Diamond Enthusiast

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One possibility: Kitty...are you sure you're not a polar bear? Polar bears have clear hair designed to help warm their bodies. Another possibility: On a more serious note, this could be a gray hair. Gray hairs are those which have stopped producing the normal pigments. Gray hairs are transparent, though colored to one degree or another by the makeup of dead cells which no longer produce pigments. Now, if these are your first ones, don't slap me! Some folks get them as early as high school, or even earlier if they have had certain types of trauma (like a bee sting to the head). And, in my book, they can look pretty darned nice 
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| Posts: 7742 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02 |    |
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Diamond Enthusiast


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Kitty's getting old!  Fuse is right, you've got gray hair. See, when our bodies function correctly, melanocytes (which are cells in the hair follicles) product pigments known as melanin. When these cells stop producing the melanin, hair becomes transparent but will start looking gray because there are dead cells in the hair strand. Now what causes this? Well, heredity is one cause (I started turning gray at 13). But there are medical conditions that also cause this. If there is a Thyroid imbalance, or a B-12 deficiency, or even anemia, premature graying will start. If you think any of these may be the cause, I suggest you schedule an appt with your doc.
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| Posts: 9192 | Location: Atlanta, GA, USA | Registered: 06-03-02 |    |
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