Shauna Gordon has Alopecia Areata
(Hillsdale.Net) — A brave fifth-grader stood in front of the Hillsdale Preparatory School’s student body earlier this week to teach them about Alopecia Areata (AA), an autoimmune disease she’s been diagnosed with.
Shauna Gordon wears a wig to school because her hair began falling out over the summer, and she is now partially bald.
“It was shocking,” Gordon told her schoolmates. “I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.”
AA causes hair loss in patches. It is unpredictable and incurable, affecting everyone differently. Some people will be completely bald, while others will have some hair. It may grow back and stay, or grow back and fall out again. For some, it will never grow back. There is also a condition called Alopecia Universalis, which is the total loss of all body hair.
Hair Fashions for the Holidays
Do you need a new do for your holiday events this year? Want to branch out and try a new style that’s easy to pull-off and beautiful to boot? If thinning hair or balding has got you thinking that looking your best for the holidays is impossible, think again. Check out some styles below that will get you in the holiday spirit and take away some of your beauty stress.
Rock a braid. Braids are all the fashion these days, says In Style magazine. There are many versions that stray from the traditional braid that allow for a lot of versatility. Depending on the occasion, a braid can be dressy, casual, sophisticated, or sexy. It’s all in how you style your hair and the type of braid that you use. If you’re going to an evening party you might consider a braid that falls loose along your hairline. Part your hair deep on the side of your head that is most appropriate for your hair thickness. Braid a thick piece across your hairline and secure it to your head with pins on the back of your head. You can then tie the rest of your hair into a bun or ponytail. This look is chic and sexy. It also allows for some flexibility if you’re trying to draw attention away from certain areas of your head or conceal an area where your hair is thinning.
Half-Up, Half-Down. Cosmopolitan magazine suggests running mousse through your wet hair and scrunching your hair with your hands to make waves and curls. To prevent damaging your hair, refrain from using a curling iron or blow dryer. After you’ve finished scrunching your locks, take pieces of hair around your ears and move your fingers back and upwards slightly. When you have a sufficient amount of hair to make a half ponytail, tie it together with an elastic or clip. If thinning hair is something you’re managing, try to part your hair to either side. Sometimes shifting your part can conceal bald spots and/or areas where hair may be thinner. Letting down a few pieces of hair around your face is another flattering look that may also camouflage areas where your hair is less dense.
Don a beautiful Human Hair Wig. The last thing you need at the holidays is more stress and anxiety. If hair loss and thinning have left you feeling self-conscious, consider purchasing a beautiful 100% human hair wig from a reputable hair replacement studio. It is important to purchase a wig from a professional; avoid running out to the mall and grabbing any wig that looks good on the shelf, because chances are, that’s the only place it will look good.
When choosing a wig, it’s essential for a hair restoration professional to help you through the process in order for you to get the natural, beautiful look that’s perfect for you. A trained hair restoration specialist can help you explore the possible hair types, textures, and colors with you to ensure that your expectations are met. When you’ve chosen a wig, the next step is to have the wig styled. This part is easier. All you need is your imagination! Your hair replacement studio will cut your wig in for you and give you the style you’ve always wanted. Enjoy your hair. After all, hair is supposed to be fun!
Girl Raises Awareness About Trichotillomania
A 12-year-old girl has become the latest Youtube sensation after making a video about the rare obsessive compulsive disorder from which she suffers. It’s gone viral around the world, and even caught the attention of the rock stars whose song she used in her video.
Looking at photos of Chloe McCarty growing up, there doesn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. But as you can see in the video she posted on the internet with her web cam, she’s definitely not your average 7th grade girl any more.
Chloe struggles with something called Trichotillomania–she pulls out her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. By definition, Trichotillomania is compulsive hair pulling or twisting, until it breaks off. Patients are often unable to stop this behavior. It may affect as much as 4% of the population. Its causes are not clearly understood.
Human Hair Wigs Can Hold Holiday Styles
Some months ago, I was reviewing 2010′s holiday hairstyles, and it occurred to me that I should write a quick post to encourage all of you that wear a natural hair prosthesis or human hair wig or hair replacement system to be bold and wear a different style for those upcoming holiday parties this year. Because a human hair wig or hair additon can handle heat from hot curlers or flat irons, it’s easy to create a festive hairstyle for special occasions.
And to those women who whip out the Santa hats to hide their thinning hair this time of year, I’d say pick one of the holiday hairstyles you’d like to wear, research what it would take to achieve that look and treat yourself for a change!
Many women with thinning hair don’t notice how sparse their hair actually is until they see themselves in holiday or special event photos. They tend to avoid solving this problem because they may have a preconceived notion that there’s nothing that can be done or that a hair addition won’t look natural either. But the key word in “natural hair prosthesis” is “natural”!
Natural hair prosthesis are made to look so natural to the client’s individual needs, that those who are closest to the client usually won’t even realize they are wearing a hair addition!
The new year is right around the corner, so in 2011 resolve to take action against your thinning hair and let someone else wear the Santa hat next holiday season!
Grandma’s Sage Stuffing
Here’s a Thanksgiving take on my grandmother’s sage stuffing. When I was a kid, we never had enough leftovers from Thanksgiving at out grandparents house.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound bacon strips, diced
- 1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
- 5 cups unseasoned stuffing cubes
- 1 large tart apple, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon sage
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1-1/4 to 1-3/4 cups chicken broth
Ingredients
- In a large skillet, cook bacon and onion over medium heat until bacon is crisp. Transfer to a large bowl. Add the stuffing cubes, apple, parsley, sage, salt and pepper. Stir in enough broth to reach desired moistness.
- Transfer to a greased 8-in. square baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 7 cups.
Wigs 101: Never Buy a Wig at the Mall.
For a man or women experiencing hair loss, one of the first things you think of is a wig. The second thing that strikes you is that they almost always look fake. Fashion wigs that you may purchase online or at the mall will almost always look the way you expect them to. Bad.
So where do you go from there? First it’s important to understand that there are different levels and qualities of wigs or hair additions. There are inexpensive, machine made fashion wigs that you buy at the mall. There are 100% natural human hair wigs that you absolutely cannot tell from real natural growing hair. There is processed human hair wigs, unprocessed European hair wigs, and medical grade synthetic or synthetic blend wigs. There are machine made wigs and there are “hand knotted” human hair wigs.
There’s a lot to understand, but the bottom line is that when you’re looking for a solution to hair loss or thinning hair, you want the most natural result possible.
A basic introduction to wigs and hair additions
Firstly, what is the difference between a processed human hair wig and an unprocessed or European human hair wig? Processed human hair used in wigs and hair additions has had the cuticle removed from it. So what is the cuticle? Natural growing hair has tiny protective barbs that cover the inner hair shaft. These barbs are the cuticle. Healthy cuticle should lay fairly flat in a downward direction over the hair shaft. Outwardly the hair would appear very smooth and shiny.
Most wigs use processed human hair from China. The hair is stripped of the cuticle and bleached. “Virgin” hair from Europe has not been treated this way. It is softer and lighter, with a more natural colour and depth of tone, and has much more strength than processed hair. It is simply beautiful.
When cuticle hair is used in a hair addition, it must be microscopically and painstakingly placed, one or two hairs at a time, into the base of the hair replacement system or wig in the same direction as it was cut, i.e. the barbs must be pointed down same as it came from the donor. It’s a very time-consuming process, but the end result is well worth it.
At Embassy Studio in Chicago, we have worked especially hard to make sure that our wigs and hair additions are of the very highest quality. We mean this in terms of design, manufacture, and styling. If you or someone you know is suffering from hair loss or thinning hair, man or woman, we invite you to take a look at some of the unretouched hair replacement before and after pictures we have on our website of actual clients. Then, if you wish, you may want to visit our clinic in Syracuse yourself. After all, seeing is believing.
Bullied Child with Alopecia Thinks He’s Going to Die
Recently, cases involving school bullying have made national headlines. It’s not just a national problem, however. Bullying knows no boundaries or limitations of geography, ethnicity, or culture.
Take for instance, the recent story from England of Nathan Fitzharris, who has gone bald at the age of ten, and thought he was going to die after bullies told him he had cancer.
Nathan, who suffers from alopecia areata and has lost his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, told his mother Mary-Ellen ‘I’m going to die’ after being taunted by bullies at school.
‘It was scary when my hair started falling out and I felt upset when people said mean things,’ said Nathan, from Renfrewshire.
Alopecia is a non-life-threatening medical condition in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body, usually from the scalp. Because it causes bald spots on the scalp, especially in the early stages, it is sometimes called spot baldness. In 1–2% of cases, the condition can spread to the entire scalp (Alopecia totalis) or to the entire epidermis (Alopecia universalis). Alopecia areata can be unpredictable with hair loss in different parts of the scalp, with the hair growing back and then falling out again.
The most effective way to deal with Alopecia Areata, Alopecia Totalis or Alopecia Universalis is a finely crafted hair prosthesis (or wig) that is custom made to the patient’s exact hair type and color, and custom fitted with the use of a mold taken of the top of the head. A properly made medical hair prosthesis will go completely unnoticed and even pass the “run your fingers through the hair” test as well. Wigs and hair prostheses can be made for persons of any activity level (we have one client who is a high school junior and plays football. Nobody at his school, even his best friends, knows he wears a hair prosthesis). At Genesis II Hair Replacement Studio in Syracuse, New York, we have made custom hair additions and wigs for children as young as four years of age.
Bullying is widespread in American schools, with more than 16 percent of U.S. school children saying they had been bullied by other students during the current term, according to a survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
Woman’s Hair Replacement Restores More Than Just Her Hair
(Chicago, Illinois) One of the questions we ask during our consultation at Embassy Studio in Chicago, Illinois is “what type of lifestyle do you have and what is your activity level?”
Sometimes your activity level has gradually become less and less than what it once was because you are embarrassed about your thinning hair and you don’t want other people to see it. You don’t go to the gym or do anything that could cause you to perspire to avoid anyone seeing your thinning hair, wet which shows even more of your scalp. Or you don’t fully enjoy attending sporting events because you’re worried about anyone sitting above you on the stands who might notice your ever-widening part.
Fortunately, at Embassy Studio, we offer solutions for hair loss that can restore your self confidence and be unlimited in the activities you choose to do–even sky-diving! Yep, sky-diving. In fact, one of our very dear friends in Sioux Falls, South Dakota who also owns a hair replacement clinic there recently sent me a copy of a video they did about one of their clients. Check it out. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
At Embassy Studio in Chicago, we believe in helping our clients “Restore Your Hair and Restore Your Life.” Being able to do something about your hair loss or thinning hair and being able to see tangible, real results that actually solve your hair loss or thinning hair problem is great news, regardless of whether you are a man or woman.
Quality of life and enjoyment of our precious time off from work is important. Exercise and fitness can play a big part in our enjoyment of life. According to a recent article in the Huffington Post, exercising even as little as 15 minutes a day, five days a week could add up to three years to your lifespan! That seems like a small amount of time to commit for such a high reward, but we all are guilty of filling our days with other commitments and exercise typically falls to the wayside.
It’s important to our overall well-being to make exercise a priority. It helps boost your immune system, your energy level and self-image. If you’ve been out of the activity loop for awhile and ready to ease back into action, click here for a few suggestions for low-impact exercise to get you started.
Not All Lasers Are Created Equal
We received the following information from Leonard Stillman at Lexington International and wanted to share it:
NOT ALL LASERS ARE THE SAME AND NOT ALL BRANDS OF LASERS ARE THE SAME
There has been a lot of publicity about lasers and their use in all areas of medicine, from surgical uses to uses for cosmetic indications such as hair growth, hair removal, wrinkle effacement and cellulite reduction. Recently, there have been an ever increasing number of home use laser devices introduced that make all sorts of unproven claims.
The action of these lasers is dependent on the TOTAL output of laser wavelength they emit and is NOT dependent on the number of lasers used to give this output. In fact, if a laser is designed for hair growth, total laser output has to be specific at 655 nm to be effective. For a laser to destroy or remove hair, they have to have a higher wavelength output in the visible light spectrum of around 800 nm. And of course, lasers used in surgery to remove lesions have to have an even higher wave length of over 1000 nm to work. So you can see that just a little higher wave length than that which is required to work for a specific condition, can actually cause a different reaction as between hair growth and destruction.
It is important to know these facts about lasers and what they are used for because there is so much conflicting information on the web about lasers and what they can do. The big “buzz word” in hair growth is the allegation that the more lasers a device has, the better it will work to grow hair. As mentioned above, this is not true as it is the TOTAL energy output that is important and NOT the number of lasers it takes to deliver this energy. In fact, more lasers in a device could in fact be delivering too much energy and cause hair loss rather than hair growth because of excess energy delivery.
So how do you know what is the best laser to pick for treating a specific condition, particularly for home use? The answer is simple – you should ONLY consider any home use medical device that has specific FDA clearance for marketing. While there are a lot of home use devices available on the web making all sorts of claims, there are very few that have FDA clearance. As an example, while there are many devices advertised for hair growth, the HairMax LaserComb is the ONLY home use laser phototherapy device that has FDA clearance for marketing for the promotion of hair growth. Likewise, while there are many devices that claim efficacy for hair removal, only a couple of them have FDA clearance. It is that simple……DO NOT buy any home use device that does not have FDA clearance, period!
So why is this FDA clearance so vital? The reason is that this means that a 510(k) submission has been submitted to the FDA for the device and has been reviewed by that agency to assure that the device is safe. In many cases, as with the HairMax Laser Comb, efficacy has been proven in well controlled clinical studies and these studies were pivotal in the clearance of the device by the FDA.
In addition to this review and clearance, the FDA requires and monitors strict manufacturing and quality control standards. This oversight assures that the energy put out by these devices ALWAYS complies with the energy output for which they were cleared for marketing. Using any other devices that do not have this clearance means you do not know how they are made and in some cases you do not even know who makes them since they use a mail drop address. FDA clearance for marketing is specific to the specific brand and is NOT transferable to other devices of its kind. There is no such thing as an “FDA approved brand of laser”!
So while the various lasers on the market, particularly in the home use category can be confusing, it is easy to eliminate most of those advertised for consideration because they DO NOT have FDA clearance SPECIFIC to their brand. Be sure to do your research and assure that the company marketing the device you are considering has spent the resources to achieve FDA clearance for marketing the right to make claims for efficacy. Only in that way can you be confident that they will do what they are designed to do and are a high quality product.
We hope that you will post to clarify the information about lasers for hair growth.
Leonard Stillman, Director of Professional Services at Lexington International, LLC manufacturers of the HairMax LaserComb.
This posting is not for commercial purposes but to provide further information about laser phototherapy for treating hair loss.
Hair Loss Products: DHT Sensor Now Available in Chicago
DHT Sensor now available exclusively at Genesis II Hair Replacement Studio
Hair Loss Control Clinical Products – DHT Sensor
ShearPointe and Shearpointe Medical in Birmingham (Detroit), Michigan is extremely pleased to announce that we are now offering DHT Sensor, the leading topical hair loss control product line through an exclusive agreement resulting from our membership in Transitions International Group.
DHT Sensor is an outstanding addition to our extensive line of multi-therapeutic, non-surgical hair loss restoration and replacement solutions, including the recently FDA recognized low level laser hair therapy treatment programs. As a result, we now offer the entire Detroit region a one-stop source for all recognized hair loss replacement solutions in a total multi-therapeutic environment.
Our exclusive agreement through Transitions International enhances our ability to offer a truly viable non-prescription topical hair loss treatment solution to our patients and clients.
For over 40 years, our mission has always been to offer tested and proven technologies to our hair loss clients and patients who trust us to provide them with the best, proven hair restoration options available.