What is Alopecia Areata?
Sometimes your immune system instead of providing protection, start attacking your body. When it attacks the hair follicles, the medical condition usually faced is known as Alopecia Areata.
Sometimes your immune system instead of providing protection, start attacking your body. When it attacks the hair follicles, the medical condition usually faced is known as Alopecia Areata. It is a type of hair loss that happens when your hair follicles are disrupted.
The damage is not permanent but if the immune system keeps on attacking the follicles, permanent baldness is resulted. This condition is more common in people with age above 20 but people of any age like children and adults can also get affected.
Alopecia Areata usually results in loss of clumps of hair that ends up with hairless, round, smooth patches on the scalp. It might be caused on other body parts as well. It is not necessary that you get complete bald patches, in some cases, hair thinning is also experienced. It is very rare that complete hair loss occurs from all over the body including the scalp. In this type of hair loss, you keep on losing and getting the hair back.
There are very rare cases in which there is no regrowth. People with this disease, usually gets their hair back with the same colour and texture but sometimes, the new hair might be fine and white in nature. People can also experience permanent hair loss if they are/have:
• Family history of Alopecia Areata
• Got the disease at a much younger age and for a longer time period
• Experience excessive hair loss
• Autoimmune Disease
• Abnormal texture, shape, thickness and colour of toe and finger nails.
• Prone to allergies (Atopy)
Alopecia Areata can also affect your nails. They look like pitted and dented and sometimes like a sandpaper. This disease is not considered as curable but it can sure be treated. It is diagnosed by examining the medical history along with detailed physical check-up. Proper scalp and hair fiber analysis is also carried out to inspect the possible causes of hair loss other than Alopecia Areata.
