The Time Is Now

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

I recently watched the episode "The Time Is Now" again. I never get tired of that one. A question just now popped into my head that I have been meaning to ask for quite some time now. Is it actually possible for someone's hair to become spontaneously gray as Frank's does at the end of the episode? I realize that Frank had been through a lot leading up to that scene, and even though he had been given the vaccine, he had been exposed to the virus, but it still seems far fetched that Frank's hair could turn gray overnight.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

not sure the name of the medical name for it but when something so traumatic happens the hair goes gray, i need to research it

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

not sure the name of the medical name for it but when something so traumatic happens the hair goes gray, i need to research it

Thanks Joe, it does happen then, interesting. I'm surprised that Frank's hair wasn't already gray.

[Libby]

From wikipedia:

A possible condition called

diffiuse alopecia areata

may cause a person with mixed grey and dark hairs to lose all their dark hairs at once due to a psychological trauma, causing the patient's hair to appear to have turned white overnight.

The producers used a bit of poetic licence, though, as Frank's hair wasn't noticeably graying.

[Guest SouthernCelt]

From wikipedia:

A possible condition called

diffiuse alopecia areata

may cause a person with mixed grey and dark hairs to lose all their dark hairs at once due to a psychological trauma, causing the patient's hair to appear to have turned white overnight.

The producers used a bit of poetic licence, though, as Frank's hair wasn't noticeably graying.

The same poetic license has been used in a number of old TV shows and movies also. In a lot of them, characters much younger than Frank was in MM would have their hair turn white overnight due to a bad scare.

I'm familiar with a variation of the condition you mention from wikipedia. I've had loss of hair from small (quarter size) places on my scalp as a result of having situations that caused extreme nervousness and stress. In my case, however, hair loss wasn't selective by color but by location, i.e., every hair in a small patch would drop out (and didn't grow back very quickly either).

[4th Horseman]

The same poetic license has been used in a number of old TV shows and movies also. In a lot of them, characters much younger than Frank was in MM would have their hair turn white overnight due to a bad scare.

I'm familiar with a variation of the condition you mention from wikipedia. I've had loss of hair from small (quarter size) places on my scalp as a result of having situations that caused extreme nervousness and stress. In my case, however, hair loss wasn't selective by color but by location, i.e., every hair in a small patch would drop out (and didn't grow back very quickly either).

From "The Straight Dope"...Cecil Adams..

LIBBY, GOOD FIND, THIS IS JUST OFFERED AS SUPPORT...

At your local library is a book by J.E. Jelinek, a dermatology professor at NYU. Overnight graying or whitening of hair has been reported for centuries, Jelinek says. For almost as long as doctors have been arguing about whether it actually occurs, and if so, how.

The hair of Thomas More, for one, is said to have become entirely white the evening before his execution in 1535. Henry of Navarre, later Henry IV of France, supposedly went suddenly white following his escape from the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572.

But the evidence for such stories is often highly suspect. Legend has it, for instance, that Marie Antoinette's hair turned white the night before she was beheaded.

Several writers clearly state, however, that in fact her hair had lost its color long before. (One claims it turned suddenly white following her failed attempt to flee France in 1791.)

Even in modern times reports of rapid graying often turn out to be secondhand or to have originated with doctors who examined the patient months after the supposed event.

The problem with sudden whitening, of course, is that hair is dead tissue. So you'd think it would be incapable of becoming entirely white until it grows out from the roots, a process that takes weeks.

Still, as you say, there does seem to be one way that hair can appear to turn gray in a very short period of time. What happens is that a condition called "diffuse alopecia areata" may occur in somebody with a mix of normal and gray hairs.

Alopecia can result in sudden, substantial hair loss. For unknown reasons it seems to affect mostly pigmented hairs, leaving white ones untouched. The impression one gets, therefore, is that the patient has become suddenly gray.

The sequence of biological events resulting in alopecia is not well understood, but it's thought emotional stress can contribute to it. Wherefore, chill. If you're male you're probably going to lose all that hair eventually, but no sense hurrying the process.

--CECIL ADAMS

FROM THE MAYOCLINIC WEBSITE:::

People rarely go gray overnight. If they do, it's typically due to alopecia areata. This condition causes the thicker, darker hairs to stop growing before it affects the growth of gray hairs — giving the impression of graying overnight. Alopecia areata eventually causes roundish patches of hair loss or complete loss of hair on the head or body. Its cause isn't known.

4th Horseman

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

From wikipedia:

A possible condition called

diffiuse alopecia areata

may cause a person with mixed grey and dark hairs to lose all their dark hairs at once due to a psychological trauma, causing the patient's hair to appear to have turned white overnight.

The producers used a bit of poetic licence, though, as Frank's hair wasn't noticeably graying.

Thank you for the additional information... fascinateing. As the Fourth Horseman posts later, it seems strange because you would think it would have to grow out as a gray hair. Anyways, just a bit of trivia, it doesn't really detract from the overall greatness of the episode.... still one of my favorites.

[Guest MillenniumIsBliss]

The same poetic license has been used in a number of old TV shows and movies also. In a lot of them, characters much younger than Frank was in MM would have their hair turn white overnight due to a bad scare.

I'm familiar with a variation of the condition you mention from wikipedia. I've had loss of hair from small (quarter size) places on my scalp as a result of having situations that caused extreme nervousness and stress. In my case, however, hair loss wasn't selective by color but by location, i.e., every hair in a small patch would drop out (and didn't grow back very quickly either).

I think my hair would be falling out too if I had as many animals running around the house as you do. Then again, I don't have any animals anymore, and my hair is falling out anyways. My hair loss has actually slowed down in recent years. Most of it occured between about age 25 and 30, believe it or not. My hair line remains somewhere between Andy McClarren and Peter Watts, but probably closer to Watts, and I have mine taken down to about Watts length. I have kind of an annoying patch on top or it would look just like his. It would be fun to trim my mustache like his and take a picture and use it as my Avatar here.

[Guest gethsemane]

Here's another take on it. Maybe Lance was tiring of his look and wanted his real color to come through. I think the gray touch made him sexier. The storyline was an excuse to do it. Works for me.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

I was showing a friend of mine The fourth Horseman and Tine is Mow, he wanted to know what Megan Gallaghers bra size was