By Katie Bingham-Smith
My daughter is continually telling me her hair hurts each night when she takes out her ponytail and we run a comb by way of it.
She describes the sensation as sort of good, however is certain it is her hair that is hurting and needs me to rub her scalp. “Mommy, why does my scalp damage after sporting a ponytail?” she’ll ask me.
Effectively, it is a feeling I do know very nicely, as I’ve felt it after I’ve had a extremely tight excessive ponytail in all day. However it would not have an effect on me prefer it impacts her. In reality, I do not really feel any discomfort when I’ve my hair up in a traditional ponytail or messy bun all day.
Our nightly conversations at all times remind me of my favourite episode of “Intercourse and the Metropolis” when Charlotte is speaking about how she has been courting since she was 15 and remains to be ready for the person of her goals to brush her off her ft.
Her epic line, “The place is he? My hair hurts” is all too relatable for a distinct cause.
However it brings up the query: Can your hair truly damage?
Everyone knows once we get a haircut we aren’t in ache, however what offers us the sensation that someplace between our roots and scalp, we swear our hair can damage?
Dr. Wade Cooper, a neurologist and the director of the headache and neuropathic ache program on the College of Michigan, says our “ponytail headache syndrome” comes from having a delicate scalp and is a dysfunction that does not have an effect on everybody.
In an article by Haley Otman for Michigan Drugs, Cooper says that it is “truly an actual headache dysfunction… It doesn’t have an effect on everybody, however a tightly pulled-back hairdo could be actually uncomfortable for these it does have an effect on.”
Feeling ache after taking your hair down is a type of allodynia, “a traditional stimulus that’s interpreted as ache,” Cooper says.
“The hair shaft itself and the hair outdoors of your head just isn’t pain-sensitive, however the scalp they’re embedded in has a variety of pain-sensitive nerves round it,” Cooper provides. “If a ponytail pulls again on the hair follicles, it could possibly irritate a delicate scalp.”
Cooper warns in case you are liable to complications, your ponytails usually tend to be irritating and trigger ache.
One of the simplest ways to forestall irritation is to decide on unfastened up-dos as a substitute of tight hairstyles that may trigger complications. Cooper provides that stress and never getting sufficient sleep can add to a delicate scalp.
And for those who can take your hair down — even when it is only for a couple of minutes — you may get aid.
SheKnows spoke with Stephanie Johnson, a licensed hairstylist who focuses on coloring and hair extensions. She explains when we now have our hair up, the foundation is being stretched and “the nerves really feel it.”
Johnson additionally provides that if we proceed to tug our hair again too tightly or use clip-in extensions, we will trigger harm.
“These hair follicles are crying out to you to only hand over and so they let the hair go and will not produce extra. That is how mechanical harm causes hair loss in some ladies,” she says. It is one thing all of us need to keep away from.
So whereas our hair cannot truly damage, the discomfort we really feel on our scalp when somebody pulls our hair, when it is up in a ponytail all day or the complications we get, are all actual emotions — the sensitivity is simply coming from the scalp, not the hair itself.
We must be mild with ourselves when one thing is hurting and listen, as it is a sign one thing is improper — and our hair is not any exception.
Katie Bingham-Smith is a author and contributor to a number of on-line platforms, specializing in way of life, well being, parenting, and relationship subjects. She has had bylines featured on Scary Mommy, The Guardian, BBC, The Telegraph, The Hill, MSN, amongst others.
This text was initially printed at SheKnows. Reprinted with permission from the writer.
