Hi Everyone,

I'm new here, so I apologize if I'm missing something. I think I belong in this group based on what my dermatologist told me.

I have a weird form of alopecia that seems to run in my family, but everyone else is male! My mom had great eyebrows, and so did I until menopause. It started with bumps that were often white, and I could dig out these hard little balls. But sometimes, it would be this white, sticky stuff that seemed to cling to the root of a hair. Gradually it's gotten to a point where I'm losing chunks of eyebrow hair, I have inflammation, and the damn bumps that mostly form on the hair root.

I've been seeing a dermatologist, and the most heartbreaking part of it is there seems to be no answer. I've tried different meds, and they seem to work temporarily and then everything is a mess again. Right now I'm so frustrated I've been making things worse by digging into the bumps so now I have a lot of redness, along with hair loss.

Fortunately it's only my eyebrows, although growing up I had bumps on my the backs of my arms and legs and now I have almost no hair there at all, but also no bumps. But that's fine! It's my eyebrows that are driving me crazy!

I've never been this bad, and it seemed like using Rogain made it worse. I hate eyebrow pencil (although better than nothing) because to me it looks so fake when part of my eyebrows have hair and then there's a completely bald spot. I almost wish I'd just go ahead and lose them so I could use the paste on ones. Of course, the inflammation and bumps just make everything look worse.

I'm 65 and I try so hard to take care of myself. The hair on my head is actually still very dark, and I'm just getting to a point where I'm starting to see a fair amount of gray (I pull them out!). I know I'm fortunate that it's not the hair on my head or my eyelashes, but there are so many "losses" with aging, and this really makes me feel old and unattractive.

Anne