Austin’s Provider of Alopecia Areata Treatment
Throughout the United States, there are an estimated 6.8 million people living with a form of alopecia areata, a disease that causes hair loss. While there aren’t immediate risks or physical pain associated with the disease, it can cause discomfort in your appearance, embarrassment, and a desire to avoid people, even loved ones.
At Tru-Skin Dermatology in Austin, TX, we offer alopecia areata treatment options so you can get your life back. As a leading provider of medical dermatology services to Austin, we deliver exceptional, compassionate care to patients of all ages, including seniors with Medicare and teenagers struggling with the skin changes of puberty. With years of experience and a founder who’s got an impressive standing in the dermatology field, trust us to provide world-class, advanced care for your skin conditions, from free skin cancer screenings to alopecia areata treatments.
Symptoms of Alopecia Areata
Alopecia areata is characterized by hair loss over the body, typically in patchy circular formations. This is caused by your body’s immune system attacking your own hair follicles, shrinking them and drastically slowing the production of hair, leading to baldness when production stops. These bald patches usually don’t itch, but they can be embarrassing and create anxiety regarding one’s appearance.
Alopecia is a polygenic disease, meaning that several genes from both parents must be inherited for the disease to be passed on. This makes it unlikely that you’ll pass the condition on to your children, which comes as a relief to many patients. There are three widely known forms of alopecia areata, including:
- Alopecia areata patchy form – This is the most common type of the condition, with these alopecia areata symptoms presenting as one or more coin-sized or larger bald patches on the scalp or other parts of the body.
- Alopecia totalis – This form causes total hair loss on the scalp.
- Alopecia universalis – Characterized by total hair loss all over the body, including the scalp and face. This form isn’t as common .
More detailed alopecia areata symptoms include hair that’s thin close to the scalp but is thicker at the ends, hair loss on one side of the scalp, significant and otherwise unexplained hair loss in a short period of time, and pitted or pocked fingernails.
Treatment Options
While there is no cure for alopecia areata, there are treatment options, which vary depending on the form of alopecia areata that you have. For mild cases (patients who experience less than 50% hair loss), alopecia areata treatment options focus on stopping or hindering the immune system’s attack on your follicles and/or stimulating hair growth. For more severe cases, the alopecia areata treatment protocols include oral and injectable medicines, but these may not be effective for every patient and do not prevent future episodes of hair loss. Corticosteroids, both injectable and topical, are common treatment options to stimulate hair production, along with topical minoxidil and anthralin cream.
When you come to our office, we’ll have a consultation where we get to know you, your symptoms, and your struggle, then decide together what the best course of treatment is. If you aren’t seeing the results you want, we’ll have periodic checkups to adjust your alopecia areata treatment until we find what works best for you.
Heal Your Skin
We know how much this disease can affect your life, so we offer viable, tested alopecia areata treatment options. This disease often occurs with other immune conditions, such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, hypothyroidism, Addison’s disease, anemia, lupus, diabetes, and others. When you see us, we’ll take a whole history so we understand your unique medical profile, adjusting treatments if needed to suit your other conditions.