{"id":875753,"date":"2024-07-10T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=875753"},"modified":"2024-07-10T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T09:30:00","slug":"for-black-women-traction-alopecia-costs-us-more-than-our-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=875753","title":{"rendered":"For Black Women, Traction Alopecia Costs Us More Than Our Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s Textured<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For Black Women, Traction Alopecia Costs Us More Than Our Hair<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Three women share their journey with traction alopecia.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Annie Blay-Tettey<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Illustration by Stina Persson<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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Welcome to It\u2019s Textured, a column where we untangle the joy, trauma, confusion, and frustration that can come with Black hair. For this edition, associate beauty editor Annie Blay-Tettey speaks with three women about their journey with traction alopecia, and how hair loss ultimately helped them gain so much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s weird, thought 29-year-old Drea Okeke as she examined her new set of box braids. Getting a fresh set of braids was typically a liberating experience for the content creator, but in that moment, the relief of not having to do her hair for at least three weeks was replaced by a tinge of worry when she noticed some unusually large spaces\u2014rather than even parts\u2014between her box braids.<\/p>\n

Like many Black women, this writer included, braids are a normal part of Okeke\u2019s hair routine\u2014at least, they were. As a first-generation Nigerian, getting her hair braided was practically a birthright. \u201cMy aunt has a hair braiding salon in Queens, so [in my teen years] I used to get my braids for free,\u201d Okeke recalls. Since it was free, she\u2019d get those braids often, going back and forth between box braids, sew-in weaves, and crochet styles (her favorite), all meant to be \u201cprotective\u201d because they kept her strands tucked away.<\/p>\n

During Okeke\u2019s college years, weaves were the style du jour. \u201cWhen I got a weave, I\u2019d keep it in for as long as I could,\u201d she says. But all that repetitive tension on the scalp proved harmful over time. Patches of her hair began to fall out, eventually revealing a humbling diagnosis: traction alopecia. \u201cIt started at the top of my head, mostly around the left side,\u201d Okeke says. \u201cIt started with one patch, then grew to more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traction alopecia (TA) is a form of hair loss caused by prolonged tension on the scalp. Symptoms include scalp tenderness and pain, and pimple-like bumps in the areas of highest tension. \u201cTraction alopecia is caused by anything that pulls on the hair, ultimately damaging the root, and can lead to scarring and permanent hair loss,\u201d board-certified dermatologist Doris Day, MD, previously told Allure.<\/em> She added, \u201cIt\u2019s a process that usually takes years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Typically, the condition starts at the hairline, but in certain cases it can begin on other parts of the head, as it did for Okeke. She first noticed the patches at the top of her hair in 2020, more than a decade after she started getting braids. \u201cI thought it wasn\u2019t a big deal at the time and that it would grow back,\u201d Okeke says\u2014a thought many Black women have mistakenly believed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Ashley Parker first noticed her edges thinning, she also thought nothing of it\u2014because she was instructed to. \u201cI was getting my hair done at the salon, they had just relaxed it and my edges were coming out in chunks,\u201d recalls Parker (who is using a pseudonym for this story). \u201cI was so worried, but the hairdresser was like, \u2018Don’t worry. It\u2019ll grow back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a few hours after getting the relaxer, Parker got box braids, a style the now 22-year-old architecture student had been getting since she was in boarding school in England, starting at age 10. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to maintain your natural hair while you\u2019re in boarding school, so I would get my hair braided [in a style that lasted] for four weeks at a time,\u201d Parker explains. When she removed the braids a few weeks after the relaxer and styling appointment, though, she realized her edges had gone from thin to nonexistent.<\/p>\n

Traction alopecia can affect people of any ethnicity, but it is most commonly seen in Black women. Up to a third of us will have the condition at some point in our lives, according to a 2023 article published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.<\/em> There\u2019s been a recent increase in information and awareness about TA among dermatologists and hairstylists, but Black women dealing with the condition often do so in isolation, with feelings of shame and helplessness that can\u2019t be improved in a doctor\u2019s office or with different hairstyles.<\/p>\n

Thinning edges are not normal<\/h2>\n

Traction alopecia at its most severe (large patches of hair falling out) would be terrifying to most, but the earliest sign of TA, thinning edges, is something Black women seem to be particularly attuned to. Crystal Aguh, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in Baltimore, says she believes most people are familiar with the concept of traction alopecia, even if they don\u2019t know the medical term for the condition.<\/p>\n