This condition affects 4% of the population and can affect men, women and children of any age or Ethnicity. This condition is auto immune and is often triggered by an emotive situation, this can occur up to 3 months before the appearance of the patch of hair loss. This may also present with pitting or ridges to the finger nails and can cause the eyebrows to thin also. There are several forms of this condition:
- Alopecia Areata which can cause a single small patch or several patches of varying size and occasionally these join together to cover an extensive area of the scalp.
- Alopecia Totalis which causes the whole scalp hair to fall.
- Oophiasic Alopecia Areata the prognosis of this condition is not good as rarely re grows, it can cause the whole hair line (front and back) to fall out.
- Alopecia Universalis this causes every single hair on the body to fall, often overnight. An example of this would be Duncan Goodhue who had a shock bereavement.