Oscar’s Alopecia Story

Hi, my name is Oscar and I am 13 years old. I’m the eldest and I have a brother and sister. I have Alopecia Universalis. I developed this when I was nearly 8 years old. Before that I had thick, curly auburn hair. I had never lost any patches of hair before. I noticed a patch of skin on my scalp on the weekend and then it just all fell out! In one week I had no hair left on my head. I was in year 2 so I don’t remember a lot about it. I do remember that I was dancing in a concert, so we went to the hairdresser and got the patches that were left shaved into a Mohawk, which was cool and everyone at school loved it. But that fell out pretty quickly too. Then my eyebrows and eyelashes went too, after a few more weeks. It has not grown back, but occasionally it has tried to, sprouting some bits, sometimes I have eyelashes but mostly not.

Beating the Heat while living with Alopecia: The Tropical Challenge

By Linsey

Living in the tropics and coping with alopecia has been an interesting challenge for me.

I grew up in Indonesia practically on the equator. It was hot, sticky and 100% humidity. When I first got a wig I still had quite a lot of hair on my head— hair that I was not ready to give up on or shave off. I was thirteen and I didn’t want anyone to know I was going bald. I was so ashamed. So I wore my wig on top of my hair, sometimes even to bed. I broke out into heat rash on my head and my face. My skin was not happy and neither was I.