Scared

[Deore]

It is possible to be so scared that your hair turns white or is that just made up rubbish for the films

[david small]

I know that shock can cause hair to fall out or whiten, it happened to my Uncle, Prisoner of war with the Japs, he underwent torture, he went white, but I don't think it was overnight.

[Cathy]

As I understand it, when under stress your hair can go white very quickly, and also your hair falls out. So with the darker hair falling out it gives the impression that you've gone white overnight.

[sft42]

Pure rubbish. The hair we can see above the skin is dead and not growing it's the hair at the follicle that grows and pushes it out, so the colour of the hair cannot change overnight. You can lose a lot of hair very quickly and then what grows back can be solely white but surely any hair loss as said previously would be spread over all the colours of your hair and wouldn't selectivly leave the white or grey alone.

[xyzzyplugh]

I have briefly met people who have traumatically caused shocks of white hair. Stroke victims and such. I don't recall how fast it occurs though. I haven't met Graham Norton but isn't he a case in point?

[Cathy]

Sorry, sft, if I've made a mistake. I understood that as white or grey hair is coarser that it didn't fall out as easily. As for Graham Norton, I've wondered about his hair, but I thought it would be because of something like vitiligo.