🧠 Freefall: How I Lost 70% of My Hair in 2 Weeks

Eleven years ago, I was featured on Fox News in a segment about the Amish health secrets—wearing a wig. My hair eventually came back. But suddenly, in just two weeks, everything collapsed.

🧬 Early Alopecia & Biohacking: My Hair Journey

✂️ It started 11 years ago...

Back then, I began losing my hair at an alarming rate. Not in clumps at first, so I wasn’t worried. But week by week, clumps became the norm, and my hair became thinner and thinner—until the hair loss was impossible to ignore.

👨‍⚕️ Unhelpful Diagnoses

I saw dermatologists, hair specialists, and every kind of expert. The conclusions?
“You have a rare form of early androgenic alopecia.”
“It’s likely alopecia areata. Nothing can be done.”
Said with a casual shrug, often by men, sometimes followed by: “It’s not the end of the world.”

Maybe not. But for a woman, losing your hair is far from culturally neutral or aesthetic.
I didn’t want to go bald.

My mother suffered the same genetic condition—hair loss, vanishing eyebrows. I also lost the hair on my arms and legs (silver lining: no more waxing… you cling to what you can).

🔍 What is a hair, really?

Hair is a keratinized structure produced by a follicle in the scalp. Each strand follows a 3-phase cycle:

• Anagen (growth): lasts 2–7 years

• Catagen (transition): ~2 weeks

• Telogen (rest/shedding): ~3 months

We normally shed 50–100 hairs/day.
But when imbalances arise (hormonal, immune, nutritional, emotional), the cycle is disrupted and hair loss accelerates.

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🧠 The 2 Types of Alopecia You Need to Know

🔹 Early Androgenetic Alopecia – Most common in young women. Starts early (16–20 years), diffuse and progressive.
🔹 Alopecia Areata (Total or Universal) – Sudden, complete loss, often autoimmune in origin, sometimes starting in adolescence.

💇‍♀️ The Wig Chapter

Eventually, my hair was so sparse I had to wear a wig—especially for U.S. TV appearances like FOX NEWS.

Most humiliating moment? In Las Vegas with my right hand and friend Gwen, a man came up and said,
“I love your wig—it looks so natural!”
If you can tell... it’s not that natural.
I even found a photo from that time (2014, reposted in 2021—hence the “7 years ago” tag).

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🧪 The Miracle Protocol by Dr. Glogau

A few months later, I met Dr. Glogau in San Francisco. A renowned specialist and co-inventor of Kybella (the injectable that melts chin fat).

He offered an intensive protocol: ~30 monthly scalp injections with corticosteroids and “secret ingredients,” plus spironolactone (a med repurposed because one side effect is hair regrowth).

💉 Painful? Yes.
💥 Results? Spectacular.
My hair grew back—stunning everyone.

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🎥 Years of Peace… Until March 2025

Eleven years passed with no major issue. I even filmed a hair advice video in January 2025

Then mid-March… during brushing: a full handful of hair.

Springtime? Could be seasonal.
But in the following days, the hair loss got worse. Every morning, the brush was full again.

At Biohackers World Conference – Los Angeles, temporary extensions saved the appearance.

But the truth was clear: I was losing my hair again.

🧬 The Investigation Begins

DHEA? Peptides? Fasting?
Nice suspects, but I had just started DHEA—far too recent to be the cause. Still, I stopped it as a precaution.

✅ Bloodwork? Perfect. No deficiencies.
So what’s going on?

Then, while preparing my son’s wedding, the hair loss escalated. One morning, I woke up with a huge knot in the back of my hair.
After 4 days of detangling attempts, I had to cut it off.
(See the video on Instagram @valerieorsoni)

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🧩 The Biohacking Investigation

Catastrophic? Yes.
Hopeless? No.
That would be indecent compared to people living through war, oppression, or violence.

Still, I wanted answers.

With two fellow biohackers, we launched our own investigation. Doctors didn’t find it—we did.
It wasn’t the supplements. Not the fasting. Not the peptides (sorry, biohacking haters 😏).

We had to go back 2–3 months…

💥 And there it was: a severe case of dengue.
104°F (40°C) fever for 5 days, 5 kg (11 lbs) lost, dehydrated body. The root cause was clear.

We confirmed it with multiple doctors: yes.

🔍 Why does hair fall out after a shock like dengue?

🧠 1. Acute Telogen Effluvium

It’s a sudden but temporary hair loss triggered by major stressors:

• High fever (like dengue)

• Rapid weight loss

• Viral infections

• Major surgery

• Childbirth

• Intense emotional trauma

👉 Under such stress, many follicles shift prematurely to the telogen phase.
2–3 months later, mass shedding begins.

🩸 2. Systemic Inflammation & Cytokines

Dengue causes a cytokine storm. These molecules, meant to protect us, can disrupt hair follicle function—slowing growth and triggering loss.

💧 3. Internal Imbalances

Dengue often causes:

• Severe dehydration

• Protein, amino acid, and mineral depletion

• Microbiome and liver function disturbances

Hair is incredibly sensitive to all of these.

⏳ 4. Why does the hair fall later?

Because hair cycles are long.
Even when follicles go into rest mode (telogen), the strands don’t fall right away. It takes 2–3 months before shedding starts.

✅ Good News: It’s Reversible

Most telogen effluvium cases resolve naturally once the cause is addressed.
But a biohacking protocol (nutrition, topical care, hormone support, etc.) can accelerate regrowth and minimize the damage.

🚀 Conclusion: No Panic. Just Action.

No panic.

But now, it’s time for a new intensive recovery protocol—which I’ll share with you in my next article:

🧬 Hair: STOP SHEDDING & REGROWTH EXPRESS Protocol

Because biohacking is exactly that: observe, research, correlate, test, adjust… and share.

Valerie Orsoni

Your Coach, Biohacker, and Longevity Expert
P.S.: I'm also the founder of LiliWarrior, a TOXIC FREE, 100% eco-friendly clothing brand that's better for the planet, and therefore better for our health (creating a virtuous cycle!).