Hi there,

This is my first post, so I do apologize for not even contributing to this forum in the past. This might be a long post but I want to provide as much details as possible.

My wife went back to work from maternity leave in August of 2016 from our daughters birth. Our son went back full time to daycare, and it was extremely upsetting for him as one would expect. He was acting out, emotional, extremely tired etc... A few weeks later my brother and his wife had lost their daughter at birth, it was an event that everyone took hard and our son of course knew the situation and understood as much as a 3 year old could. 

On Oct 27th 2016 our son went for a routine haircut, he had a full head of hair at this time, we did not notice any hair loss/spots until after his haircut, it was on the back side of his head, fairly small - a dime size I would say. We didn't think anything of it, we just thought maybe the barber knicked his head and caused the mark. Needless to say, 2 weeks later he started shedding extreme amounts of hair, his pillow/hat/shirt everything, was covered in hair, in a matter of 2 weeks he ended up loosing about 40% of his hair, mainly on the top and sides. The hair loss then stopped.

Unfortunately, we did not know what was happening during the hair loss and it was 2 weeks before we noticed the amount of hair being lost and thinning happening - by the time we took him in for some blood work and further examination it was 3 weeks into this episode, all the blood work came back in range and good. The doctor did however say the D was on the lower range, but was still within range. 

We had a referral to a dermatologist - unfortunately we did not get to see her for another 3 months! We had nothing, no way to help. We had no firm answer, we had nothing but google - it sucked.

From reading google, I was convinced it was Telogen Effluvium, but Im not a specialist so I was only assuming. I was assuming because the 3 month timeframe matched up to when my son had some stressful events around him, going back to daycare full time, a close family member who had a daughter pass at birth. 

We finally went to the dermatologist in February, 3 months after the hair loss, in the meantime without any treatment it was starting to grow back by itself - tons of little hair showing up etc... At this point the dermatologist said it was Alopecia Aereta and she prescribed a topical cream. We started to apply the cream immediately. From my own research I was still so convinced it was TE that was the start, she did not turn that idea down and said its possible it was TE then turned into AA.

So we used the cream, we're not sure if it worked because his hair was already growing back by the time we got to see the Dermatologist, he ended up growing all his hair back fairly fast, and by April it was 90% filled in, a little thinner as it was still growing, but no scalp could be seen.

Fast foward to last month - June. On June 7. His whole energy levels just dropped - he was exhausted, almost falling asleep at random times, was moody, would lay down at daycare during play time. We picked up on this right away this time because of what happened in the past I kept checking his hair and 2 days later his hair loss started. 

For a whole week, he was not himself, very low energy, very moody/emotional etc.. The hair loss continued, while it was not as intense as the first time, it was still easily falling out with a pull test.

We took him to our doctor for some blood tests, they checked his D, Iron, B, Thyroid. All came back fine.  We called the dermatologist and got in with her... The only answer she said and it pissed me off was "Oh, thats just the alopecia". I said well whats with his energy levels? His moods etc.. that can't be normal? She said "No, we should look into that"... So...... more blood test, this time, blood count, white blood etc... poor little guy.

It took a few days, I went to pickup the blood results myself because the dermatologist was taking too long to call us back, and we were being aggressive about getting some answers, its our son. I looked at the blood work, it was fairly easy for me to understand it.. His white cell levels were in a side column under outside normal limits, they were 1.0 higher... nothing extremely high, but higher then normal. Aside from that the Neutrophils and Monocytes were on the higher side as well.

The Dermatologist called us, and said "Everything is fine!" I was pissed because she didn't know I had went and picked up the blood work, and I seen for myself they were elevated, I just hung up on her. We had already had our paediatrician appointment the same day so we were going to discuss it with him.

The paediatrician had a look at the blood work and agreed, the elevated levels are something to look into and something could be triggering this AA. From here... we did MORE blood work, now this time we also did Urine and stool samples.. Everything came back fine, as of right now we are still waiting for the Urine kidney/liver results to come back.

To date, his hair loss is still going, but fairly slow. It was getting noticeable thinner because it wasn't 100% back since the first loss, but we cut it short now.

My questions 

Is this normal? Is this normal for someones energy levels to crash for no reason and then start shedding hair?

Is it normal for white blood cell count to jump? 

Im only asking these questions because him being a 3 year old, can't tell us how he's feeling, and were not getting some solid answers from anything here. We will be taking him to Sick Kids here in Toronto and see what we can find out further if it is something causing his episodes.

Please help us get some understanding here, We are ok with the Alopecia, it is accepted. We just want to know if we are crazy for getting all these tests done, were convinced there is something going on and his mood/energy levels are related to the hair loss which are in relation to something else we don't know of.

Thank you in advance. Again, sorry for the long post and I hope one day I can help contribute here.

Mike