Quote:
|
Originally Posted by DaveF
Is that the condition that causes total loss of hair? A guy at work has that. Ironically, he must still wear a hair bouffant in the clean room...
|
That would be a variant called (oddly enough)
alopecia totalis. It is extremely rare. (David Ferrie, one of the total whack-jobs who figured in Jim Garrison's three-ring circus of an "investigation" into the shooting of JFK, suffered from the condition - among others both mental and physical, one suspects. He famously wore a very cheap, bright red wig of some hideous synthetic fiber, and glued tuff of equally garish carpeting to his face in place of eyebrows.
Note to Adam: If the condition spreads I do
not recommend going this route. You may remember what Joe Pesci looked like in the Oliver Stone film.
)
Regular Alopecia is much more as Adam describes it, and most commonly affects head hair. Not sure how common problems with facial hair are.
One thing that can bring this on is stress. Another is a weakend immune system due to overwork. I managed to combine both.
Many years ago I was directing a musical for my church's theater group when we suddenly had a massive and unexpected project dumped on us at work. A few months earlier I had promised my boss that I would cut back on my theater work, which often involved late nights and me being several of the dwarves at work the next day. (Dopey and Sleepy, usually, sometimes with a bit of Grumpy thrown in.) I only agreed to direct the church play because the original director had to back out at the last minute and several of the cast members specifically asked me. Also because - at the time I agreed to do it - we were expecting a quiet summer at the office with no big projects, just time for people to take vacation and catch up on maintenance.
By that time it was too late to pull out of the show, the work at the office still had to be done, my boss felt I had let her down and definitely let me know it, the show itself turned into a nightmare during rehearsal and a few days into our summer-long project my boss discovered she was pregnant, and on her doctor's orders she had to cut back her working hours.
Suddenly my hair started falling out. The whole left side of my head from the just above the sideburns to an inch or so above the ear, and from my face back to just behind the ear stopped growing hair, it all just dropped out in a matter of days. I just grew out the hair above it and let it drop down, but if the wind blew you could see it. From a distance it the skin looked so white that people thought I was just going gray.
A few weeks after the show closed and I started getting some more rest (and not spending every night arguing with actors and crew members) my hair started growing back and by fall it was like there had never been a problem. I've never had an outbreak since. But I still remember the oddly smooth feeling of that exposed skin, and the cold feeling I would get when there was the slighest breeze. (Kinda like how you can always tell where a draft is coming from for the first couple of days after you shave off a beard or mustache.)
Regards,
Joe
Not too noticable, can be covered, so far, But very upsetting to me. Hope this is as bad as it's gonna get.