@nanny1950
As we age… things change a lot with our bodies. To me it looks like your hair may be a little thinner on the curly side. When we age our hair may not thin evenly. With our hair thinner our hair is not as weighted down… so the curls may show more on the thinner hair areas.

My hair is thinner on my right side (it does not look that way in the attached photo… which was taken a few weeks ago.. but it is and my hair does as it wishes and pays no mind to me nor the comb & brush).. my hair is now longer than my profile photo.. instead of curls it is waves with a ringlet in shorter places like behind my ear. My waves are not even like my sister's and mama's were. My hair stayed baby soft and very thick until in my 50s… I just turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. Hairpins, clips and ponytail holders would slide out of my hair when it was so fine. I could not get the ponytail holder wrapped twice around my hair for a ponytail.. and one wrap too loose in my younger days. My hair is now long enough now for a short ponytail.. holder wrapped twice. My hair is coarser now.. dry in some places. I have been using Cetaphil lotion as my leave-in hair conditioner. Works pretty well.

More things with hair… besides age, which changes our hormones… there are other hormones too. Thyroid is one and another vitamin d. Vitamins in general can have an affect on our hair. So make sure you eat a balance diet and take supplements if needed. Have your doctor check your thyroid and your vitamin d.. good idea to have your calcium, and b vitamins checked too.

DNA is a factor in your hair pattern too. It can come from generations before you or just your parents. My daddy's hair got thin as he aged. My mama's hair only thinned a little… she passed away a year ago at age 92. My two oldest brothers had thin wavy hair and my next brother, me and my younger sister all had thick wavy hair.

My sister had lung cancer and underwent treatment. Her hair started growing back curly. .. the same happened with a first cousin who underwent cancer treatment. So medications… not just for cancer, but our everyday maintenance medications can affect our hair .

Some of it can be the products we use with routine. … shampoos, conditioners, blow dryer, perms, dyes. I use cider vinegar as a rinse (of course rinse well after it sets in hair & on my scalp) after shampooing at least once a month to remove the build up of shampoo and conditioner. Actually I do not have to put any conditioner on after I use the vinegar.. the comb just slides through. We should use warm water and not hot on our hair. .. and if you can tolerate a cooler rinse. It isn't necessary for most people to shampoo every day… sometimes a good rinse will do.

Now onto the headache. Have you ever had an MRI of your head?
The swelling sounds like me when my sinuses act up and yes a doozy of a headache with it. .. but different than a regular migraine. .. whatever that is. My neurologist said there are many types of migraine headaches and then there are the migraine type headaches. I have no idea how he sorts them out. I had gone to him before my mama came to live with us and I was allergic to the first medication and the second one the side effects worse than the headaches. I could not deal with trying an assortment of medications at the time while taking care of mama.

I have a tendency to get nauseous often with other health problems. Someone recommended the Reliefband. It helps better than pills. I discovered it also helps to quell my headaches. It looks like a wrist watch and works likes a tens machine. I do not work for the company or get money for recommending the product. My husband bought mine through Amazon because he knew nothing of the company.. but trusts Amazon. There are two styles… one with the battery built in and rechargeable and one with a replaceable battery… I chose the latter.

I rattled on too long.. but hope I made a little sense.
ZeeGee