Alopecia Areata

I've been recently diagnosed with AA and have decided to start blogging about my experience from the very early stages.

I've been trying to get my hands on information, which is frustratingly difficult, even in this age of the internet. Here I can share what I find, or at least, my journey. Today is Monday. Last Tuesday I think it was, I had my hand in my hair as usual, when I felt a weird bit of bare skin at the base of my skull.

Hairless.

I promptly forgot about it.

On Thursday I felt it again and asked my friend Nattie to take a look at it. She went one step further, took a photo, and made me call my doctor to make an appointment.

I was able to get in fairly quickly that afternoon and left work quiet distressed with what I'd just seen.

My doctor promptly pulled a few hairs out and studied them, diagnosing AA straight away.  He looked in his medical dictionary, told me it was an autoimmune disease,  nodded to himself, turned to his computer and started printing out referrals to dermatologists.

When I asked what I could do to prevent the disease, he said "buy a wig". Hopeless! I said, "Well I guess I'll go home and google then!"

I asked to look at his medical dictionary so I could perhaps learn something he hadn't told me. Nope, he had pretty much summed up all there was to say.

So I came home and googled. I learnt that there were connections to diet, depression and stress. Looking back on 2014 and I know I had issues with all three of those.

I have made instant changes to my diet, some will take me longer.
I've only had one small slice of Turkish bread since last Thursday. A small sprinkle of cheese on my vegie ish lasagna (I used half the amount of bolognese sauce and swapped the lasagna sheets for slices of eggplant and zucchini) One egg.
I've increase my fruit intake (need the antioxidents) upped the veggie intake, reduced to almost none the dairy, meat and eggs. Increased the oily fish, nuts and beans.
Ive swapped milk in coffee for coconut milk.
I've had chocolate every single night. Fuck it right!

I had blood tests this morning. Will see what they say before freaking out too much. I asked to be tested for all sorts of things and he's added a few of his own in for good measure.
Here is a picture of my hair loss so far: