intestinal tract out into the bloodstream. This is bad news bears for your body, leading to a host of symptoms, and eventually may lead to autoimmunity.
Since around 20 percent of thyroid hormone is changed off from T4 to T3 in your intestinal tract, it makes sense to keep it happy and leaky-gut-free.
Inflammation in the gut also raises cortisol, further reducing T3, that eyebrow-growing, active thyroid hormone.
Plus, if your gut is leaky, it’s not absorbing nutrients the way it needs. This can lead to nutrient deficiencies that may also contribute to eyebrow hair loss.
Head to your Dr for the traditional TSH lab for your thyroid function.
Get a full thyroid panel which including Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3, and all thyroid antibodies. You’ll want both TPO (thyroid peroxidase antibody) as well as TGAb (thyroglobulin antibody).
Once you have the correct labs, being evaluated through the lens of functional lab ranges, you’ll have a better idea of how your thyroid is actually functioning. It’s totally possible to have a “normal” thyroid by conventional testing and yet have an underactive thyroid and fading eyebrows.
Also, be aware, if you have too much thyroid medication, it can make your eyebrow hair loss worse!
2. Know Your Food Sensitivities
What you eat affects your thyroid function. Discovering and addressing food sensitivities can be one of the biggest tools in the Hashiomoto toolkit! Aim for a real food diet. Toss out those processed, packaged foods.
The biggest food offenders for Hashimoto’s patients are gluten, dairy and sugar. But the saying “Test, don’t guess” has so much merit! You may be surprised what seemingly healthy foods are a threat.
Just check out this story of this patient whose hair started growing back after we discovered her food sensitivity to lettuce!
3. Consider Hair Regrowth Supplements
Your eyebrows and the hair on your head need specific nutrients to grow. Strategic supplementation of biotin, silicon and choline may be beneficial. These nutrients will give your body the building blocks it needs to create collagen–an essential for hair growth.
You may find benefit from other supplements including collagen, zinc, primrose oil, and B vitamins, as well.
4. Check on Your Iron:
Proper iron levels and optimal thyroid function are both need for hair growth. Iron-depleting menstrual cycles and/or hypothyroidism can mean your iron stores are low. Also, a vegan or vegetarian diet may contribute to lower iron levels.
Ferritin, the storage form of iron should be tested around 60 ng/mL. Only supplement if testing shows you actually need it. Then, choose a plant-based iron supplement.
5. Balance Your Hormones;
Pregnancy and menopause are two common times thyroid eyebrow loss may pop up. This is because of the hormonal shifts associated with these stages. When oestrogen levels are high, thyroid binding globulin (TGB) increases. If your thyroid hormones are all floating around your bloodstream attached to TBG, it means they can’t be converted to the active T3 form!
Read: Hello, hair loss. Goodbye, defined brows!
6. Stabilize Your Blood Sugar;
A blood sugar roller coaster means your T4 is converted to reverse T3…which does absolutely nothing for you, your energy levels or your eyebrows.Keep blood sugar levels stable by incorporating healthy fats and proteins. Keep carbohydrate intake to real food sources. Kick any sugar habit to the curb.
7. Incorporate Thyroid NutrientsStrategy: Give your body what it needs to proper thyroid function and rebuild your beautiful brows.
Nutrients that support thyroid function include:
- Zinc and Selenium (These will help with conversion and well as function! Bonus!)
- B Vitamins
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin A
- Omega 3’s
Hope for Eyebrow Hair Loss:Thinning eyebrows from thyroid, hormonal and toxic exposures doesn’t mean you have to kiss your eyebrows goodbye for good. Working with a functional medicine practitioner ensures you get to the root cause of all your symptoms, including eyebrow and hair loss.
So, once you have exhausted all avenues , reach out and make an enquiry on the Enquiry form or request our free information package.
Do it NOW- you are only 1 step away from beautiful and restored eyebrows.