I Finally Saw My Consultant, Tammika...

Let me start by saying to the women who have had to cut their Sisterlocks out or have suffered from the effects of Alopecia, I have read your stories and I can certainly empathize with your plight regarding the loss of hair. I don’t care how many times I say this to folks, if you start retightening a lock and it seems to never get tighter and it dawns on you that it is going to come completely out in your hand, it is still shocking and very scary. It has seen me go into hysterics where I feel like I am standing on the edge of insanity. Hair loss is no joke, especially for women. Add on the dimension of being a woman of color it is just too damn hard to deal with much less put into words. The ladies’ stories that I have read did so with candor and they did it to educate us all on the importance of taking care of hair properly. Alopecia is not funny, because it is real. Now on to my consultation.


I haven’t seen Tammika in almost 2 years I think. Once she was secure in allowing me to retighten my head on my own, I was literally on my own. It was liberating and scary at the same time, but boy did it save me some money. I actually found retightening cathartic and for a soul like mine it calms my overactive mind. However, when you have over 500 locks to do, it ain’t always fun and in the beginning I was slow. I mean it could take me 10 hours to do a portion of my head. Now 8 to 10 hours split up over two days to complete my head without me getting too tired. However, last year and as I have mentioned before I had some medical issues with my blood pressure, where they have officially said I am allergic to all blood pressure meds, I had thinning and loss of locks. Well, last month I started losing locks again and it wasn’t pretty. In fact, I emailed Tammika in a panic after a total washout of tears and in complete frustration as I was contemplating cutting them out to start over. Tammika was able to fit me in on February 28 and the rest is history. By the way, I didn’t lose another lock after I emailed her. I know it was her spiritual essence that had something to do with that.

So on Sunday before the appointment, as always my way, I washed my hair so I would go to her with clean hair. During the week I retightened my head leaving a few locks here and there so she could see what was going on with my hair. Monday, I woke up sick as a dog so there was another appointment to attend to. Anyway, I was kinda nervous about seeing her because you know I have butchered her rows due to my combining locks and losing them as well. As soon as I saw her it was like we hadn’t missed seeing each other in two years.

As soon as we got to her office, she was like, “Seriously, what is suppose to be wrong with your hair? Because standing here I see absolutely nothing. Your hair is as beautiful as it was the last time I saw you.” So I begin my tale of woe and explain my concern and the fact I had been reading about folks with alopecia with Sisterlocks. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “That is what’s wrong with you. You cannot compare your hair to others and their situations.” She has never been a proponent of hair blogs because of the unrealistic expectations they can conjure up with readers.

I was a bit perplexed that she would think I would come and see her without retightening my hair though. I was like really? She said folks do that to her all the time. She said she should have known I wouldn’t do that.

We went over my regiment and then she began the search for locks to retighten and combined. She combined some and tighten others closer to the head. She explained the hair in the back that I was losing near the nape was not unusual, because she has dealt with the same thing. It has to do with the texture of those locks in the area. She explained I can’t miss locks and I must retighten with normal tension when I retighten. She said it was a good idea that I was retightening sooner than the four week especially with my exercise regimen and frequent washing. In an hour she worked on my head and we caught up on life, deaths and everything else in between. She told me I was um, overreacting and being as I termed dramatical, which I know I can be especially if I start to fixate on something. I so appreciate the time we had together and can’t wait until we do it again, but not because I think I am losing all my hair when a few locks fall out. She still didn’t want to cut my hair yet, next time though. Summer is too hot for all this hair.

I left when it was raining, which of course means nothing for us locked heads. And on my way home I was telling my sister about the appointment and her ass says, “I knew you were tripping because you had read those blogs with folks having alopecia. You started fixating and I know how you get, but I wasn’t going to say anything.” Ugh! She gets on my nerve. Enjoy the pics!

Oh my consultant wrote a book as well check it out here