What Is Alopecia Areata ???

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alopecia Areata (AA) is the third most common form of hair loss seen by dermatologists.  It is an autoimmune disease where the bodies immune system attacks the hair follicles. It is not contagious so you can’t catch it from some who does have AA.  The attack on the hair follicles results in hair loss everywhere on the body including the highly visible scalp.  It usually starts with one or more small patches of hair loss and may progress to the entire scalp (alopecia totalalis) or the entire body (alopecia universals).  Alopecia areata affects up to 2% of the population and is unpredictable and cyclical.  It’s unknown  exactly what causes  AA.  Research has shown that genetics, extreme stress, allergies, toxins, or viruses may contribute to making someone more susceptible to AA,  or maybe a combination of some of the above factors.

So how is AA treated?  There are a range of treatments, yet none are effective for everyone and some people don’t respond to any of the treatments available.  For mild cases, the use of corticosteroid creams are used directly on the balding area.  The injection of corticosteroids is a stronger approach and needs to be watched  for side effects such as thinning skin and rashes at the injection site.  For extreme cases, the use of systemic corticosteroids (pills etc) that affect the entire body which has  greater side effects like bone-thinning. Therefore,  this method has found success with shorter periodic use known as “pulse therapy”.  There is a new therapy that is in the clinical trial stages  of research called “Biologics”.  Biologics are injected systematically to calm down the immune activity allowing hair to regrow.  Much interest is awaiting the result of these studies. Unfortunately, for people with long term and extensive AA there are no treatments that work well for them.  This can be depressing and affect ones self esteem especially children and women.

What do you do while your hair is growing back or if your hair never grows back?  Your best bet is a partial hair piece to cover your areas of thinning hair or a full coverage wig.  Don’t fret!  The technology of hair replacement systems have come a long way.  Today, the hair replacement systems are made with soft, gorgeous, touchable human hair.  The compassionate and competent professionals at Invisible Hair Replacements are tediously trained to assist you in choosing the perfect hair system and then transforming it to match your hair color, texture, and style perfectly.  Most importantly is these beautiful hair systems are so natural they are undetectable…the only person who will know your wearing a  hairpiece is you!

Dawn Harrison, owner of Invisible Hair Pieces, Extensions, and Human hair wigs. 

Dawn has earned two U.S. Patents for inventing the “Invisible Hair Grafting”, which is a non-surgical method of attaching human hair pieces to women’s hair and skin.

 

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* This article was originally published here