Hair breaking off! Help!

Story sounds very familiar! I pretty much went through the same ordeal! You`re doing the right thing by going for a trim. Once your hair is back to healthy, it is much easier to grow it out long! As far as the dying goes, I found a truely conditioning colour from Sallys Beauty Supply that helped match my already coloured hair with my natural new growth. Its called Radiance by Clarol. Its a no lift colour with an emphasis on conditioning with Wheat proteins and amino acids. My hair went from rough and course to slinky, shiny and with an unreal amount of bounce and swing. The best thing is it does not change your natural colour as it is a semi-perm. So I continue to get my trims which take off the old perm colour, and when I have to colour to hide my roots, I use the Radiance! Then when all the perm colour is gone, I will just let the semi-perm fade! The trick is to not run the colour all the way through your hair every time. Otherwise it will deposit/stain your hair permanently. Best to just use it all over once or twice and then to just touch up the roots as needed. Hope this helped. :-)