From Recurring Hair Loss to Waist-Length Hair: Our Story

She was born with more hair than most newborn babies… a full head of beautiful crown that had people complimenting from day one.

Then came the antibiotics prescription at 18 months old for what the doctor thought was tonsillitis.

Within weeks, I noticed her hair thinning. Gradually at first… so gradually that I almost missed it. “Babies lose hair,” everyone said. “It’s totally normal.” So I brushed off my concerns, but the thinning got visibly worse and whatever remaining hair appeared so dry and brittle.

This wasn’t normal baby hair loss. This was something else entirely. The thinning became patchy. Bald spots appeared on her scalp, growing larger with each passing week.

I Googled and all search results pointed to alopecia areata. “It happens to 2% of the population, and in most cases, the hair will just grow back on its own,” they say.

This turned out to be false. As I learned years later, hair doesn’t just grow back on its own to a majority of people who get alopecia areata.

The Early Days

I wasn’t some clueless parent who didn’t care about health. I’d always considered myself aware, informed, proactive. I’d been feeding her fresh, homemade meals made of real wholesome foods since the day she started eating solid food. I was mindful of products we used on and around her.

Yet when her hair started falling out, I felt completely lost. The information simply wasn’t there. Google searches led to dead ends. Medical websites offered vague explanations and no real solutions. Like most people, I intuitively wanted to treat the hair and the scalp, so I turned to the only natural remedies I knew: essential oils, candlenut oil, and fresh aloe vera gel that I made from aloe leaves myself.

It seems almost laughable now, but back then, with so little information available about children’s alopecia, those essential oils, candlenut oil and aloe vera felt like my only weapons against something I couldn’t understand.

Our appointment with a pediatric dermatologist came 10 months after the first signs of alopecia, and after a visit to the General Practitioner who ordered blood tests that came back “normal”. Between the commute and long wait time, we spent a whole day for the appointment only to walk away with a diagnosis of alopecia areata, 365-degree photography, and a prescription for minoxidil and immunosuppressant cream, both of which the specialist thought may not even help and “not worth the side effects” for a two-year-old.

The Lengthy and Expensive Chase for A Solution

As things got worse, I became my own detective, determined to figure this out. After seeing about 10 different doctors, specialists and practitioners, and not getting any helpful or meaningful answer from either one of them, it became very clear to me that I had to take matters into my own hands if I wanted a different outcome for my child.

In our experience, here’s how things usually go:

Family doctors (also known as general practitioners or primary care physicians) would write referrals for you to see a specialist and order basic lab tests that usually come back “normal”. It ends there. One of our doctors said it was nothing to be concerned of. “Kids lose hair sometimes,” he shrugged. “It’ll grow back.” Of course it didn’t.

Dermatologists would ask you what’s going on, and you explain in length what happened, when the hair loss started, and anything else your child is feeling. They would then go straight on to prescribing minoxidil, steroid or immunosuppressant cream or ointment. These seem to be the standard protocol, as if none of what you just explained to them even matters, never once mentioning how these drugs work or their potential side effects. If your kid is older or you’re an adult, they would probably prescribe steroid injections too. You don’t know if these drugs will “work”, because “it’s alopecia, it’s autoimmune, the cause is unknown”, so you’re to buy these topical treatment that cost hundreds of dollars and try them out.

And then you hear that you should see functional medicine or naturopathic doctors for a different take on this, to figure out the “root cause”, correct? Well, in our experience, functional medicine or naturopathic doctors operate in a similar sequence as allopathic doctors, except much longer appointment time and they treat with supplements instead of pharmaceuticals. Where I live, you’ll have to pay for those appointments because it doesn’t fall under public healthcare. They take your history in length, and you walk away with a list of supplements to take and expensive functional tests to do to “figure out the root cause”. You’ll then have to book appointments again to read the test results, where any anomalies are usually treated with more supplements. You’ll usually have to keep going back with more follow-up appointments. Each appointment = expense. Functional tests usually range in the hundreds to thousands because you never only need one test, and supplements can easily rack up to hundreds.

Our experience with Chinese medicine practitioners was mixed. One said that my child was not fed well because we didn’t give her cow’s milk at 3 years old (gasp!) and that this hair loss was not a big deal as it was simply a sign of malnourishment. Laughable, as it was anything but malnourishment. Another wouldn’t see her as a patient because she was “too young”.

After a major setback following a diet protocol that used to “work well”, and after thousands of dollars at a functional medicine or naturopathic doctor led to no answer, we saw was a master acupuncturist who wouldn’t go into discussing specific condition, but rather, focus on restoring her overall health and constitution. 5 months of regular acupuncture sessions and thousands of dollars and lots of missed school time later, I can say that my child’s overall health and energy levels transformed in the best way possible. Hair regrowth was rapid during the time we did acupuncture sessions. She didn’t get sick even when exposed, her energy levels skyrocketed, and overall it was like her health was reset. However, great as it was, acupuncture alone did not stop recurring hair loss flare ups if we did not watch what she was eating.

It was during this time that I got a call from the pediatric dermatologist’s office to say that we can finally book an appointment to see the specialist from our referral 5 years ago. 5 years to see a specialist. I couldn’t be happier to say “No, thanks. I don’t need to see one anymore.”

The Relentless Search Despite Cycles of Setbacks

My priority through all of this was one: get my daughter’s hair loss to stop and get all her hair to grow back, all without compromising her overall health with toxic treatment.

We had tried the thousands of dollars worth of supplements, herbal tinctures, months of energy medicine sessions, desensitisation, functional lab tests, herbal medicine, essential oils, shampoos, and multiple versions of diet interventions. Heck, I had even bought a $200 immunosuppressant and steroid ointment when my doctor insisted and convinced me that my daughter was going to lose all her hair if we didn’t use those ASAP. We tried it on a few times, but it was so irritating on the scalp, I hated the idea of using them, and they soon ended up in the trash.

Through all that we tried, we had multiple cycles of hair regrowth followed by setbacks: multiple cycles of recurring hair loss as well. How can she have hair loss flare ups while doing the very thing that used to bring her full hair growth?

The Emotional Impact

Many families aren’t as fortunate as we were. I know parents who’ve watched their children’s confidence crumble, who’ve heard their little ones ask why they don’t have hair like other kids, who’ve come home from school upset because of what other kids have said to them, who’ve watched strangers stare and whisper.

We were spared all those things. We were fortunate to be in very supportive communities, but we were also equipped to handle any potential social circumstances that may have come up.

Having this happen when they are really young almost helps in a way, as they are too young to understand or be upset by it. But if you’re a parent who’s wondering whether this will affect them more as they get older, honestly, I think so. So if you have a child who’s dealing with alopecia at any age, I would suggest that you get on it ASAP. Don’t wait for it to get better on its own, don’t hope for a miracle drug, don’t hang your hopes on clinical trials. I personally wouldn’t put my kid’s long term health on a gamble by letting her body be the experimental medium for toxic drugs.

The Foundation That Changed Everything

Food.

It sounds almost insultingly simple, doesn’t it? After all the specialists and supplements and expensive labs, some of which helped and most of which didn’t, the answer was sitting in our kitchen.

But here’s what I learned: children’s alopecia isn’t adult alopecia. Kids don’t have decades of stress and hormonal changes and lifestyle factors. Their bodies are different. Their triggers are different.

Acupuncture was transformative for us… it changed my daughter’s foundational health and energy in ways I never thought possible. It accelerated hair growth beautifully. But even with all that progress, the hair loss would flare up again if we didn’t address the dietary triggers.

Time and time again, I discovered that every intervention would help temporarily, but the lasting change only came when we got her food foundation right.

We had tried multiple versions of diet interventions. But we’ve stuck to this particular one for 2.5 years, watching, observing, experimenting with how to reintroduce and expand her food list and then learning things the hard way. This is what we came back to again and again in 2.5 years to get her to waist-length hair.

Your Child’s Journey Doesn’t Have to Be Ours

You don’t have to waste years hanging your hopes on a “cure” that comes in the form of a pill, cream, ointment, or injection. You don’t have to just feel helpless and powerless watching your child’s confidence crumble while the worries of them being emotionally affected as they get older keep you up at night.

But let me be clear about what this approach is, and what it isn’t.

First, you need to rule out acute causes: mold exposure, heavy metals, infections, or other environmental triggers. These require immediate attention and different interventions.

If you’ve tried everything else and the diagnosis has confirmed this is autoimmune, but you haven’t systematically addressed diet, then food is your starting point. Not because it’s a magic cure, but because it’s the most effective triage.

Food is not everything, but it’s a huge part of it. We are what we eat, digest, absorb, metabolise, and eliminate. But deeper healing requires addressing multiple layers and aspects of what affect our overall ‘health’. Our body is complex, and complete healing honours that complexity.

But for children with alopecia, food is where we start when you have ruled out acute causes of alopecia.

Food is often a significant source of triggers, but there are usually deeper underlying causes at play. You will subsequently work to identify what those are for your child. But we use food to stop hair loss quickly and jumpstart regrowth so your child can start healing while you figure out and address the root causes.

There will be other steps needed to support system-wide healing. But those steps work better when your child’s body isn’t constantly fighting inflammatory food triggers.

Start with food. Stop the hair loss. Start the regrowth. Then you work on everything else.

Because every child and adult deserves to feel confident with the hair they’re meant to have.