The main place people talked about having alopecia was the scalp. Other areas of the body where hairs grow can be affected too, including: the face – eyebrows, eyelashes, nose hair, beards and moustaches. body hair and pubic hair – arms, legs, armpits, chest, stomach and around the genitals.
Alopecia Universalis is characterised by hair loss across the entire scalp, face (including eyebrows and eyelashes), and the rest of the body (including pubic hair).
If all of your body hair, including your pubic hair, is affected, leading to complete hair loss, it's called alopecia universalis. Alopecia affects both men and women.
Alopecia areata usually begins as one to several (1 cm to 4 cm) patches of hair loss. Hair loss is most often seen on the scalp. It may also occur in the beard, eyebrows, pubic hair, and arms or legs in some people. Nail pitting may also occur.
Hormonal changes
Hormones are chemical messengers that control many functions in the body, including hair growth. During puberty, an increase in hormones called androgens triggers the growth of pubic hair . As a person ages, their body begins to produce fewer androgens. This may result in pubic hair loss.
In a patient with a sexually transmitted disease (STD), alopecia may be an important associated finding and can provide clues to diagnosis.
Hair loss (alopecia) can affect just your scalp or your entire body, and it can be temporary or permanent. It can be the result of heredity, hormonal changes, medical conditions or a normal part of aging.
People with the disease are usually healthy and have no other symptoms. Alopecia areata typically begins with sudden loss of round or oval patches of hair on the scalp, but any part of the body may be affected, such as the beard area in men, or the eyebrows or eyelashes.
When you have alopecia areata, cells in your immune system surround and attack your hair follicles (the part of your body that makes hair). This attack on a hair follicle causes the attached hair to fall out. The more hair follicles that your immune system attacks, the more hair loss you will have.
Then there's the regrowth stage: Shaved hair grows back after a couple of days, and when it does it can be prickly or itchy. This can leave you feeling uncomfortable. There's also a chance some hairs will become ingrown. This means that the hair that's trying to grow back gets trapped under the skin.
Shaving your head will not have any effect on the treatment of your baldness. That being said, the new hairs will be free from chemical damage and other elements in the environment, and this can make them look better and healthier.
The extent of alopecia (how much hair has fallen out) varies and links to the different subtypes. Some said their hair loss involved one small patch about the size of a 1p coin which regrew after a few weeks or months. Others developed more patches which sometimes joined up into bigger bald areas over time.
Most people know alopecia to be a form of hair loss. However, what they don't always know is that there are three main types of the condition – alopecia areata, alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis.
“Alopecia Areata itself does not compromise the immune system or cause immune deficiency and there is no reason to think that people with Alopecia Areata are more at risk from COVID-19 than the general population, either in terms of catching the virus or being more severely affected by it.
People with alopecia areata have an increased risk of developing other autoimmune disorders, including vitiligo, systemic lupus erythematosus, atopic dermatitis, allergic asthma, and autoimmune thyroid diseases (such as Hashimoto thyroiditis and Graves disease).
In most people, new hair eventually grows back in the affected areas, although this process can take months. Approximately 50 percent of people with mild alopecia areata recover within a year; however, most people will experience more than one episode during their lifetime.
Alopecia areata can occur at any age but about half of cases come on in childhood and 80% of cases come on before the age of 40 years. Men and women are equally affected. The condition tends to be milder if it comes on at an older age.
Hair Loss in Your 20s
The majority of androgenetic alopecia (or male pattern baldness) sufferers start noticing their hair loss in their mid to late twenties.
Normally around puberty, androgens stimulate axillary and pubic hair in both sexes, plus the beard, etc.
Pubic hair follows the same pattern as any other hair on your body. In a typical cycle, the entire three-phase process takes 30-44 days, according to a doctor at Men's Health. You can count on your pubes growing back at a steady rate of ⅛ inch per week, or 1 cm every three weeks.
Laser hair removal or electrolysis
Laser hair removal and electrolysis are both considered “permanent” methods to denude pubes: both eliminate hair follicles so hair doesn't grow back.
Subgroup analysis indicated that patients with HPV infections had a significantly greater risk of alopecia areata for both genders, all age subgroups, and those with mental disorder diseases. Conclusions: A history of HPV infection is associated with the development of subsequent alopecia areata in Taiwanese subjects.
Alopecia areata is sometimes triggered by viral infections such as influenza that causes excess production of interferons (IFN). IFN- γ is one of the key factors that lead to the collapse of immune privilege.