Are you regularly asked if you’re a cancer patient?

woman with alopecia removing wig

Tanya talks to Suburban Turban about her Alopecia journey. (Extracts are also taken from her interview with North Wales Live.)

Tanya first noticed the condition developing a year after the birth of her now 10-year-old son. It began with small patches of hair loss at the front of her head, before one of her eyes lost its lashes just weeks later.

She eventually went to visit her GP and, following a number of tests, her doctor confirmed that Alopecia was likely to have been triggered by stress. “At the time, I didn’t even know what Alopecia was,” she said. “I was 22. I was gutted. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt distraught. I felt so unattractive and ugly.

Speaking to North Wales Live, the 31-year-old said: “A lot of people stare at me in the street and come up to me and ask how my treatment is going. People look at me as though I’m sick and assume I have cancer because I have no hair.”

Tanya has now made it her work to raise awareness of Alopecia and increase understanding that chemotherapy isn’t the only reason why people lose their hair. She described how her hair would come out in clumps, clogging up the sinkhole and her hairbrush.

In a bid to hide her thinning hair, she would spend around £600 a year on hair extensions, on top of hair toppers and fibre spray to disguise the bald areas.

She slept in her extensions every night, and went through labour in August last year without revealing the truth about her condition to her partner of two years. “I became really good at covering it up,” she said. “I even hid it when I was having a water birth. I had a hair topper and hair extensions in. Looking back, it’s ridiculous, but that’s how I felt at the time.”

Tanya didn’t tell her partner about it for a long time. He was really supportive when she did and suggested shaving it off completely. So after a trip to the hairdresser’s that is exactly what happened. “It broke my heart. I’d always had jet black hair, so to go from that to nothing was hard. But now, when I look at myself, I feel 99{b944cf7caaa083bf7ae972479197434c0cb4a3cd8e85e84b41276564c067c491} better than I did before.”

young woman with alopecia

After almost 10 years of living with Alopecia the birth of her daughter proved to be a crucial moment in Tanya’s Alopecia journey. “I snapped, my mindset became clearer, I’d hid my alopecia from the world, from friends, family! What for? It certainly wasn’t for lack of support. It was me, it was how I felt. Washing my hair destroyed my soul!”

“I was just not secure enough in myself, I then gave birth to our baby Lorena, that was it, that was the moment, I had to tell him! He gave me a beautiful daughter, a loving home, why wouldn’t I tell him I thought?!”

Tanya shaved the remaining bits of hair and decided she no longer needed the hair systems. She is feeling the most positive she has felt in 10 years, but she needed time to reach this stage in her journey. She can now view hair as an accessory, not a necessity. In her own words, “Just like putting on a pair of earrings!!”

“I fully embrace it now, and I even feel confident enough to go out without a wig. I don’t feel the need to wear it all the time. My partner said he prefers me bald, and now I feel silly for having not talked about it sooner.”

 young family group smiling

Since joining Alopecia UK – a Facebook group which offers support and advice – earlier this year, Tanya has finally found the courage to speak openly about her condition, something she says has “changed her life”. Speaking to others struggling to live with the condition, she said: “Embrace it and don’t let it worry you. The worst thing I did was worry about it. For a long time, I didn’t want to accept it, but this happens to lots of people around the world. It’s a lot more common than people think.”

Thanks Tanya for sharing your story and a brief insight into the psychological trauma that can accompany Alopecia. Life is busy and full on for most young women/Mums and appearance can influence our daily interactions and social well-being. For more information, advice and support please get in touch with Aloepcia UK via Facebook 

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