Hello everyone. This is my first post here on Alopecia World. I am confused about my diagnosis, and was wondering if anyone here has had a similar experience.

I am 32 years old, and I first noticed my hair was falling out around memorial day this year. I do believe that the hair loss was very rapid. I started a new job in February, and I have pictures around that time with me with plenty of hair. So anyway, I immediately made an appointment with my doctor, in which I was given a blood test. My thyroid function was normal, and my TSH and TS4 was tested. So my doctor referred me to a determatologist. THe dermo took a biopsy of my scalp and diagnosed me with lichen planopilaris.

Meanwhile, why I has having the blood test and the biopsy, I started having pain in both of my eyes. The pain would appear two hours after I woke up, and would remain the rest of the day. My eyes felt heavy and at times my vision was blurry for a few seconds before I shook it off. I went to my eye doctor, who is an opthomalogist but no longer practices, and all he did was prescribe new glasses. He did say that my eyes were very dry. I do not believe he inspected my optic nerve in great detail.

So I went back to my original general practictioner and discussed my eye problems. SHe basically said that I had alopecia and that I was over reacting about the eye problem. I've been reading information on the internet about hair loss and other autoimmune disorders, particularly lupus. It took great convincing to make my doctor test me for lupus. I did feel like the doctor and staff were amused at my over reacting of the situation. I guess since they have all their hair and their eyes don't hurt, they absolutely cannot relate to me.

So I went for the blood test, and immediately after the blood test was taken, I started to have pain in my knees, ankles, hands and wrists. I hope my autoimmune blood test comes back with something besides alopeica, just to explain the other symptoms that are appearing one after another.

So I guess my question for everyone is this: are my symptoms listed above just my overreacting and I really do just have alopecia, or do you think there is another autoimmune disease that is contibuting to my hair loss?

I'm glad I found this forum. My hair has always been my favorite part of my body, and it is ironic that this is the one part of me that I lose. I am so discouraged and angry at the world. I hope to gain support from eveyone here. Thank you.