Bald truth about my hair loss

CELEBRITIES such as Lady Gaga talking about hair loss highlight the suffering of women and children who have alopecia.

Alopecia is an auto-immune hair-loss disease and while research proves it is largely genetic — in 2009, Japanese researchers identified the responsible gene, SOX21 — overuse of hair products, like extensions, and increased stress can contribute to hair loss.

A recent survey by Viviscal found an astonishing 57% of Irish women and men suffer from hair-thinning because of stress.

But while many men will be self-conscious about going bald, women and children suffer serious psychological consequences from losing their crowing glory.

Liz Shiel has been bald since she was diagnosed with alopecia in 2000. “I started getting patches in 1998 and at first I ignored them,” she says. When she went to the doctor, she was referred to a dermatologist who said there was nothing he could do.

Within three months, her hair had fallen out, and by the first month of the millennium Shiel was bald — her eyelashes and eyebrows had also disappeared.

While much of alopecia is linked to genetics, Shiel wasn’t able to trace it in her family, since she is adopted.

Shiel is realistic about the ways to combat the hair loss. “There isn’t a cure for it but many will try treatments, like creams to rub on your head that might get the follicles to open up and start growing. The strongest medication is getting injections into the head. Your hair will come back but you will have to stay on steroids for the rest of your life,” she says.

Instead of enduring this painstaking process, she has taken the most common approach to living with alopecia, by investing in a wig. “I wear a wig every day but there are tabs on the side of it behind the ears, which can give me headaches. I often take the wig off and wear a bandana or cap instead,” she says.

Before losing her hair, Shiel had long, auburn tresses. Now she has a short, blonde style. “I had to adopt a different style with the wig, as long, auburn hair wasn’t practical,” she says.

Wigs may seem the simple solution to alopecia, but it’s not the same as shopping for a dress or a pair of stilettos. That’s why Miriam Moylette sells wigs designed for people suffering from hair loss and not just for fashion. “It’s traumatic to lose your hair and I am like a counsellor in many ways,” says Moylette.

Having run The Wig Clinic for 20 years, in Athlone, Co Roscommon, Moylette has come into contact with all types of clients, from young children to adults in the early stages of hair loss. “Normally, when they see me first you are looking at just a patch, I assess it and monitor it.”

Moylette says it is the anxiety of going to sleep and waking up with all their hair gone that panics alopecia sufferers the most. “Where hair loss happens very quickly, I can tell as soon as they come in the door,” she says.

A worrying aspect of the condition is that many sufferers will hide it from their friends and even family. Shiel knows a woman who has yet to show her bald head to her husband. “She is always covering up in front of him and she won’t answer the door unless she has her wig on. It is so disheartening,” she says.

“Teenagers are also caught up in the psychological consequences when they suffer from hair loss. I know teens who don’t want to go to school. They are scared to put on bandanas and it is a minefield for them. Kids are great for being cruel. I get texts from teens, and parents concerned about them,” she says.

With young children, Moylette recommends bandanas as an alternative to wigs. Her collection of wigs varies from manufactured to human hair. “You can buy a wig for €50 — it all depends on the construction of it. If it’s human hair it could last eight to 12 months, but for manufactured you are looking at four to six months. It really depends on the wear-and-tear.”

Unlike many other alopecia sufferers, Shiel has the confidence to walk around her home town without her wig. “I go up to the shops without my wig and people will sometimes stare and ask if I have cancer,” she says.

Similarly, Moylette has clients who go on holiday wearing a bandana instead of their wigs and they get asked the same question. “People assume they are sick with cancer,” she says.

Psychologist Owen Connolly believes stress is the main cause of the hair loss. “When people are put under serious stress — job loss, a difficult boss, a broken relationship — it can trigger an auto-immune response where the body starts attacking itself,” he says. “Typically, when stressed our breathing is in the upper diaphragm with the chest up and shoulders back. This triggers the reptilian part of the brain which prompts the auto immune system into thinking here is a problem, but it is only stress — and that can be dealt with.”

Deep abdominal breathing can help relax the body and diminish stress levels. “By working on belly breathing — I tell children to smell the roses and blow out the candle — you can saturate up to 2½L of blood with oxygen with every breath. This helps a person to relax and calm down,” says Connolly who is based in Stillorgan, Co Dublin.

He recommends clients to do ten minutes of belly breathing three times a day. “It takes time and time does heal,” he says, adding that in some cases a person may also need to change job or move away from the source of stress.

Given the mental distress alopecia can cause and the lack of a support group in Ireland, Shiel took the initiative to set one up three years ago. This has since evolved into bi-monthly meetings being held in many counties, from Wexford to the Midlands, with further plans to extend the therapy sessions in Munster. “Every two months we have support-group meetings with tips and advice from those who have suffered from hair loss or those in the early stages of it,” she says.

Undoubtedly, the emergence of stars like Lady Gaga and Katie Price admitting to hair loss has brought the issue of alopecia to the forefront. But many people who have experienced hair loss are likely to have little sympathy for these celebrities, as theirs is apparently linked to over bleaching and hair extensions.

“People who wear hair extensions every day are prone to hair loss. If you have to wear them every day, change them to different spots on your head, as putting them in the same places pulls at the hair and encourages it to fall out.

“If there’s one thing alopecia should make us all realise it is that having hair — even if it’s frizzy, limp, dull or lacklustre — means we are the lucky ones,” Shiel says.

* For information or advice, visit www.alopeciaireland.ie