A TEENAGER who received a shock stress-related alopecia diagnosis in lockdown is raising awareness of hair loss.

Molly Brady, of Prudhoe, first started to notice small patches of hair falling out when brushing it. Larger chunks later began to fall out.

“There was an ongoing joke I had a bit of a receding hair line”, said Molly (17). “But when we were going back to school, that’s when I started panicking.”

Molly turned to the Alopecia UK website for advice and in doing so, came across its charity section.

She said: “I was like ‘you know what’, I think this is probably the best approach. Obviously it’s a hard time. Instead of being comfortable being sad about it, I’m just going to turn it into awareness because nobody really knows about it and people my age didn’t know if it was possible for that to happen.

“I wanted people to know because I have no doubt in my mind that it’s probably happened to quite a few people my age and people who I see daily. I wanted people to know that you can’t just assume that someone’s cut their hair or shaved their hair in a funny way to get attention, it can be stress-related. In school, we do so many talks about the mental side of stress, but (physical) is just not talked about at all. It needs to be because it’s a problem.”

On the first day back at school, Molly and friend Hannah Cawood, of Hexham, shared their plans to fundraise for Alopecia UK on social media. The pair walked 100 miles in a month and through cake sales, have so far raised over £900. With restrictions easing, they soon hope to set up coffee mornings and tuck shops in school.

“I was really worried about my appearance because I knew people would probably be laughing”, said Molly. “People either thought I’d shaved it off for a laugh or were jumping to conclusions. I couldn’t tell them I was losing it.

“I think the fact that I didn’t’ see anyone when it started happening stressed me out more and obviously it’s a vicious cycle, the more I stress, the more hair falls out.

“Everyone was really supportive, but people were shocked. People had a lot of sympathy, especially because of my age. I don’t have anything I can sit there and put my finger on and be like ‘that caused it.’ I think it was just a build up but nothing major happened and that’s the scary thing.”