16 year old with patches of hair loss

[jenny8551]

I don't know what to do. My younger sister has recently had patches of hair loss all over her scalp. At first when there was only one pathch we thought it was because she plays with her hair and twists it often in that spot. But, I twist my hair a lot more than her and I have never had this problem. A few days ago she noticed another large quarter sized patch at on the back of her head. (A spot where she never twists at) Many sites talk about hair loss in young people relating to birth control, but she is not taking any. If anyone knows what is going on, please reply. She is only sixteen years old and no one in our family for many generations male or female has ever expirenced hair loss.

 

[totaldispHAIR]

Jenny, patches of hairloss in circles could be alopecia areata. I don't know too much about it since that's not my type of hairloss, but AA can be caused by different things (typically, it's an auto-immune response where the body works against the hair follices causing the hair to fall out) and there are treatments out there.

Check out http://www.keratin.com, there is a lot of good information there as well as a discussion board for people with patchy hairloss. There is also a story/testimonial on this site about a woman who lost a circular patch of hair, and her treatment progress.

Also, get your sister in to see a dermatologist right away if you haven't done so already.

Best of luck to you and keep us posted.