September is Alopecia Awareness Month. I hope to be posting a few blog posts about this topic and sharing my personal experience.
In sharing my personal experience, it is my hope that it will help others come to terms with the condition and learn how to be okay with it.
Let me start with sharing the different types of Alopecia.
From the American Academy of Dermatology Association aad.org the main types are:
Alopecia areata: Alopecia is the medical term for bald. Areata means patchy. This patchy baldness can develop anywhere on the body, including the scalp, beard area, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, inside your nose, or ears.
Alopecia totalis: The person loses all hair on the scalp, so the scalp is completely bald.
Alopecia universalis: The person loses all hair, leaving the entire body hairless. This is rare.
Some other websites will break it down even more. WebMD lists five types.
For me, my personal experience, is that I went through all the three stages listed above.
As a child, I had patchy bald spots but with few steroid shot treatments, my hair grew back.
Never had problems with alopecia again until I was into my 40s where the bald spots started appearing again. They would be small, the hair would grow back, but then another bald spot would show up elsewhere on my scalp.
In my mid-50s and amidst COVID (especially after I got the vax) my hair started falling out rapidly. And I do mean rapidly.
Now, my hair was certainly falling out BEFORE the vaccination, I still had alopecia. I believe my hair would eventually all fall out with or without the vaccination helping it along. But I do believe the vaccine sped it up.
It’s my experience. I have lived it. Period.
The photos I just shared (above) – they were taken the night before I shaved off what I had left. It took me probably 6 months to come to the determination that I was going to shave it off.
The bald spots were small at first and I managed to hide them by pulling my hair back in a pony tail. But was you can see from the photos, I could no longer do it.
The barbershop cure was the answer, thanks to my husband. When I made the decision, finally, he suggested we go to his barber. I’ve blogged about this before and vlogged it as well.
When I shaved my hair off, I was still new to wearing wigs. But now I just go out bald and love it. I wear wigs now, only as a fashion accessory; like shoes or a new handbag! Wigs are fun but I prefer my bald look.
I hope to bring you more information and inspiration for September’s Alopecia Awareness Month in the days and weeks to come.
Thanks for reading and learn more about me on my About Page.
