The Newsy Neighbour
January Issue #111
Article provided by:Kyle Penn
**To see photos of the transformation, please see the current issue of The Newsy Neighbour Magazine at www.thenewsyneighbour.com or at your doorstep.
“This is a picture of what my son looked like before
the treatment,” Monica said, pulling up a photo on her phone and showing it to
me. “And this is what he looked like afterward,” she proudly stated, swiping to
the next photo. The difference was truly staggering. Monica’s son suffers from
alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss due to the body’s
inability to recognize its own cells, leading to the self-destruction of tissue
and hair follicles. As a result, Monica’s son’s head was nearly bare in the
first picture she showed me, with only a few patches of wispy hair left
untouched by the ailment. The second picture, however, is truly astonishing. In
it, her son is grinning wide, sporting nearly a full head of thick, brown locks.
Amazing.
There is no known cure for alopecia. In most cases,
those suffering from the illness are forced to either wear hats or shave their
heads to avoid the uncomfortable societal gaze that comes part and parcel with
spot baldness. So how did Monica’s son – just 12 years old when he was
diagnosed with alopecia, now 14 – combat these socially-debilitating symptoms?
I asked her precisely this question, and she began to pull several items out of
a small draw-string bag she had with her. First, she produced a plastic bottle
of jojoba oil. Next, a small, glass vial of cedarwood essential oil. Then,
essential oils of lavender, rosemary, and thyme. Finally, she brought out a plastic
bottle with a rollerball on top of it and waved her hands over everything she
had just placed in front of me.
“All natural essential oils,” she told me. She went on
to explain that the jojoba was a carrier oil, and the basis for the blend. By
adding equal amounts of the other oils to the jojoba, she produced the mixture
that was in the bottle with the rollerball top. “When we started out,” she told
me, “we’d spray his scalp twice daily with this blend. Then, as the treatment started
to work, we’d massage it in using the rollerball much less often – maybe 3 or 4
times a week.” The effect of this treatment was the transition from the first
picture to the second – from a nearly-bald scalp to one full of hair.
When I asked Monica how she came upon this treatment
and why she decided to try it out, her reasoning couldn’t have been more
logical. They had to do something about it, she told me, because dealing with a
condition like alopecia as a teenager is about as traumatic an experience as
someone could go through, which is an assessment I certainly agree with. Being
a teen is hard enough – even the smallest of differences is picked out and
fixated upon by seemingly everyone. Having a pimple on the wrong day can seem
like the end of the world, so I can’t even image what it would be like to go
through those years struggling with something like alopecia. Monica nodded
emphatically, adding: “The other alternative would have been corticosteroid
injections to his head, which…I don’t know, I’m just not comfortable with. So
we thought, why not try something natural instead?”
It was this leap of faith – a belief in the healing,
restorative powers of natural, essential oils in lieu of chemicals and regular
injections – that did the trick. Monica’s son visits the barber regularly these
days, and he holds his head high and confidently when he’s out in public, which
is marked change from before.
“Of course, we still believe modern medicine is
important,” she reassured me. “If someone has a cavity, I wouldn’t just put
oils on it and expect it to get better. But for this one thing – for us – we
thought we’d give it a try. It wasn’t going to hurt anybody, and there was a
chance it could work. As a parent, you do as much as you can for your kids. The
results weren’t instant, but he’s so proud of his hair now. It’s all about what
works for him, and for us. And this did it.”
The recipe Monica used for her son’s alopecia can be
found in An Introductory Guide for Essential Oils and Aromatherapy, from Sonoma
Press, and the necessary essential oils can be purchased locally in Strathmore.
We’re so happy that Monica and her son were able to find a solution that’s
continuing to work for them, and wish anybody else suffering from alopecia a
similar measure of success in their fight against the disease.
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