My name is Nicholas, I come from Cyprus and I want to share my alopecia story. Couple of years ago I started having alopecia signs, a bald patch on my beard near my chin. At first, I didn't even pay attention because it was quite small. Unfortunately things got worse. One more patch appeared on my beard and then another 4-5 patches on my head. Needless to say I got really upset, so I visited a doctor whose reaction was unsympathetic and not at all reassuring. He just said that it is alopecia and there is nothing I can do about it. Then I visited another doctor who started a therapy using ultrasounds to revive the hair but without any visible results. So I went to another doctor who performed blood exams which I aced them all with flying colours. She insisted that is all down to stress and started a new therapy by injecting vitamins and plasma straight to the inflicted areas once a week. It's extremely painful and expensive...Things improved a little bit and just when I started to feel better, my hair fell off again causing serious depression and frustration. I wasn't going to give up though so I turned my attention to alternative medicine. Acupuncture, ginger juice, onion juice, you name it, I tried it. All in vain though. Nothing but dead ends again. In the meantime I got really angry and annoyed when people said to me to stop worrying so much and it's nothing but stress. First of all, nobody knows how it really feels and secondly and most importantly there is no God damn switch to flip to stop stressing. At that time, I started seeing things from another prospective. I am just your average Joe, I have a beautiful, supportive wife, a lovely daughter, a nice job and in general I consider my self a very secure and lucky guy. I wasn't gonna let anybody tell me that is down to stress because this is nothing but a vicious circle. If you let it go to your brain that is down to stress you are GONNA GET STRESSED. Besides where is the definite proof? There is no scientific study to support this anyway. I got so sick of doctors saying this and to be honest I think it's a cheap excuse they use because even themselves don't know what is causing it. So I went to see another doctor I had heard about..The moment I stepped into his office, I made my self clear and clarified that if he hasn't got anything new to say besides stress,I was just going to walk away. To my great surprise, he said that he agreed with me. Yes, stress can make it worse but that is not the definite cause. He advised me to regard alopecia just like any other disease. It's something I carry inside me and we need to suppress it. So we began a cortisone based therapy (cortisone injections and apply SYNALAR cream once a day). Guess what? A month later, just one month later my patches are 85-90% healed. One more session and hopefully this will belong to the past.. I advise you to stop stressing about stress caused by alopecia and go round and round chasing your own tails. Try this treatment with your dermatologist. It's not YOU, it's just a disease that needs treatment, nothing more nothing less. Good luck everybody, stay strong and all the best to you.