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BALD AND BOLD Catalina Van Bodegom is an 18 year old with Alopecia Areata. She contacted us last month to ask if we’d be interested in helping her spread awareness about her condition. Although it’s a common auto-immune disease, Cataline feels like it’s not very well-undestood.
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he condition first affected Catalina when she was 13 and after five years she is now completely bald; “As an 18 year old girl, it’s been a bit of a struggle dealing with it but I’ve been powering through it and have learnt to embrace and love it” She felt that sharing her thoughts in an article could help to give other girls who are in her position confidence to embrace it, as well as well as helping others understand the condition. So meet Catalina and learn more....
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What exactly is Alopecia Areata? Breaking down the term “Alopecia Areata”, “Alopecia” is the partial or complete absence of hair from areas of the body where it normally grows (a.k.a baldness) and “Areata” is something occurring in circumscribed areas or patches (thanks, Google). There are other descriptors which can refer to other ways where or how the hair loss is occurring or the cause of it. It has different levels of severity, so there might be just a coin-sized area of hair loss on the scalp, or it could affect large areas. It can occur at any place on the body. How did you feel about it now, compared to how you did when you found out? I started getting bald patches at the age of 13, they were small so covering them wasn’t an issue and didn’t bother me a lot. The doctors thought it was due to stress and we used a topical cream and it eventually grew back. I then had another flare-up close to when I started my A-Levels. I woke up one morning and saw so much hair on my pillow. It’s not evident at first but after a few weeks, you notice the thinning too. The standard amount that people
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