Hair Today...

"I think you're exposing your children to a lot of necessary risk!" said the doctor.

"Well I think I would be exposing my children to many more unknown risks if I vaccinate them!" I retorted.

You can tell that the conversation had sort of degenerated by then.

I had brought Owain for his hair check-up. We have been going there for more than a year already and we have not progressed much. The doctors cannot say conclusively what is the cause of his poor/slow hair growth. Terms like Alopecia Areata were offered by some doctors and rejected by others. Then they suspected it was poor nutrition - which I indignantly object to since the boy, in addition to being breast-fed, also eats many other stuff. So they recommended multi-vits. Which I dutifully bought. Then they suspected it was hereditary. But when I brought all my kids along for one visit, that theory went out the window!

They finally ran out of theories and solutions. So the latest is, they think (or at least THIS doctor thinks!) it is 'congenital hypotrichosis' - a term which generally means someone who is born with little or no hair. I love it - all these little official-sounding names that basically just means that no one knows what is happening or what to do!

First, this doctor asked me about his weight-height co-relation and what percentile he was in. I said I don't know. Owain has never visited any paed or polyclinic for these evaluations before and I don't give a good hogwash about this either. So she took his height and weight, but the clinic did not have a growth chart! She tried to search the internet. I helpfully suggested the new charts by WHO for breastfed children. She could not find them.

She looked at him and said, he seems small for his age. Really? I was surprised. It didn't strike me. But then she looked at me and said: But mummy is short (yes thanks!) and daddy is...

Short too. I replied. Ah, she nodded. I didn't bother to explain that Isaac was so short for his age he is below the 3rd percentile! (As I recently saw from his health booklet!)

Then she suggested it could be a nutritional deficiency. I said that, as per recommendations, he was already taking a multi-vit supplement. But there has been no obvious progress/improvement. She suggested iron supplements to add on. I am never in favour of blanket supplementation. So we had an exchange on what happens if there was excess iron, etc. She said it was no problem with excess iron because the body passes out the excess. (This is so typical of many doctors - not giving the full picture). I argued that excess iron causes problems like constipation and interferes with immunity function. The only way to tell if a person is anemic, I said, is by a blood test. Which can also show other deficiencies. If that is what they are looking for. She said it's invasive. I agreed. She said she did not like to subject children to these invasive tests. I also agreed. Then she said looking at him, he did not seem anemic - his colour was good and results may only indicate a borderline anemia. You could tell all this, she said, just by looking at him! Argh!

She goes on to ask if he was doing okay in school. When I said he was not in school, she went: Not Nursery? No, I went. I might send him to K1 next year but no, he's never been to school. Then her eyes widened again and she repeated: Not even Nursery??

No, I said evenly. Not even Nursery. Then she went: Oh then you must be homeschooling him! Before I traumatised this woman any further with more examples of my bad, idle parenting, I decided to bite my tongue and just say: yes.

The only 'homeschooling' I did was to let him scribble with a pencil, build robots and play Rush Hour. You think that counts?

Then I asked the 6mil dollar question. Is it alopecia areata? Some of you say yes, so what is the conclusion? I decide to be frank- big mistake. I said I wanted to know if the cause of his poor hair growth was due to a glitch in the immune system ie alopecia areata. And if it was an auto-immune thing, then I could make decisions about whether he could be vaccinated in future. Actually, if it was, I would want a letter stating the diagnosis, which I would keep in his file.

That was when she asked: You mean he has not been vaccinated at all in his entire life? Not even once?

I said yes and that was when she shot me that line. And so we had that little icy exchange. I went on to say that all vaccinations affect the immune system. And if this condition is clearly caused by an immune system that has gone a little wonky, then I am not prepared to do more in vaxing him. If it isn't, then I would be open to vaxing him when he was a little older.

When I pushed harder about how we can find out, she says that they do not have the right equipment (or the expertise to interpret the results!) to find out. That would mean sending hair samples overseas for testing and that would cost a lot. And even if you find out, she finished, that would be a purely academic exercise. Because? Because there really isn't anything that they can do to reverse/improve the situation. Ah I see.

So there it is. One year and many visits later.

We still do not know why Owain's hair does not grow, why it comes out by the fistfuls whenever someone (ie Trin!) tugs at it or when he pulls off his goggles after swimming. And why that never seems to hurt him. We still don't know why it grows so slowly that he has never had a haircut in his life. And we still don't know how we can treat this.

All I can say is, lucky he's a boy - at most we can just shave him botak and do a Kojak. I think he would look kinda cool actually. Maybe when he's outgrown his baby look. Right now the combination of round face, soft curls still make teenaged girls and aunties coo: Sooo CUTE!!

We have another appointment to come back in six months. Meanwhile, there's nothing we can do but just sit back, relax and watch the hair grow.