My 12 year old son was diagnosed with Alapecia about 1.5 years ago and has lost maybe 40% on his head, total on arms and legs, most eye lashes and eyebrows. After about 6 months of unsuccessful treatments with a local dermatologist we found two doctors in Chicago that specialize in Alopecia, Dr. Brian Bonish at Rush and Dr. Amy Paller at Children Hospital. The wait list was 6 to 8 months but we managed to get in earlier.

He started taking Methylprednisolone 64mg 3 times a day once a month plus Clobetasol Propionate foam and Rogaine twice daily. After ~3 months it has triggered complete regrowth to a point we had to trim his eyebrows. At that point the doctor decided to stop all treatment. After about 1 month it all started to fall out again. We got back on the medications and regrowth restarted. Still fighting with getting his eyebrows back, they are slowly starting to come back. We have also noticed that towards the end of the month he would start tinning and doctor decided to increase Methylprednisolone from once a month to every other week. Only visible side effects are mood swings the two days fallowing the medication as well as redness on the face. We take it on Friday to give him the weekend to recover.

At this point we are trying to address the root cause by adding herbal anti-inflammatory supplements Turmeric, Ginger, Boswellia as well as diet changes with reducing varies fat's like polyunsaturated vegetable oils, margarine, vegetable shortening, partially hydrogenated oils and all foods that contain trans-fatty acids. We also need to do heavy metal toxicity testing. All the other standard test have been done with normal results.   

One other interesting fact is that he was confirmed infected with H1N1 but it was about 1 to 2 years before Alapecia symptoms. He did go through it with no major issues. It is possible it triggered something with his immune system. Besides Eczema when he was younger otherwise is very healthy and consumes a very diverse diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. We are also supplementing with vitamins and extra 1000 units per day of vitamin D. His twin sister thankfully does not have any symptoms but did have slight Vitiligo which effected her knees but appears to be dormant for about 8 years now. Finally there is Alapecia in the family history, my mother had a few patches in the 90s which after injections wend away and her mother had more extensive life long symptoms.