NHS offers balding women hair extensions

Aug 2005

The stress of modern life has led to an alarming increase in the number of younger women going bald.

Thirty thousand women a year in Europe - an estimated 2,250 of them in Britain, double the number of a decade ago - suffer from alopecia, or premature baldness, and those suffering significant hair loss runs into millions.


£500 treatment: the hair extensions are woven into a gauze mesh fixed to the patient's scalp

Although the exact cause of alopecia is unknown, the growing number of cases is thought to be due to increased levels of stress among women attempting to juggle family and professional responsibilities.

Elizabeth Steel, the director of Hairline International, a society for alopecia sufferers, said that hectic lifestyles and crash dieting were among the likely causes. "There is no single cause, but one reason some women develop the condition is through an iron deficiency," she said. "This can be caused by crash or yo-yo dieting, and a lifestyle that is becoming common in 30-something women: working long hours, not eating properly and leading stressful lives, which runs the body down."

Alopecia can also be triggered by certain birth control pills or an over active immune system.

Princess Caroline of Monaco famously shaved her head in 1995 after suffering hair loss, possibly from the stress of losing her husband in a speedboat accident.

Now the NHS has registered its first hair extensions therapist to tackle the problem. Unlike wigs, the hair extensions can be woven into a gauze mesh fixed to the scalp and can be brushed and styled as if they were the patient's real hair. The extensions need to be replaced every three months.

Lucinda Ellery, a hair loss treatment studio in Hammersmith, west London, receives funding and support from a number of primary care trusts throughout the UK, enabling GPs to refer patients who might be experiencing emotional trauma from their hair loss for free hair extensions.

Miss Ellery, 50, who lost two thirds of her hair after her father died when she was 10, said that she treats approximately one NHS patient a week with extensions that can cost anything from £320 to £500.

"It means that women who might not have the money can at last be treated properly," she said. "Many women who come to me have had doctors ignore them or have spent years trying to hide their alopecia. There is a great deal of ignorance and trivialisation. A woman's hair is her crowning glory, a symbol of fertility and health. Without it, you can feel quite pathetic."

Lucinda Ellery is also able to treat cancer patients who have lost their hair through chemotherapy and women who suffer from impulsive hair pulling, or trichotillomania.

Earlier this year, the pop singer Victoria Beckham was believed to be suffering from trichotillomania and had hair extensions put in.

Catherine Wallace, a 40-year-old therapist from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, was referred to Lucinda Ellery by her doctor after losing much of her hair over 20 years.

"It started when I was 18 after my uncle Michael died," she said. "It was a gradual thinning made worse by several dietary allergies. A friend noticed that my hair was getting thinner and advised I see a doctor who told me that I had alopecia. I remember walking out of the surgery and feeling like a freak.

"I was always very conscious of it and used to backcomb my hair to try and disguise it. I went to see Lucinda three years ago and it transformed me. I now live a normal life and every six weeks I go down to have the adjustments done. It's essential that this treatment exists on the NHS because there are so many girls out there living half a life. Your hair is part of your sexuality and your glamour and without it you can feel like your whole word has come apart. It is a very isolating experience."

However, one doctor, who refused to be named, said that getting hair extensions on the NHS was "the thin end of the wedge".

"I don't object to women getting treated for a genuine illness, but I do worry that this will end up with women who simply want to have nicer hair claiming they're experiencing emotional trauma. After all, we already have people getting boob jobs on the health service."