A few months ago, I took Aiden to Dr. ENT and his wife happens to be a dermatologist. And I asked about her. She wasn't accepting new patients at the time and was only working part time. We touched on the issue of Aiden's alopecia.
Fast forward a few months.... Chris makes an appointment with a dermatologist in another office. And we went yesterday. While there, I asked if this dermatologist saw children, to which she said yes and we discussed Aiden's hair loss.
Fortunately, she does see a lot of children with Down syndrome who also have alopecia. And the pattern of hair loss that Aiden experiences is common. Unfortunately it is the second hardest to treat - next to alopecia totalis - but there is a treatment.
The treatment for alopecia areata (which the doctor says actually does work) is a series of steroid injections in the scalp. Granted, while she said it does work, the problem is that the back half of his head may not recover hair growth.
Do I really want to subject the child to injections? Not really, no.
While I do feel for the child as he gets older and risks the eventual
total loss of hair, I don't want him to have to go through this. This
will have to be a decision he makes as he gets older.
Stephanie, our daughter Meghan has alopecia aerata too, she has lost hair on every inch of her scalp at one time or another. For three years we did squaric acid treatments, they helped...some...but we failed that protocol and steroids were the next step, we said no. Meghan's hair loss is no better or worse since stopping. Maybe when she is older she can decide on steroids too, personally I feel they are not safe for children, but it my bias.
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