Alopecia Facts

I found an article called the "Clinical Aspects of Alopecia Aerata." I would like to share some of the facts that the article highlights, because even I did not know some of this stuff.

1. There is a painting from Goya in the 1700s that includes a little boy with alopecia.

2. There are references in the Bible of people losing their hair very quickly.

3. Any ethnic group can get alopecia and affects men and women equally.

4. 60% of all people who have alopecia show hair loss under 20 years of age.

5. 1.7% of the general population has had, or will have alopecia. 1 in 1000 people have it at some point. That makes it way more common than I thought!

6. Where there is hair there is potential for hair loss.

7. If you look closely at each spot, there are tiny little holes throughout called ostea, which means for dermatologists that the hair has a chance of growing back.

8. Exclamation point hairs (tiny hairs that taper proximally) are a sign of alopecia.

9. The sides of the scalp are usually more resistant to treatment than the top of the scalp.

10. 80% of individual cases resolve on their own within one year.

11. 5-10% with alopecia progress to alopecia totalis (whole scalp is bald) and 1% progress to universalis (no body or scalp hair).

12. If a patient has a certain history such as eczema, hay fever, asthma, or family alopecia history, then they will probably not do so well.

13. In certain individuals it won't attack the white hair, but goes after the dark hair. This is how someone can go gray overnight. Oh well isn't that just good news!

14. Marie Antionette went gray overnight, so it is possible she might have had alopecia.

15. Sometimes when the hair grows back it grows white, and in others the pigment has been altered by the disease. I am only 23 and I have started to notice gray hairs, eek!

16. One can have alopecia and pattern hair loss at the same time. About 2% who have pattern hair loss will also have alopecia at some point in their lifetime.

17. Pitted nails happens to 10-40% of people with alopecia.

18. Alopecia has something to do with the immune system and Langerhans cells are involved in the antigen presentation. When there is an illumonogic reaction in the skin usually the bottom of the hair doesn't have that many Langerhans cells, but in alopecia it does.

19. White blood cells called lymphocytes swarm the hair follicle and attacks it.

20. 90% with alopecia don't have other associated autoimmune conditions, so 10% have some such as thyroid problems or vitiligio. I have hypothyroidism and attract illnesses very easily, so I think it is due to my alopecia condition.

21. There is some correlations with vitiligio and alopecia, but one does not cause the other. Same with the thyroid, but fixing the thyroid problem or the alopecia problem will not fix the other.

22. Mace, turpentine, mustard, and black pepper were used to irritate the scalp for treatment in the 1800s.

23. Some modern treatments are cortisone shots, cotisone cream, topical Minoxidil solution, topical Anthralin, PUVA light therapy, and topical immunotherapy.

24. A side effect of topical Minoxidil is hair growing on the face, such as the forehead, instead of just on the scalp.

I thought these were interesting facts, and helped shed a little more light on some of the questions about alopecia. I hope this article was informative! If you want to see the original you can go to www.naaf.org and look up newsletter number 129. This is the website for the national alopecia organization. The author also references a similar article published in Dermatologic Clinics 23, no. 2 (April 2005): 227-43.