My 81-year-old mum’s hair growth results with a red light hat!
My mum has always had very fine hair. As a kid I remember her in rollers every morning setting her hair.
But over the past 10 years or so she started to feel quite low about how much it was thinning.
At its peak her hair was really noticeably thinning and you could clearly see her scalp around the crown. She also appeared run down and we were worried about her.
She has an underactive thyroid which doesn’t help, but this felt like more.
Having read that collagen supplements could support hair health, with a couple of studies suggesting it can even support increased volume, I bought a marine collagen supplement from Amazon, made by Dietapplements, so she could give it a try.
What do you know, a couple of months later she saw a difference in both her hair and her brittle nails. Her hair felt (and looked thicker) and her nails were stronger too.
Looking for hair growth treatments
Around five years ago she was diagnosed with a B12 deficiency by her doctor and now receives a shot every 8 weeks which has greatly improved her health and I suspect her hair growth too.
But with her 82nd birthday around the corner, she’s always looking for ways to improve the volume of her hair.
Some viewers and readers may have seen me sharing my dad’s results combining microneedling with the Calecim Professional Hair System – a growth factor serum that addresses inflammation and stimulates hair follicles to become active (provided they have not been years dormant).
Buoyed by his success, he recently started to use a red light hat every evening – something my mum began doing along with him.
The hat they use and why
They use what looks like a big baseball cap, but is in fact quite a sophisticated device from HigherDose which has 120 LED bulbs providing 650nm red light – a wavelength shown in studies to deliver results for stimulating hair growth.
The idea is that the red light (also known as low-level laser therapy) increases blood circulation to the scalp, decreasing inflammation and boosting both hair follicle and scalp health to optimize the conditions for increased growth.
Consumer reviews of LED for hair growth are mixed – as is the case with most hair regrowth products, but there have been a couple of studies pointing to its potential, with results reported in groups with androgenetic alopecia treated with 650 nm for between 5 and 10 mins daily.
My mum’s results
My mum appears to be among the success stories. After around 10 weeks of using the device for 10 minutes daily she said she could feel her hair was thicker.
When I took a photo recently and compared it to where she was a year ago, it was clear to see there was more hair around her crown where she experienced most volume loss.
My dad believes he can feel new growth, but there is not such a visible difference to see. That said, his extraordinary hair regrowth results with the Calecim system have held up over two years and he is going to continue to use red light to support them.
To have a covering of hair at the crown aged 80 is no mean feat for a man!
The cost
At £449/$449 (note, it’s less with the discount code above) the HigherDose device is a significant investment. However, it compares favorably to several other well-known brands.
CurrentBody, for instance, offer an LED helmet (620-660nm) which it claims can increase hair growth by 128% (very specific!) in 12 weeks and costs £650/$859.
Although you’ll find much cheaper red light hats on Amazon, I would be wary of going too cheap or using a brand that is not known or independently reviewed. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
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