In fact, alopecia can be recurrent. Although there is probably a genetic element—20 percent of people with alopecia have a family member who also has it—and it’s more likely if there is eczema, thyroid problems, or asthma, though these are not really risk factors. With alopecia, something else is at work. Many doctors say stress or trauma seems to be the trigger.
Stress—the small word far too liberally sprinkled about as the cause of everything from spots to cancer—may actually play a defining part here. Anecdotally at least, that seems to make sense.
When I was at school, one girl a few years above me wore an orange headscarf until she left for university. The rumor was her hair fell out after she’d been told her father had died. And a few years ago, I knew one pretty lady whose bitchy acquaintances tanked up on jealousy and told the police she was responsible for a fire that had nothing to do with her. A bald patch appeared on her crown soon after and persisted for months.
Miranda’s story is similar. Her fiancé was killed in a car crash, and Miranda’s mane of dark brown glossy locks tumbled out in clumps.
“My whole world had collapsed. My hair falling out just seemed like the final kick in the stomach,” Miranda says. “Life in those dark months was hard enough and my hair loss made it even harder. What else could so effectively wipe out the confidence I’d managed to cling on to?”
At least Carrie had a husband to support her. “He wiped my tears and told me I have a stunningly-shaped head,” she tells me.
After religiously rubbing steroids prescribed by a dermatologist into her scalp—which were supposed to suppress her immune system to try and stimulate hair growth—Carrie had the beginnings of regrowth, albeit soft and downy. “But I swelled three dress sizes,” she says. “It was a side effect of the steroids. I had a choice: be fat and hairy or slim and bald. I chose the latter.”
PREVIOUS PAGE
