Nicholas Peyton (Nicky) was born in June 2001, he is the youngest of 5 children. Nicky had beautiful dark brown hair, and smiled almost instantly. He was a healthy newborn. When he was 2 weeks old he was put in the hospital with a high fever, it lasted several days, we never did know what it was. Nicky began loosing his hair. I was not alarmed because my other two sons lost thier hair as babies to. Nicky had GERD (reflux) really bad, they switch his formula several times. His hair quickly grew back, it was dark and thick again. But at 8 weeks he got really sick again with a high fever, he was extremely dehydrated and was put back in the hospital for close to a week. At one point they told me they wern't sure if he was even going to make it. I prayed and prayed, and when he did get to come home he began loosing his hair again. Well I thought it strange, but the doctors were not concerned. At about three months he had began growing dark straight hair that seemed to stick up all over his head. It was cute though. When he was 6 months his oldest brother got chicken pox, so did Nicky. Again Nicky got extremly sick, it lasted for a few weeks, he lost his hair agian. The doctors still were not worried. His hair did grow back somewhat, it was still really short. Around the time that he was a year old he developed another really high fever, we still didn't know why, after that round with the fever he began loosing his hair in patches. Quarter size bald spots were noticiable all over his scalp. He was 16 months old when I took him to his pediatrician and she said she thought it was Alopecia. They sent us to a Dermatologist in Lexington Ky. She took a biopsy and confirmed it. But gave us the news "there is nothing I can do". Well that was Nov 2002, I looked online but all i could find at the time was the NAAF website, we made a donation to receive the magizines periodically. Nicky kept patches up until he was 2 then it progressed to Alopecia Univerasalis. He had no eyelashes or eyebrows. He began getting alot of "nice haircut", "hey slick", "oh has he had radiation".... comments everytime we went anywhere. He would just lay on me and try to hide. To be honest at first it made me really mad, "why can't people mind thier own business" was my comment at first. Then when Nicky started preschool we decided to "teach" the kids about it. This was a good thing. When others would ask that was new to the class, Nicky's "friends" would even pipe in and tell them 'oh he has alopecia isn't it cool?....." Nick never liked wearing caps not even in the winter when I would fret and worry that he would freeze to death. Nicky now has eyelashes, eyebrows and thin white hair all over his scalp.
Last christmas we bought a house and he had to change schools, things changed for Nicky. He began wearing his coat with a hood all day in school, I finally began sending him with a "hoodie sweatshirt" every day, so he would take his hot coat off, but he never removed his hoodie. I wasn't sure if this was helping or hurting, I went to the school talked to the teachers, principal, kids...
Nothing seemed to help. This year when he began 2nd grade the children began calling him "fat head" or "big head'. HIs school has a zero tolerance for bullying policy, but I know that teachers dont' hear everything. When Nicky is at home, church or the daycare he is happy, outgoing, & mischevious. When it comes to going to school he is shy & sad. Any suggestions from anyone that has went through this would be great. God Bless..