Loose Women panellist Sherrie Hewson has spoken out about a terrifying ordeal that happened to her when she was starring as Maureen Holdsworth on Coronation Street, and has admitted losing her hair due to the stress of it all.
Speaking to the Mirror, Sherrie claims that a man she worked with on the Coronation Street harassed and assaulted her, leaving her afraid to tell anyone what had happened. This was just the latest in a series of traumatic experiences for Sherrie, who has faced domestic violence from a violent partner and betrayal by her husband.
She admits she has spent nearly thirty years in a loveless marriage, battling alcoholism and an eating disorder. Amidst all of the emotional and physiological stress of these traumatic events and resulting depression, it is no wonder that Sherrie also experienced female hair loss.
Describing her lowest point in 2003 after her marriage broke down, she says:
“Ken and I had finally split. I’d piled on weight and resorted to wearing wigs to hide my hair loss and became more and more depressed. I got to the point where everything seemed pointless and I considered throwing myself into traffic on a motorway.”
Since joining the Loose Women panel, however, Sherrie says she has found the support she needed to get her life back on track.
A small study conducted in France and published in the Annals of Oncology has suggested a link between baldness early in life and a greater risk of prostate cancer.
Researchers compared 281 cancer-free men with 388 male prostate cancer patients, asking them to recall any instances of hair loss or thinning they had experienced during different stages of their lives. They were shown a number of balding patterns and asked if they matched any hair loss they had experienced at age 20, 30 and 40.
Results
The results of the study appeared to show that the men who had prostate cancer were twice as likely to have experienced balding and hair loss in their early twenties as cancer-free participants. It was also found that men who had had hair loss in their 30s and 40s did not seem to be as much at risk from prostate cancer as the younger group.
Despite what the results of the study may appear to suggest, both the NHS and Cancer Research UK have warned to treat the findings with caution. Oliver Childs, Cancer Research UK senior science information officer, said:
“This small study doesn’t provide enough evidence to confirm whether male pattern baldness is associated with prostate cancer, especially as previous research has actually shown the opposite.”
Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles may have come up with a cure for stress-related hair loss.
Scientists were focusing on a study of gut function in mice with hair loss or alopecia when they accidentally came across a treatment for hair loss induced by stress, in the form of a daily injection. It was found that by injecting a number of bald laboratory mice over five days with astressin-B, a compound that blocks the way the body normally responds to stress, the mice regrew their hair.
Although they did not set out to study hair loss or growth, the UCLA scientists appear to have created a treatment for hair loss that surpasses others available at present. The regrowth in hair for the mice lasted for up to four months (after five days of treatment) and the hair was thicker than expected.
The leader of the research team, Dr. Mulugeta Million, commented on the findings, saying:
“What we can reasonably say is that the antagonist initiates the hair cycle…In bald individuals, and in these mice, the hair follicles are in a resting stage. The antagonist awakes them. It turns on the cycle, and the growing phase starts.”
This discovery could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of stress-related hair loss conditions such as alopecia.
A practice nurse from Inverness has spoken out to a local newspaper about her own struggle with breast cancer, chemotherapy and losing her hair.
Isobel MacKenzie, 51, was devastated when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. As a practice nurse, Isobel spends a good deal of her week advising women on how to check for breast cancer, but she never expected to get cancer herself.
Speaking to The Inverness Courier, Isobel described her feelings at the time:
“I was absolutely gobsmacked. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. Obviously it is a shock, it is a complete and utter shock. You can’t describe to anyone how it feels until you are in that position.”
As part of her battle against the illness, Isobel had a mastectomy and six treatments of chemotherapy. The latter caused her thick blonde hair to thin considerably, forcing Isobel to cut her hair short and wear a cold cap, a device purported to reduce hair loss. She said:
“My hair certainly got very, very thin, but I didn’t actually lose my hair. Luckily I had really thick hair. Initially it came out in balls, like golf balls. I wasn’t upset, but it was a bit disappointing.”
Isobel has been given the all-clear and has been in remission for one year.
En coup de sabre refers to a type of linear scleroderma, an auto-immune disorder which causes lines of thickened skin and problems with the muscles and bones underneath. This particular variety affects the scalp and can cause hair loss.
Linear scleroderma en coup de sabre is characterised by a dent or a furrow in the skin, most often on the scalp. This is where the condition derives its name, as the indentations have been described as looking like the affected person has been struck by a sabre or a sword.
As this is an extremely rare disorder, not many cases of it are reported. However, one remarkable story has appeared recently in regional newspaper The Portsmouth News, in which teenager Sian Cook explains what happens when she was diagnosed with linear morphea.
Sian was just 13 when she awoke one morning to find that her hair had fallen out in clumps on her pillow. She says:
“I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening and what was causing it. I was always wearing a hat because I had so much hair falling out. It looked like a reverse mohican, and instead of having a strip of hair, I had strips of baldness.”
She was diagnosed in London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she now returns for medication and chemotherapy treatment to keep the condition under control.
TV personality and famous footballer’s wife Coleen Rooney has been pictured in the Mail Online with what appears to be a thinning patch on her head, prompting speculation that years of wearing hair extensions has caused her to suffer from traction alopecia.
As the erstwhile leader of the WAGs, Coleen has changed her look numerous times and has dyed, bleached and straightened her hair along with it. This can cause the hair to become weak and brittle, and can occasionally cause temporary hair loss.
The worst offender, however, is hair extensions. Most high-profile female celebrities have been spotted wearing extensions at one time or another, and Coleen is no exception. The excessive pulling and tension on the scalp these extensions inflict can cause damage to hair follicles and hair loss.
This seems to be the case in the Mail Online’s recent pictures of Wayne Rooney’s wife, who was on the way to lunch in Liverpool with her baby son and parents as the wind caught her hair and revealed what looked like a thinning patch of hair near her parting. She did not appear to have any hair extensions in at the time, so it could be that Coleen is allowing her hair and scalp recover.
Amy Gibson, an actress who has had alopecia since she was 14 years old, is set to appear on US network Lifetime Television’s women’s show The Balancing Act.
The Balancing Act is a morning programme aiming to inspire and support women and help them to achieve success in every area of their life. With this goal in mind, the show is teaming up with Omni Media’s Women Magazine to launch a special segment called the “Hear us Roar Healthy Living Series”.
Appearing as a special guest on the segment is Amy Gibson, as soap opera actress most famous for her role as Colette in General Hospital. Amy was also diagnosed with alopecia as a teenager, and now works to help women find human hair wigs and other hair replacement solutions to suit them and boost their self-esteem.
She says:
“50 million women in this country are living with hair loss and it’s not something we learn about until it happens to us, a family member or friend.”
“The Balancing Act is a great opportunity to educate viewers about hair loss and also to let them know that there are fabulous wig options out there to help them feel like themselves again – and hair loss is about more than just hair. Women and cancer unfortunately, is a large population with a number of issues.”
The show will air on February 14th, 2011.
According to BBC News, scientists at Edinburgh University are in the process of developing a new device that could reduce some of the side-effects of chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients. The side effects it could possibly prevent include sickness, a weakened immune system and even hair loss.
The micro device works by using a small amount of the metal palladium, coated in a substance which allows it to penetrate cells safely to trigger reactions. This will allow cancer treatments to work at the site of the tumour, rather than negatively impacting on normal cell activity throughout the body.
Pending further research, scientists believe that this device can be used to treat cancer patients and hopefully limit the side-effects of aggressive chemotherapy treatments. The device is still in the early stages of development, but it could help to reduce hair loss and sickness in cancer patients.
Professor Mark Bradley from Edinburgh University’s chemistry school, which is working alongside the Universiti Kebangsaan in Malaysian on this groundbreaking research, commented on the discovery. He said:
“This technique potentially gives us the ability to deliver drugs to exactly where they are needed, for example in targeting cancerous tumours.”
In a recent photoshoot for her upcoming musical Calendar Girls, Irish actress and singer Bernie Nolan revealed that her hair is now starting to grow back following chemotherapy treatment.
Bernie, 50, was diagnosed with breast cancer in April last year and lost all of her hair during an aggressive course of chemotherapy treatment. She also underwent a mastectomy and radiotherapy treatment. As her hair was falling out in clumps, Bernie decided to take matters into her own hands and shave her head. She said at the time:
“I thought, “Get rid of it – I’m in charge of this disease, it’s not in charge of me.”
Bernie has now been given the all-clear from doctors and her hair has started growing back. She showed off her new blonde style in a recent promotional photoshoot for Calendar Girls, the hit musical she is set to star in from today (February 8th) in Dublin.
Posing with co-stars Jennifer Ellison, Danielle Lineker, Lisa Riley and Lynda Bellingham, Bernie revealed that she will also be baring all in the role.
Calendar Girls is particularly apt for Bernie, as it contains subject matter close to her own heart. The plot centres on twelve women who pose naked for a calendar, in order to raise much-needed funds for cancer research.
An adventurous woman from Hereford is planning to celebrate her upcoming 40th birthday in unique style; by jumping out of a plane to raise money for an inspirational children’s hair loss charity.
Michelle Joinson from Whitecross Road in Hereford is planning to do a parachute jump this Saturday 5th February in Cirencester, and is calling for sponsors in her local area to come forward and donate to a worthy cause.
The money raised from the jump will be donated to the Little Princess Trust, a children’s hair loss charity in Hereford. The Trust aims to provide children who have lost their hair through alopecia or cancer treatment with human hair wigs. The hope is that these wigs and hair pieces will help to boost their confidence and help them cope with their hair loss better.
Michelle’s fundraising money will hopefully cut waiting times for children hoping to receive a wig from the Little Princess Trust.
Michelle, who works for a refrigeration equipment company in Rotherwas, said of her upcoming adventure:
“My 40th birthday is approaching and I wanted to do something to start my 40s off,”
