Several Days of Self Care

Aka Getting Better Isn't Linear Yesterday was a bad day. I took a shower and after I was done, I hung my towel up and burst in to tears. Seeing my hair continue to go down the drain in quantities above what's normal for the amount I should be shedding is distressing. Gone was the thought of "it's just hair" and I was taken over with an all-encompassing grief that it is still falling out. Though I've not had the steroid cream long, it doesn't seem to be working. I want it to stop. I want the tingling that I've had on the right hand side of my scalp to stop. I don't want to have to wear a headscarf, I don't want to pay out for a wig. I want my hair back. I stupidly googled alopecia areata and then found out that large patches may not grow back. Patches on the side or back of the head are less likely to grow back than on the top. I don't know if what I have counts as 'large.' I tried to call the dermatology department at the hospital...

Aka My Immune System is Attacking My Hair Folks, I promise I'll do a more positive post soon! I have one lined up, but I'm trying to work my way through everything that's causing me to feel the way I'm feeling. When I had my GP appointment when I got signed off I was also diagnosed with alopecia areata. This is where hair falls out in patches on the scalp (it can also affect your beard if you're of the beardy persuasion). There are two other types - alopecia totalis, which affects the whole scalp, and alopecia universalis which affects the entire body. According to my in-depth research (*cough* Wikipedia *cough*) alopecia is an autoimmune disease where the body attacks hair follices in that particular area (in this case, the back of my head on the left hand side). Specifically, T-cell lymphocytes cluster around the affected hair follicles causing inflammation and hair loss. Personally I think anything with 'T-cell' in it sounds like something out of Resi...