I'm sorry to hear your hair is giving you so much trouble, but if you even head to youtube and do a search on how to care for long hair, you'll find plenty of women with very long hair and great tips for keeping it healthy and smooth.

It makes me (and I'm sure others here) happy to know that you'd like to keep it long if you can. The irony is that so many of us would gladly slave over your hair for you if we could.

Keep us posted on what you end up doing, or if you just want to talk things through further.

Best of luck!