Alopecia Areata is an autoimmune disorder, which often starts with isolated patches of hair loss, often in clumps, commonly in one or more coin-sized (usually round or oval) patches on the scalp and/or across the body including the beard, eyebrows, eyelashes or body hair, including pubic hair. The amount of hair loss is different in everyone. Some people lose it in only a few spots while other loser a lot. Sometimes the hair grows back but falls out again later.
There are different forms of alopecia which include:
Alopecia Areata Totalis which means you’ve lost all the hair on your head
Alopecia Areata Universalis which is the loss of hair over your entire body
Diffuse Alopecia Areata which is the sudden thinning of you hair rather than lost patches
Ophiasis Alopecia Areata which causes hair loss in a band shape around the sides and back of your head. Alopecia Barbae where hair loss affects the beard and moustache.
Alopecia Areata can affect both men and women of any age. In about 50% of cases, it starts in childhood. About 1 in 1000 people have a form of Alopecia Areata, independent of ethnicity. A family history of Alopecia Areata and/or of other autoimmune conditions are present in 10–25% of patients. People with Alopecia Areata are not only more likely to have other autoimmune diseases (such as thyroid disease or vitiligo) but they are also more likely to have atopic conditions (such as eczema, asthma, hayfever and atopic dermatitis). Alopecia Areata is more common in people with chromosomal disorders such as Down syndrome. It is what is known as a polygenic condition.This means that both parents must contribute a number of specific genes in order for a child to develop it.
Another cause of alopecia is stress. For some people there is a very clear link between stress and AA. People with Alopecia Areata can sometimes point to a severe shock or a very stressful event that occurred in the weeks before Alopecia Areata developed. Others report experiencing chronic stress over a long period of time before their Alopecia Areata developed. When we experience stress, our brains (and specifically the pituitary gland at the base of the brain) start secreting stress hormones and these can have a big impact on other tissues and cells elsewhere in the body. While losing hair can be emotionally very stressful in itself, the inflammation in Alopecia Areata could also be increasing stress activity in the body.
This is where we come in! We can perform the Scalp Micropigmentation procedure on all areas of the scalp to cover the areas the client requires. We can fill in the patches to blend in with the existing hair the client already has and can also cover the entire scalp, from the back of the head all the way up, to the hairline. As the entire head requires more area to be covered, the time the session takes will be longer than usual. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and you can book in a FREE, NO OBLIGATION CONSULTATION TODAY!
