Hair raising
After 15 years I’ve finally beaten baldness
Brushing my fingers through my hair, a fistful of strands wrapped around my hand. ‘It’s falling out in clumps,’ I cried to my husband Graham, then 40, as I got ready for bed one evening in 2007.
I’d recently had a cornea transplant due to keratoconus – a condition causing the cornea to thin and bulge outwards in a cone shape.
But since the op, my shoulder-length, thick, dark brown hair had started falling out. Fast.
And by my six-week postop appointment, I had no hair on the crown or the back of my head.
The consultant suggested it could be the post-op stress on my body.
But no one could say for certain what triggered it.
Over the next months it got worse.
My confidence plummeted and
I hated going out.
Wore a thick headband, and gave myself a comb-over, pulling back the hair I had left to cover the bald spots.
Used dozens of clips to hold every strand in place.
Wore woolly hats and caps whatever the weather.
In 2008, a dermatologist diagnosed me with alopecia areata, when the immune system attacks hair follicles.
For the next 12 years I had cycles of steroid injections.
Twelve weeks of jabs, then six weeks’ rest.
They were painful, made my scalp bumpy, and my head feel like it’d been dunked in stinging nettles.
After a round of jabs, fine hair would sprout in the bald patches.
But it never lasted. Whenever my eyes flared up, or I suffered an infection, even more would drop out.
Steroid treatment stopped during the pandemic, and I decided not to restart it.
Then, one evening in February 2023, Graham and I saw trichologist Eva Proudman, a specialist in hair and scalp health, on the telly, talking about hair loss in women.
‘I want to see her!’ I said. Next month, I was sitting in Eva’s clinic in Harley Street, London, having an ultrasound and blood tests.
Eva diagnosed me with female-pattern hair loss, a form of alopecia caused by hormones, ageing and genetics.
I also had seborrheic dermatitis, a condition causing flaky, red skin.
Eva prescribed minoxidil, a spray applied directly to my bald spots twice a day.
Plus supplements for my low iron count, and a special juniper shampoo to treat the dermatitis. After four weeks, I could feel spiky bits on my head. As Graham applied the lotion, he agreed. At my check-up with Eva six months later, I had a shoulder-length, freshly coloured head of hair. Greys were coming through and I’d wanted to give myself a bit of a boost. ‘I feel like a new woman!’ I grinned.
It’s not as thick as it once was, but gone are the hats, clips and headbands. Now, I apply the spray several times a month. I’m so grateful to Eva, because before seeing her, I hated my hair.
But now it’s really growing on me!
My confidence plummeted and I hated going out