'mouldy lumps' concern- do I unravel the ends?
Help! Save My Dreads
Hello,
After the reassurance from my last post, that the 'shrinkage, lumps and balls' were a normal part of the dreading process, I relaxed and trusted that all would be well.
However, i came across Sissemor's posts:
http://www.dreadlockssite.com/forum/topics/my-tnr-timeline-update-at-8?page=2&commentId=3754945%3AComment%3A666813&xg_browser=iphone&x=1
and
http://www.dreadlockssite.com/forum/topics/lumps-and-mold
and this rang some alarm bells as her journey looks EXACTLY like mine so far. The loss of length which is gathering in the very ends of the section, forming hard lumps which seem to be stopping any movemt further upward and end blunting themselves which leads to them not draining off water properly.
I am nearly 5 months pregnant and mould inside the lumps is a big concern for health reasons, also, if I can rescue the ends by unravelling the lumps now to prevent future problems it would be good as if I wait more months to see what happens I will not have the time to unravel plus it will be more difficult and I REALLY don't want to chop the lumps off like Sissemor as I've already lost 3/4 of the length (all gone into the ends of my dreads)
You can see from the pics, just about, how rough they are looking but I could be patient with this if I thought they would even out along the length in the end- I do not want bottom-heavy dreads- and pull up ok. But Sisemor's case shows that they can just get stuck as lumps possible because of T&R knots, and this prevents the dread forming normally- and doing the usual zigzags and bumps that it needs to dread.
So my questions are-
are these dreads abnormally forming - ie going to be a hard (mouldy?) matted lump on a string of undreaded hair? Or does anyone have any experience if this type of formation in the long run? - do they even out? do the roots dread?
Should I start the long task now of unravelling the end and undoing the T&R knots to allow movement up the length? Would adding beads to the bottom if I did do this help the same thing from happening again?
Should I just cut some of the loops at the end to free them and allow water to drain off and stop mould being a promblem?
Should I wait longer to see if the lumps pull up - or is this making life more diffcult in the future?
Please can someone give some sound advice as I know no one with dreads to ask and need to act now if I'm going to at all- when the baby is here I won't have the time to spend on them.
Thanks very much
J X
updated by @jodi: 01/13/15 09:07:37PM