So, being a menopausal woman of 53, my hair is thinning. It's finally bugging me. I am not someone who will go to a salon and drop dozens of dollars on a regular basis, so I'd like to know what sorts of things work that I could find in the supermarket/drug store. The color's hanging in there well, and I'm seeing more silver than grey, but if the hair's not there it can't be nicely glittery in the sun.

Start with a volumizing shampoo, then I have gotten good volume from BigSexyHair's Root Pump and Aveda's Volumizing spray.

Dry shampoo will cut down on shine, but I use it (Tresemme, cheap, and smells nice!) not only for when I have lank unwashed hair, but when I am doing a style that demands some grit and fluff in the hair.

Is your hair fine, Connie? Strix's advice seems good for hair that has gotten thinner and finer. But if your hair has that Witchy Poo quality mine can get, then my advice is the opposite: coat it with coconut oil for an hour or more before you wash it and it will be soft and luxurious feeling again. I often slather it with oil and then put it in a braid or a bun and it looks fine all day, then I wash it in the evening.

Biotin and/or Primrose Oil as a supplement is supposed to be good for hair strength & volume.

My hair has always been fairly thick, and I normally wear it up. But summer is well here--90 degrees today--so it's time for the yearly shearing. At least the curl will hide the thin patches.

ION, Hubby's supposed to get a shot every night at 9 pm for about a week, so we're up here in Salt Lake City again. It's a two hour round trip for us. I feel sorry for the poor folks who are coming in from out of state.

On the good side, a little place called Curry in a Hurry does really good naan.

Oh, and I will be getting up at 4:30 am for the next several days to put Hubby on the train to get to his 7:15 bone marrow draw. Cancer is a full time job. We're having to do the train because we can't afford the gas to keep driving.

I have no recommendations on hair, tho I do sometimes do the coconut oil treatment when my hair gets rough and lacking in the shininess.

I'm still annoyed at my former stepmother for the demand of proof of love thing, but I did finally talk to my Dad who is taking everything far better than I expected (tho he managed to gloss over the whole "RSVP for dinner Saturday night" so I had to point that part out to him.) Turns out he did start a letter to my little sister when she was born. He kinda left off there, but it is something. And he spoke wisdom about her mom wanting "everything" for her daughter and using me (as usual) as a comparison. While I feel i'm rather a terrible comparison for most things ("don't be like me! No, really, don't be like me!"), it is the only real benchmark she has here since her relationship with her own father is abysmal. So I'm simmering down and trying to coax sister into actually spending time with me while I'm in town, rather than the usual bout of sitting on the sofa while she shuts herself in her room having a meltdown and refusing to speak that I generally get. I can't wait for her to get out of her mother's house and start developing into her own person.

Cancer is a full time job.

It truly is.

I've had good results from biotin with my nails but it can make me break out. I assume if it works well for one keratin-based outgrowth, it'll help with them all. My hair has always been thin and fine.

I hope she gets out soon, e-o and gets to figure out her own mind.

Erin sorry you are going through this

Also thanks everyone for the fish stories. I killed mine from neglect. It's sort of an indicator that things aren't good. Also an indicator are staying up until 5 am and barely sleeping. My shift started at 3 pm but it was bad. I snapped at a few people. Cried a bit fit prissy with a customer ( who wanted to argue our policies to fight fraud and basically he thought they were stupid and u was mindlessly following them. I should have called the manager over). I don't have a support system right now. I want to call out tomorrow but I'm worried if I do I'll want to call out the next day. I'm not stable I mean I'm not needs to be hospitalized unstable but I could be a lot better. I'm worried this will cost me my job. That even though there are bigger duck ups at work that no one likes and management won't fire I'll get fired. Or I'll quit. Or I'll do something stupid. I wanted to tell the general manager that I needed tomorrow. That I have bipolar disorder that I may need accomdatuons or something but it was too hard.

Lots of marrow~ma to Connie's DH.

Dental~ma to Laura's son.

Family wackiness~ma to erin_o.

Mental health~ma to askye.