Blogarithms

If you take notice of the now and then photos of Charla Davis ( in Thursday’s Gazette), one thing jumps out at the observer. It’s her  hair.

Davis is the woman charged with murder after she was accused of killing a man while driving drunk in Belmont the night of Aug. 7. She’s been in jail since her arrest. Davis is 44. In August, her hair was light brown but more than seven months later, it’s totally gray. Can someone grow an entire head of hair in a few months?

It’s easy to assume that hair coloring washed out while she was in jail but it could be something else.

In some horror movies, people have turned gray overnight. Whoever wrote those scripts had some knowledge of an autoimmune disease called alopecia areata.  Normally, the disease only affects pigmented hair. Thus a character could go to bed with a full head of hair and wake up the next morning totally gray with all their pigmented, or colored, hair lying on their pillow. 

Alopecia, or hair loss, can occur in any area of the body but is most noticable when it affects the scalp.

Web research on the condition concludes:

Alopecia areata is a common condition. It can occur at any age, and affects males and females equally. Women with alopecia areata are immediately confronted with the drastic change in their appearance, and the implications of this on how they view themselves and how society views them. The National Alopecia Areata Foundation has many programs that were created to ease the burden of all patients with alopecia areata, including women.

NAAF has been at the forefront of many fruitful studies that yielded answers to some of the largest questions surrounding the autoimmune disease. We are committed to continuing this search until all of the questions about alopecia areata have been answered and the mechanisms of this disease are clearly understood.

In the 1990s, it was determined that alopecia areata was an auto-immune disease, meaning that the disease is the result of the body producing an inappropriate immune response against its own tissues. In alopecia areata, it is the hair follicles that are mistakenly attacked by a person’s own immune system, resulting in the arrest of the hair growth stage.

Alopecia areata occurs in males and females of all ages and races; however, onset most often begins in childhood and can be psychologically devastating. Although not life-threatening, alopecia areata is most certainly life-altering, and its sudden onset, recurrent episodes and unpredictable course have a profound psychological impact on the lives of people disrupted by this disease. But there is hope. In all cases, hair regrowth may occur even without treatment and even after many years.

There are three types of alopecia areata; alopecia areata, alopecia totalis totalis and alopecia areata universalis.

Alopecia areata, the most common variation of the autoimmune disease, presents itself as round, smooth patches of various sizes, usually on the scalp.

Alopecia areata totalis presents itself as total loss of hair on the scalp.

Alopecia areata universalis is the rarest form of alopecia areata and presents itself as the loss of hair over the entire scalp and body.

In all forms of alopecia areata, the hair follicles remain alive and are ready to resume normal hair production whenever they receive the appropriate signal. In all cases, hair regrowth may occur even without treatment and even after many years.

This is not to say Davis has this condition but only a chance to educate people who have never heard of alopecia. I’ve seen people mistake it and assume people are cancer patients.

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