Back to the beginning of everything Goodness!!

Back in November of 2008, Thanksgiving Day we were in Las Vegas with my in-laws. My sweet little 9 year old got out of the shower and came into have me blow dry her hair for dinner. She picked up her bangs to show me a circular bald spot right under her bangs on her front hair line. As I was looking through her hair I noticed that her part line on top of her head had separated a little, more scalp was showing. This is a little girl that not only had a thick head of hair but she had a ton of it. I had never noticed any hair loss previous to this maybe because she had so much to cover it up. I got on the computer immediately and started my google search. She has an uncle on her biological dad’s side that has hair loss but at the time I didn’t really remember why or what it was caused by. Everything I searched came up as Alopecia Areata. Most of the sites said that when it happens at a young age it usually leads to permanent hair loss with limited to no re-growth. I really didn’t say anything to her and didn’t want to show her that I was really concerned.
We scheduled an appointment with a dermatologist for a few days later. He confirmed Alopecia Areata, she was crushed! We were both crying in the doctor’s office as I was trying to keep it together she said “Mom, I don’t want to be bald”! What do I say to that? How am I supposed to make her feel better? I felt helpless. That was the first of December 2008 by April 2009 she was completely bald from head to toe eyebrows, lashes and all! In the meantime I was looking for answers why? Genetics? What could I do to make this go away, what could I do to give her hope of hair growth? I was on a mission! I spent hours a day online looking at what items are sold, doctors explanations and as many books and blogs as I could find to help me. Auto-Immune disease is what all the sites and doctors say but they really don’t have any hard science to back that claim up. It is usually secondary to another underlying auto-immune disease such as Lupus or MS. We went in for testing, nothing showed. The dermatologist said he would recommend oral, topical and injections of steroids in the head. I gave them a shot, all but the oral. I don’t really love the idea of steroids. We decided that I didn’t need an upset, oversized 9 year old that was puffed up on steroids and since we saw no hair growth anyway we only did that once and quit. I went back to the library and the computer.
The most amazing thing of all, at this point she didn’t care. She went on like normal, threw a wig on put a smile on her face and skipped off to school. I was torn apart trying to put this all together and find answers. I remember one morning she got out of the shower devastated because she had so much hair fall out in the shower. She was crying, she came in my room we chatted a bit and I finally said to her, “ you can stay home with me today if you want or you need to leave for the bus in 10 minutes”. She dried her eyes and took off out the door! That whole day I was a mess! Stayed in my pj’s all day and got back on my computer searching, I even called some company in the UK looking for answers. She got home after school, stuck her head in the front door asked if she could go to a friends and ran off! WHAT?? I was more upset that she was! I guess that’s my job. My efforts are paying off but we’ll get to that later!
She is now turning 13 this year, still wears a wig and some lashes from time to time but she has hair!! She has about ¾ of her head covered in fuzz and about ¼ of that being long black circle patches of hair. It’s starting to fill in all over her head. She has body hair now which she doesn’t love and half a right eye brow! It’s coming back! Slowly but surely! The most important part of this is that it hasn’t fallen out again. Not common for a person with a diagnosis of Alopecia .