[mom2trips+1]

Saw pdoc today and she is adding Depakote. I took Depakote in 2008 and nearly went bald. She told me to add Selenium by taking a Centrum Silver every day to combat the hair loss.

Anyone out there with hair loss from Depakote? Anyone know if Selenium works or know of any other ways to combat it? I know biotin can help also.

Thanks in advance!

I experience some hair loss, but not much. I was told that people with long hair tend to get more hair loss due to weight of the hair. If you have long hair, ou might consider cutting it, or if you are really concerned you may consider an alternate medication.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I had a LOT of hair loss with Depakote. I took Centrum silver, additional selenium and biotin. Not sure where the biotin recommendation came from but the combination did help some. There are also special shampoos that can help with hair loss. I used Nioxin when I had the problem the worst (I lost a ton with Depakote and then when lithium knocked out my thyroid during a long toxicity I lost enough the person cutting my hair could see patches of thinning) but I'm told the formula changed from it and they recommend something else now.

I did a quick search to see if I could find the name of the replacement. Looks like plenty of people are happy with Nioxin. The ingredient they took out was DHT. This article has 5 recommended shampoos and some include DHT and some don't.
Top 5 Hair Loss Shampoos | HairLossSpecialists.com

I think the dermenodex may be what my stylist said replaced it for them but I really forget. I use another nioxin product for dry scalp/psoriasis of the scalp and it works incredibly well. I get it from Amazon and it's a lot cheaper.

[Homeira]

Interesting! I have experienced a lot of hair-loss over the past six months. I take 400 mg Lamictal.
I have thick hair, and it was long. So I recently cut it into a shorter length, and it has helped a lot. So I think the como of meds, long, thick hair was the reason for the hairloss.
I was also low on vit B12. Had my doc do bloodtests, and after that I got weekly injections for one month. Being low on vit can cause things like hair-loss as well. And my doc said that some meds cause the body to take up less diatery vitamins.
And I also started washing my hair "upside down" (Quite an interesting pose in the shower, lol...). My hairdresser recommended that. Or if you have a tub, wash it in there. She said the normal way we shampoo and dry our hair can make this problem a lot worse, rubbing too hard, combined with a strong flush of water, and rough toweldrying after. Wash gently, as little rubbing as possible, keep your head upside down and pat it dry. Pull as little as possible, and try to avoid ponytails, because they put a lot of strain on the hair also.
A lot of these meds cause weigth gain, and hey, we don't need to go bald also!