Sorry
madamdot, I keep being pulled away while I'm in the middle of responding to you.
I do think Hashimoto's disease would make your hair look thin but not just at the ends but throughout its length. It's hard to really say if 3 months was too long to wait. There are people who can go 6 months w/o trimming and not suffer any damage. Anything
over 2 months for me leads me to thin ends, so I know if I waited 3 months, I'd have thin ends and I'd have to keep cutting them off if I continued to wait 3 months. People with fine strand tend to need more frequent dustings than those with thicker strands. There are people who trim every 6 weeks let alone 8. Heck, I know when I started regular dusting that's what I did. I would do it at 6 or at 8 weeks, and sometimes at 7. I still was able to retain about 4.5 inches a year so I know that the sooner I do it, the better for my hair.
Hair growing unevenly is a common thing even in people who don't have any ailment so don't be so hard on yourself for that. There are posts of people having slow growth in nape or crown or temples.
I just want to reiterate what I said: I know to many who read how you kept cutting your hair to APL every 3 months and it'd still look the same it seems like cutting/trimming isn't the answer, but how about if I tell you I did the same thing when I was relaxed. Got a trim at every touch up. And I got a touch up every 2-4 months. And yet my hair stayed at the same length because the story was always the same: bad ends that need trimming. I mean, it sounds like your story doesn't it? Only in my case, I didn't get beyond SL. And if I didn't trim, I still didn't get beyond SL. I changed that thanks to Wanakee and Brenda (
www.blackwomenrejoice.com) and started to put scissors to my hair sooner than my stylist did and it was only then that I saw my hair make huge strides.
In 4 months at the regular growth rate of 0.5 inches, I would gain 2 inches, but that's how much I had to cut off because I waited 4 months. When I dust every 2 months, I take off only 1/4 inch or so...so after 4 months, I retain 1.5 inches...but I lost much more than I normally retain when I waited so long to dust.
Seriously we could speculate and guess, but you will never know what will work unless you try something different. You have realized waiting to dust during the touch up at the 3 month mark doesn't work for you. I told you that for me, anything past 2 months will cost me retention; and there are others who've tried my suggestions of trying to beat splits at their game by dusting earlier that before and found it helped their retention. Insanity is to keep doing what you've been doing and expect different results. You aren't gaining anything from the current schedule you're following so what have you got to lose trying something different?
I would say do the cut you want and then just dust sooner and adopt any other suggestions that have been given like wigging it so you can give your hair a rest and enjoy bobs all you want. Low mani I know is another thing that works for me so perhaps your hair would appreciate that too.
Do you take garlic supplements? I once recommended Garlinase Fresh to someone with Lupus and she told me it really helped her hair loss. Perhaps you could try that too? Also ever had a food sensitivity test? Another friend with an autoimmune disease found that the meds she was on were making her ill and a food sensitivity test is what led her to this. Ironically, at the time she told me about food sensitivity tests (
www.immunolabs.com) I had experienced hair loss and noticed my bald patches would itch when I ate, so I ended up going to her doctor and getting the tests, and sure enough, some healthy foods I was eating turned out to not agree with me. I stopped eating them and my hair grew back (I did also use a topical concoction, but the itching stopped after I ate the minute I cut out those offensive foods).
So you may find that your solution will come from a combo of things...and you have nothing to lose by combining several things that are good for your overall health.