I Cut Off My Dreadlocks After Seeing a Bald Spot

I’m a black female and two years ago I wrote to you guys about dreadlocs and hair loss. I cut them off and kept my hair almost to the bone most of 2007. Last year, after growing my hair back for a few months I cut them off after experiencing very localized alopecia at the back of my head along my ears (about an inch inside my hairline). I thought that maybe it was reaction to the hair dyes I used so I cut it all off and started over and was all growing in nicely. Well now a year later I’m having the alopecia problem again.

I’d been growing my hair since I trimmed it in June. But when it started getting cold here it started to get the itchies behind my ears, something I remembered from the previous time I lost my hair and whenever I’d wash it, it would have lots of hair coming out. I thought maybe it was because I did my hair in styles that I kept for a week (and therefore losing on in day a weeks work of shed hair)but deep down I knew it was much more then that.

So I looked in the mirror yesterday and saw the bald patch, much larger then what I had last year. I just don’t understand what’s going on. If you drew a line from ear to ear, my hair is much denser from the front to that line, I get thick braids when I style that part of my head. At the back it’s much finer. I’m really at a loss as to what could be going on.

I don’t use relaxers, artificial hair dyes (only pure henna), I don’t use heat to straighten my hair and I’m as gentle as possible when combing my hair. Can you shed (no pun) some light?

What I tell black women is that anything they do to their hair can cause hair loss if it is done often enough. It’s a general statement, but I see it almost every day. Hair straightening with relaxers does it, pigtails do it, dreads do it. Perhaps you are best served with a good afro, but if you’ve already lost a considerable amount of hair, that might not be an answer. Wigs work, but the attachment mechanisms can cause hair loss. It’s a huge catch 22. I really can’t give you any kind of solution without at least seeing what the problem is for myself.

If you’d like to visit my office for a consultation, I may be able to come up with something. I might suggest hair transplants (I’d need to see you first), but then again, that is an expensive solution and it still may not help 100%. Just don’t let any doctor recommend a hair transplant unless he/she is honest and straightforward with you. Good luck.