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Originally Posted by lovely1
I think the medical term is called alopecia. I have a friend who's sister had hair loss problems when she was a teenager. She ended up having to wear a wig and never lived that down. She doesn't have the problems anymore. The doctors say it was just stress. Do you think she had this disease (alopecia)? Can it be cured with drugs? What causes it?
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Hi lovely1 and welcome, welcome to our fourm!
Yes, you are correct. Alopecia is the official Latin term for baldness. It is caused by normal aging, hormones changing and heredity.
Baldness that is occuing in patches is referred to "Alopecia Areata". This is not normal as you can guess and it is considered a disease. This results from a person's own immune system attacking the follicles with white blood cells causing the hair growth to be stumped. It starts off looking like skin inflammation and usually begins during childhood. Sometimes it causes all over scalp hair loss and can even mean body hair loss. A physician needs to be sought by each individual to determine what treatment options may be available. There are a couple of drugs out there for this, one of which women cannot even touch, let alone take because of the real danger of birth defects.