What about Your Kid’s Self Esteem?
By bufNblu on Apr 29, 2009 in Health
A kid I know has autoimmune hair loss, technically referred to as alopecia areata. His hair started falling out months ago, and his pediatrician didn’t seem to know what it was, so his mom took him to a specialist who diagnosed the condition.
Now this little boy is completely bald on top, with just a little bit of hair behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. At first his parents tried shaving his head, which pretty much took care of it, since his hair is blond and doesn’t really show up when short.
I thought that was a pretty good approach, but then they started getting into this natural homeopathics stuff. They saw some pseudo-doctor who decided he had an allergy to kiwis and strawberries, and that’s what caused his hair to fall out. Whatever! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. That’s like saying it was eating ice cream that made my immune system decide to attach and kill my pancreas, making me type 1 diabetic.
But in any case, they are convinced his hair is growing back in (it’s not), so they haven’t shaved his head in quite a while. The result is that it becomes more and more obvious how patchy his blond hair is the longer it grows.
Unfortunately for this kid, I don’t think hair replacement surgery will be an option, as it’s my understanding that most advanced hair replacement systems use the person’s own hair to make it look natural — and he won’t have enough to be used in such a transplant. Besides, since it’s the kid’s own immune system that is killing his hair follicles, most likely it will continue doing so even after such a transplant.
The thing that I wonder with all this fussing about trying to find a miracle cure is that it’s drawing the kid’s attention to something he probably wouldn’t worry about on his own. HE doesn’t care if he has hair, after all — he’s only 4, and not aware of things like appearances! But if his own father treats this like such an awful thing, he is sure to notice and feel bad about it himself.
