Alopecia

Alopecia is the medical term for hair loss, but people tend to use it to mean the condition alopecia areata. This is an chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune disease, a condition in which the body’s immune system has started to attack itself, in this case attacking hair follicles.

All autoimmune conditions are associated with each other, so you are more likely to have one if you have another. So if you have hypothyroidism, type 1 diabetes, vitiligo or any other autoimmune condition you are at increased risk.

Alopecia areata generally affects the scalp but can affect any part of the body including eyebrows and pubic hair. The hair tends to be lost in patches, and can vary from the size of a 5p piece to much bigger. The most severe cases are rare – alopecia totalis where the whole scalp is affected and the person is bald, and alopecia universalis where the whole body is affected and hairless.

Alopecia can be diagnosed by looking at the scalp. There are often short broken hairs in the patch of loss, that get thinner towards the end – rather like exclamation marks, so they are called exclamation mark hairs. These are not always present and sometimes doctors will take biopsies when investigating hair loss.