Diagnosis!

Even though the pedi has notes that he started losing his hair in October of 2011, we really didn't get a diagnosis until his 1st year checkup because he was so young.  The pedi said that it looked like alopecia of some kind and that she wanted him to see a specialist.  She wanted us to go to Children's Hospital in Boston since this looked pretty bad, so I called to make an appointment.  They couldn't see him for 3 months.  I asked the pedi if that was okay and she said no, so she told us to try Children's Floating in Boston.  I don't discriminate against hospitals in this area.  Honestly, all hospitals in Boston are good and I feel lucky that we live in a place where we can just drive right into town and go to some of the greatest hospitals! 

Floating Hospital For Children at Tufts New England Medical Center - March 1, 2012
I had been to Tufts before, so we went in to get Little Man checked out.  My wife was working, so my mum, my sister, and I took him in.  We saw Dr Loo.  They made him get into a little gown and it was so cute! 

 

So we went to see Dr. Loo and decided that no, we did not like that he literally had nothing to say about the subject.  He did not diagnose Cole with anything.  He said it could be temporary and that it probably would resolve itself before we even saw him again.  That there were no tests he could run or anything to see what was going on.  Okay, useless.  He did ask to see pictures of him when he had hair and seemed unphased by that.  I was kind of irritated because, HELLO!  My baby is going bald and you think it is completely normal. 
The results of this went to the pedis office and I sort of forgot about it, thinking that was that for now and we would address it if it seemed to worsen.  Cole happened to get a really bad patch of eczema, or sick or something, so I took him in to see his pedi and she ended up addressing the notes from Dr. Loo.  She was unhappy with the results as well.  She ended up getting us an emergency appointment with Dr. Gellis at Childrens Hospital Boston like 3 days later.


Children's Hospital - Diagnosis & Explanation 
My mum and I took Cole to Children's Hospital to see Dr. Gellis [again, wife was working.]  He checked Cole over, took a look at his skin in general, his head and what was left of his hair, his eyelashes and eyebrows, and then his fingernails.  He said that it was definitely alopecia.  Alopecia areata, to be exact.  He gave us a lot of information verbally and some literature, too.  Then he grabbed a sheet of paper and drew a diagram of what exactly happens to someone with alopecia.  It was a good explanation, too, and I use it to this day when people inquire about it.  There are these lymphocytes, which are like a blood cell, and they see the hair follicles as what would be similar to a disease.  So they attack the hair follicles to the point where they shut down and the hair falls out.  So, similar to white blood cells gathering to an area to fight infection, the persons body essentially fights off their own hair.  He looked at the fingernails because people with alopecia tend to have these ridges in their fingernails, which Cole has.  So after explaining what was going on to us, he told me there is pretty much nothing that we can do right now.  He is only a year old and if we want to try essential oils, that is pretty much as far as we can go.

The Problem With Alopecia
There are a lot of problems with alopecia, but!  Besides your body thinking that hair is a foreign, evil object embedding itself into your skin....
1.  The unpredictability of alopecia is awful.  It is completely unpredictable.  You could start off with a full head of hair, lose it all within 2 weeks, and never ever see it again.  Or it could grow back.  Or it could grow back partially.  OR, it could grow back and fall out again right away.  Or you could stay bald forever.  Same with eyelashes and eyebrows. 
2.  They don't know exactly what causes it.  Sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's not.  Why does my child have it?  Who friggen knows.
3.  Treatment-wise, what works for one person, might not work for another.  Some [older] alopecia patients try acid treatments on their heads and it doesn't work.  And supposedly, it's painful, too.  Some try steroid injections and it doesn't work.  So it's not like one of those things where you can get a vaccine and it goes away or take some medication. 

....and about a billion other lame things!