My First Alopecia Experience!

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This was my first alopecia experience. I had NO signs of balding in February…! In fact, I had really long thick hair, and it was gorgeous. By the End of March I was bald.

May I first say, if you are facing losing your hair, I’m sorry. It’s not going to be easy no matter how similar or different our experiences are. Also, this is just my hair loss experience. It’s far from my whole story and does not address the person I’ve grown to be as a result of my Alopecia experience. This is just a place to start. This is how my Alopecia Story starts.

Without Warning…My First Alopecia experience began!

I’ve been a bald woman since March of 2007. But I had NO signs of balding in February of 2007! In fact, I had really long thick hair, and it was gorgeous. I could let it air dry and it would have gentle waves that reached the middle of my back. In February, I had no idea what was about to happen to me. I was healthy, active, and just going to school while working. Everything was fine…until it wasn’t.

• First, my lips went numb and my entire face felt tingly as I cried harder than I ever had before. My dad tried to comfort me over the phone as I cried, but I’m sure he was at a complete loss for what he could do. 
• Then, That Sunday I went to church with my family, and as I sat on the bench, I remember suddenly feeling sharp, sparking, shocks erupt from my chest and spread through my entire body. It hurt and I jumped in my seat, but it disappeared as fast as it came. From that moment on, any time I moved suddenly or experienced a sudden temperature difference, my body would experience the eruption of shocks all over. If it was cold outside and I walked into a heated building, my body was covered in the zaps. If I punched a punching back in my kick boxing class, my body was again overwhelmed with sharp pricks. No one new what it was- or what was about to result. But at this point I could even walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop and rest so the prickling would stop.

Yes! This is very unusual. If you are someone with Alopecia, or you know someone who has it, the chances of them having these symptoms are very rare. Normally when someone has Alopecia, they do not feel their hair follicles being attacked. In fact, I’ve only met one other person in my 13 years of having Alopecia who experienced something similar to me, then again… most people don’t lose their hair as fast I did either…

Goodbye to my hair…Alopecia!

It was only days after the shocking eruptions started in my body that I noticed something else was wrong. When I was brushing my hair one morning, I noticed that I couldn’t feel the bristles on my brush anymore. I looked at the brush and was surprised to see it completely full of my long hair. I put the brush down, shocked by the amount of hair I had just lost.

The following day it was the same. I told my mom I was losing my hair and I showed her how much had fallen out. She told me it was most likely due to stress and to try not to worry over it. But I knew that even if I were to try and relax, my hair was falling out at an alarming rate.

The very next day, I was sitting at my computer, working on a school assignment. I twirled a thick strand of hair around my finger, while I stared at the screen. Then, suddenly, the hair I was twirling pulled right out from my scalp with no pain or effort. I remember staring wide-eyed at the hair that had just come out from my head. I grabbed a small handful of my hair and pulled, sure enough, the handful of hair plucked right out from my head.

I knew then that my hair was falling out…and it was falling out FAST! I was losing my long, thick, gorgeous hair. When I showered, so much hair ran down my back, that it felt like a creature was sliding down my back. There would be so much hair sitting on the drain by the end of my shower that the water couldn’t drain anymore, until I picked up the handful of hair and threw it out.

Letting it go…Alopecia!

There are two nights that stand out the most during this time of hair loss.

• The first night, I sat crying on my bed with a large hoodie pulled over my head. My older sister came in and asked if I was crying. I broke down and she let me cry to her. I pulled my hood down and she brushed my hair while talking to me. As she brushed my hair, the brush would fill up with hair, and she would empty it and continuing brushing.

After emptying the brush for the third time, she asked, “How many times do you empty the brush before it stops filling up?”…I looked at her, “I just stop brushing.” She just said, “Oh!” and set the brush down.

Ten days, from the time I first noticed my hair falling out, I now had only about 25% of my hair left. It receded from the bottom and sides of my hairline, leaving me with a thin, sickly mohawk. At this point I started wearing scarfs, hats and hoods. My mom scheduled me an appointment with a dermatologist. But I was scheduled to see them in a few days and my hair at this point was past the point of help. Even if the Doctor had a remedy, I knew my hair would fall out and I would be bald for a time.

• The second night that stands out the most to me is when I chose to do something I never thought I would have to. My older sister was a cosmetologist. We decided together, we would shave my head.

Now this sounds scary. You can only understand if you have been face with having to shave your head.

A girl’s hair so often defines her. I was no different. I was always complimented on my hair. It was a huge part of my confidence. I had strangers stop me all the time to tell me how beautiful my hair was. They would ask if I had extensions or if it was real (It was real), and they would tell me to never cut it. In fact, I was looking into auditioning for the Fructose Shampoo and Conditioner commercials.

So, to suddenly be faced with shaving my head was no small situation to face.

-And a side note, for anyone facing this situation, it’s a million times easier to have someone else shave your head than to do it yourself. Not because it’s hard to buzz your head, but it’s emotionally hard to shave your own hair off when it’s not entirely by your choice.

I had never wanted to shave my head, but that’s just what we did.

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My hair! Going, going, gone…Alopecia!

My sister shaved my head…and… it was the best decision I could have made. I was no longer looking at my sickly hair hanging in thin strands. I was no longer pulling hair out from my clothes, my pillow, my brush, and the shower. In a way, it ended the dreaded hair loss…because there was no more hair to lose.

I went to the Dermatologist fourteen days after the first sign of losing my hair, and I went completely bald. So, in TWO WEEKS!!! I lost my entire head of hair… and in two weeks the painful pricks that engulfed my body disappeared.

My mom diagnosed me first. She is an internet research expert. She told me she was sure it was something called Alopecia. The Dermatologist could not believe how quickly I had lost my hair and told us that usually someone with Alopecia would take two years to lose their hair, and that they would show small balding signs prior. He said most people would never lose an entire head of hair within fourteen days.

In just a few more days, the rest of the hair on my body fell out. My leg hair never grew back once I had shaved it, the fuzzy hairs on my arms and fingers fell out, the peach fuzz on my cheeks was gone, my ear hair and nose hair was gone, and lastly… my eyelashes and eyebrows fell out.

I was a fair, peach blob. I was the bald girl, the bald sister, the bald daughter…the bald girlfriend…

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Accepting My First Alopecia Experience!!

It sounds like a nightmare, but it’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me and to understand why, you will have to check out my other blogs. It’s about the journey and what I chose to do right from the start. You will find you have supporters and you will have those who tear your down. So, you need to know now, that you’re the one who decides how you move forward with this.

Accept it. You will cry, but you need to accept it!

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