The Bearded Lady

You know those prescription drug commercials that show a couple of people having a great time while a voice over tells you why the drug they're pushing is so very necessary in your life, and in the next breath tells you how taking whatever wonder drug the FDA has newly approved will cause more serious side effects than the ailment you're suffering from?

You have a cold sore? We can fix that with this little pill that causes shortness of breath, watery eyes, constipation, anal seepage, heart palpitations, and hang nails. Seems to me, a good majority of the time, whatever you're initially suffering from isn't as bad as many of the ailments you could end up with on certain medications.

In any case, several months ago, I was put on a prescription that I was warned "may cause hair growth". I assumed the hair on my head was going to grow faster, and since I have hair on my head and didn't really mind it being there, and really needed to be on this medication in any case, I didn't bother to go into detail on the type of hair growth, figuring it was worth this side effect.

Fast forward six or so months, and suddenly I'm the bearded lady, plucking more chin hairs every morning than most men can grow in a month. I expected to start finding a stray chin hair in my thirties or so, and to growl ferociously at it as I yanked it from the soft flesh where it thought, mistakenly, that it belonged. I certainly did not expect to spend more time on landscaping every day than I do cumulatively on makeup, clothing, and styling the hair I do wish to keep.

I'm not yet thirty, and the first hair on my chin I found right around the time I found my first gray hair, and I didn't immediately connect it to the medication. I did immediately feel old, though. I've gotten past the feeling old part, and obviously am now to the point where I can joke about it, even as it's frustrating as hell to know this very well could be a part of my life for the duration. Not only that, but the hair on my head isn't even growing faster, so I feel as if I've been betrayed by my chin and cheated by the promise of faster growing hair.

It certainly makes me rethink those commercials now, every time I hear one. There's absolutely no way I could live with hang nails forever.

It's getting pretty ridiculous, and I'm at the point now where I am doing more preventative maintenance than anything else. If I can prevent a uni-brow from forming and keep a full beard from growing overnight, I feel as if my day was a success.

So far, so good.