A woman who noticed her hair falling out in the shower is embracing her new bald look – after being diagnosed with alopecia.
Wayde Cadogan, 25, started noticing clumps of her blonde locks getting caught in her brush and falling out while she washed her hair in the shower.
In August 2024, Wayde went to the hairdresser and told her how she had been losing her hair and she recommended that Wayde go to her doctor immediately.
Her doctor recommended Wayde book an appointment with a dermatologist and endocrinologist and she was diagnosed with alopecia – a condition that causes hair loss on the body or head – during her first appointment.
Wayde says her diagnosis came as a “shock” and says she started having steroid injections into her scalp and tablets to help her hair grow back.
In December 2024, Wayde stopped having the steroid injections and shaved her head after deciding to embrace alopecia fully.
Wayde, a healthcare worker, from Brisbane, Australia, said: “It was very unexpected and it all happened extremely quickly.
“I didn’t have any warning signs beforehand, no one in my family had alopecia. It was all very new to me.
“It was a very difficult thing for me to manage, not only as a female but as a young female in our society.”
Wayde noticed her first bald patch in August 2024 but had previously experienced hair loss a few months earlier.
Her hairdresser looked at the bald patch and took pictures to show Wayde who said she was “completely shocked” as she didn’t realise how bad it was.
Wayde said: “She was the one who said that she thought something was going on and recommended that I see a doctor as soon as possible.
“My hairdresser said I needed to see someone sooner rather than later, but I thought it would just grow back.
“But I went and saw my general GP, and she said it looked like more than general hair shedding and booked me in to see some specialists.”
In late August 2024, Wayde had been booked in for an appointment with a dermatologist and endocrinologist to make sure it wasn’t a thyroid-related issue.
In her first appointment with the dermatologist, Wayde was told she had alopecia.
Wayde said: “In my first appointment she straight up diagnosed me and said, ‘yep, this is alopecia’.
“Even then, it took me a few weeks to process it.
“It was still a shock for the dermatologist to actually diagnose me with alopecia.”
After her diagnosis, Wayde says she struggled as she was always on social media and she would compare herself to other women she would see online.
“You kind of scroll social media every day and you see those idolised stereotypical images of a woman’s beauty,” she said.
“It is always long, beautifully styled hair and it was really hard to accept that I no longer fit that beauty standard I guess.
“It made me feel so alone and so isolated even though I had such a great support network around me.”
After her initial diagnosis, Wayde went for a blood test to identify any deficiencies that might be related to her alopecia.
She then started having steroid injections into her scalp every six weeks and tablets – topical and oral minoxidil – to help her hair grow back.
Wayde said: “Initially, I guess it’s like anyone that is faced with alopecia, you try absolutely everything to keep your hair as long as you can.
“I worked with my dermatologist with a bunch of different treatment options, which initially included steroid injections into the scalp.
“I know some people have really good success with the steroid injections but I wasn’t one of them unfortunately.
“I have also been trailing topical minoxidil and then that progressed to oral minoxidil.
“But, I think, for me the progression of alopecia for me was so fast nothing was going to stop it.”
In December 2024, Wayde decided to stop the steroid injections and shave her head – fully embracing her baldness – but is continuing to take her tablets.
“I think it was probably one of the hardest moments yet [shaving her head], to be honest,” she said.
“I was at this stage where I still hadn’t quite accepted it.
“You’ve been in a state of denial for so long that the day that I shaved my hair I was still kind of in denial.
“I hadn’t quite accepted what was going on until the hair was completely gone.”
Wayde wears wigs in her day-to-day life when she leaves the house as she doesn’t feel “brave enough” to embrace her bald head fully just yet.
Since her diagnosis, Wayde has been sharing her story on TikTok – @waydecadogan_ – to help other women in the same situation.
She said: “I went down the wig path, which again, was super scary for a young woman to be going in, trialling wigs and buying wigs.
“Not knowing if I should be trying to buy wigs that look like my old hair so people don’t know or trying something knew.
“Sharing my journey has been the most therapeutic thing that I have done for myself.
“Before I started sharing my story, a lot of people still didn’t know.
“So for me, posting that first video was a huge relief that I didn’t have to try and hide it anymore.”
