Pictures Update

These are my new pictures. One side is a little bit better. I cannot say that I have no anxiety at all. Untill I don't have any, I dont expect big improvements. But it is pretty much job related... I am sure I can still make it :). I think it is important to be focusses on curing not the AA but the reason why we have it. So, for example, when we have stress at the office, and then we get some patches, we should first treat the stress, because if we don't solve that problem we will still suffer from AA. I continue with my B12 vitamins, and my minoxidil (once a day). I quit on the Cortisone almost a year ago, cause I really cannot make any difference, at least not in the beard and it is not so good to use it.

Alopecia Areata in Women

I always think that for us, as men, Alopecia is really hard to accept, but in the worse case we can just shave our scalp. There are many bold men who don't even have alopecia areata,just alopecia, and shave their scalps daily. I even read once about a Spanish man that asked for a laser removal of his scalp, because he was shaving it since he was 16 and didn't want to do it anymore. But for women, it must be extremely hard. This video shows us a Swedish girl telling us her story through a video made of pictures. As I read in her profile, she has some mental disorders, like ansiety, which of course is always very much related to Alopecia. She is very pretty without hair anyway and has a very beautiful eyes.

Christopher Reeve

Actor Christopher Reeve suffered also from AA. He had steroid injections every three months while playing the part of Superman. He also wrote a book called Nothing is impossible, where he said that at age sixteen he developed aa, but he was able to comb over the spots. You can read the first chapter from this link.

Link between tooth infection and hair loss

Intersting article .This article in English from the University of Granada says that there is a sometimes a relation between infection on teeth and alopecia areata . When I saw my first patch I was told to visit the dentist , although I already thought that it was stress related. It is always a good thing to check . Professors José Antonio Gil and Antonio Cutando also advise going to the dentist when you notice localized hair loss, so you can get an examination of your oral health.

Cinder from the St. Louis Zoo.

Cinder is a hairless chimpanzee from the St Louis zoo. When she was born, she had hair, but she began to loose it after some months. During the first months Cinder was treated but nothing helped. She was diagnosed with alopecia areata.
Cinder is 13 now and after all this years, the lack of hair hasn't been a problem in her social relations with other chimpanzees . She has never been treated differently!

Charlie Villanueva Alopecia Story

Nice video from Charlie Villanueva both for Spanish and English ! Charlie is quite involved with Naaf and always helping. He said to the girl: Raise your face, look at me , you are like me, don't be shy!

Pictures Update

More pictures...few improvements...but not worse...I don't know if I should be happy. I have just started to have b12 vitamins and Zinc following just my own criteria. I will not eat more than of course the adviced dosis, and only for a couple of months...just to see if they help. I have read many times about Zinc and B12 beeing important in AA. Well, I dont think having the vitamins for a short period will do any harm.

Three bald mice

Three bald mice

From http://www.inthenews.co.uk I got this interesting new about researchers from Pennsylvania that have regenerated the hair follicles in mice. The important thing about it is that for many years scientists believed that it was not possible to redevelop hair follicles and that the loss was permanent.

MY ALOPECIA AREATA- Starts the countdown!!

Hi all!

This is my first post regarding Alopecia Areata. I have created this blog in order to share my experiences with this illness which in my case is affecting my scalp and above all my beard for the last 5 years :(. I have planned to do this to show that it is possible for me to go over the alopecia areata and win this battle...(pysicological battle in some cases)

I am going to post my pictures from today. Today , I have only one little spot in my head and several all over my beard as you can see in the pictures. I will update these pictures every 1 month . I think I am more a alopecia areata barbae than a typical alopecia areata. Today, it is 20th of January, and I start my countdown till 17 November (my birthday) around 10 months to see if I am able to get my beard back... maybe not time enough...but let's see what I can do.I will think everyday that IT IS POSSIBLE.

I will be happy to read your words and your experience. Sorry about my english, please contact me for whatever you may like to share.

Past: I had the illnes , due in my opinion to stress/ansiety...so I think it is stress related in my case.This is a personal opinion. I got it just 6 months after I started working for the first time.
I had been fighting with it for last 5 years...and got several patches in my head and several that I stil keep in my beard. The ones in the head dissapeared but not the ones in my beard.The alopecia areata barbae has one good thing and one bad. The good one is that is more difficult to see, and the bad one is that is more resistant to treatment and harder to treat also. It is in the skin of your face, so you have to take care not to damage it. This is the second time I start the blog. Fist time I was just new in town , new in a job and I think I had to many new things in my life. I will really focus and do my best and show everyone that it is possible to win AA.

Current Treatment: 5% minoxidil twice a day (morning+night)

Sweat absorbing headliner

Very nice:

Muskego's Jodi Pliszka made the top 12 and won $50,000 for her sweat absorbing headliner

From Onmilwaukee.com we can see an example of how to turn something bad happening to you into something good. I love to see people with problems finding something possitive in them.

Humphrey Bogart- Famous actor with Alopecia Areata

Lauren Bacall, wrote: "He noticed that he had a spot in his beard where his beard was not growing. More spots appeared, and suddenly one morning he found so many hairs in the pillow, that got shocked. One thing is being bold in just one area, and something different is being completly bold, in this case you would need to wear a wig. As more hair he lost, as more nervous he was, and as more nervous he was, more hair fell down. In the last scene Dark Passage, he was wearing a wig . He was frighten: his sustenance was hanging by a thread. It was neccesary to ask an expert. Diagnosis was Alopecia Areata"

Bogart is my favourite actor ( Cary Grant would be the second ). Casablanca, the big sleep, to have and have not and the maltese falcon would be in the list of my ten favourites movies, no doubt.

When I read about Bogart having Alopecia Areta, I felt relief. I thought: "I am not so different" In my case, when I meet somebody with Areata, I feel that I am not alone. I like to talk and discuss it and feel supported.