So.... my hair is falling out....

I didn't think that I would get heavy on this blog, but this has been really effecting me and I figured if I write it out, it will help me emotionally. Sorry it's really long!!

Monday night I was laying in bed and felt a cold patch on my scalp. I asked my husband to turn on the light and see what it was. He told me that there was a bald spot on my scalp. I looked at him like he was insane.
Low and behold, when I got a mirror, he was right. There was a  round bald spot on the back of my scalp.
After crying hysterically for a few hours, I went to trusty Dr.Google (cheapest Doctor on my health plan), where I was convinced that it was from my Mirena (I got that little shit out in January). There are documented cases of this happening to people who have had this specific IUD and it is one of their "uncommon side effects". I told myself I would tell the doctor about this in the morning and that I could continue from there. Since I had it removed, hopefully it was just some freak "uncommon side effect".
When I woke up in the morning I was so scared to touch my head, for fear that I would have no hair. (Luckily, I did).

I made a doctor's appointment with my primary care and she really wasn't helpful. She told me it could be a number of things and that I should go see a dermatologist. She didn't want to hear my theory of this being from the Mirena, which really upset me because she is never dismissive. I chalked it up as "she prescribes this so she doesn't want that to be the reason".

I was able to get into the dermatologst on Tuesday and after seeing my bald patch, she told me, without hesitation that I had Alopecia Areata. Now, I've seen people with Alopecia (on Maury Povich of course) and they have no hair. Anywhere. I started bawling. I wasn't going to have any hair and it was never coming back.

The doctor told me that the type of Alopecia that she is diagnosing me with is not the type where I would loose all my hair. This bald patch, will grow back and will be normal. It could happen again. It could not. There is no "cure" and no scientific reason that it happens. She could only tell me that it is somewhat hereditary and is an autoimmune disease. She also didn't want to hear what Dr. Google said. She told me that "it's just not possible".

She recommended that I see an Endocronolgist, and I was able to get an appointment for May. He will look to see if there is anything else going on autoimmune wise, and check my thyroid (which could also be the reason for the hair loss).

The dermatologist told me that when she see's patients with this condition, she recommends cortisone shots, which I agreed to. Little did I know, that meant she was going to shoot it into the bald patch. In my HEAD! After about a million pricks to my noggin I was good to go.

This morning I woke up and my eye brows were out of control. They were sticking up everywhere. I immediately panicked. I noticed that at the ends they were really thin. I put my make up on and tried to go through my morning.
I made an appointment with my hair salon to have them look at by my lady that waxes me. She said that she could notice that they were getting thin, but she wanted to clean them up so that she could keep an eye on them. She asked me to come back in two weeks to have another look at them.

Now I know that there are people out there with life threatening conditions, and that my problem is only hair loss and that it will come back. I am in no means vain, but this is weighing so heavily on me. My hair is the girliest part of me. It makes me who I am. If I loose my eye brows, it's not easily something that can be covered up. I feel like when I'm talking to someone they are looking at my eye brows or at the bunp on my head (it's swollen from the shots, you can't actually see the bald patch). I know no one is looking at me, and that this is all in my head but I cannot shake this feeling.

Overtime I know that things will be back to normal, fingers crossed, but as of right now, I feel like hiding under a rock until I'm "normal" again.