A student who struggled with depression and social anxiety from the age of 16 due to his hair loss and receding hairline, and who was constantly made fun of by his peers, has said he feels he can “do anything” now after having a hair transplant. Alex Wood, 21, who lives in London and studies business management at Bayes Business School, started losing his hair aged 16 – but he only began to realise this because his hairline was “constantly being mentioned” by those around him at school.
Alex said he did not “actually care that much about it”, but his classmates would relentlessly poke fun at him, passing it off as “banter”. He decided to shave his hair, opting for a “buzzcut”, as he thought this may improve how it looked, however he said this made his receding hairline even more obvious, as his hair only predominantly grew back on the sides and not on the top.
Alex decided to try to focus on himself and his wellbeing, going to the gym and improving his fitness in the year before he started university, but it was difficult for him to block out the negativity as he saw his classmates every day. At the age of 17, Alex contacted Harley Street Hair Clinic – where footballer Wayne Rooney received his treatment – to inquire about a hair transplant, and about a year later underwent the £10,000 procedure and now has “hair in all places”.
“It’s definitely a burden off my chest because now I’m just dealing with normal issues a 21-year-old might have,” Alex said. “I don’t have that additional thought of, what’s going on with my hair?
“It just makes it easier to focus on the other things in your life, and not really care so much about that. It’s definitely helped me socialise with people because I’m not thinking, what are they going to think of me in terms of my hair? It’s more, what are they going to think of me in terms of what we’re talking about, and my personality. Right now, I feel like I can just do anything really.”
Alex first started losing his hair at the age of 16. He said he did not care about his hair, but since “a lot of people made a massive issue out of it”, this significantly affected his confidence.
“It’s a joke when it happens a few times, but when it’s for two years, and it’s the only thing people say, at that point it just becomes frustrating and mean, really, and disrespectful as well,” he said. “At school, it’s in that environment where it’s considered banter, but it’s not really banter. It gets to a point where it’s just being straight up mean about it.”
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Alex feels that his peers at school “created” an insecurity for him, and this led to him suffering with depression and social anxiety. He said his hair loss was the only thing on his mind, and he went through a “pretty dark time in his life” between the ages of 16 and 18, adding: “I was pretty depressed; social anxiety prevented me from socialising and building up my confidence.”
He said he would notice people’s eyes “flicking upwards” to look at his hair when they were talking to him; he faced rejection, and he was known as “the guy with the receding hairline”. Alex said he was surrounded by “toxic” and “shallow” people at school, and while he “tried to put that life behind him and start a new one”, he felt the constant torment and negativity prevented him from growing and maturing as a teenager. He “wanted to not care”, but subconsciously, it was “definitely affecting” him.
“I was already quite shy and, when you’re 16 to 18, that’s when you should be building up your confidence and maturing,” Alex said. “I feel like that just hit me at the wrong time because instead of going out of that shyness, that shyness turned into social anxiety. It made it difficult to grow as a person, to focus on myself, when constantly all I’m thinking about is what my hairline looks like and what people think of me.”
Alex said he “waited out” his school days and started going to the gym and “doing things that made (him) feel better about himself”. He maintained his buzzcut until he started university, and he said he was excited to start afresh and make new friendships.
However, his hair loss was still on his mind, and so he started to do some research on hair transplants – a process that replaces lost or thinning hair by taking healthy follicles from a donor area of the head and transplanting them to a thinning area of the head. Through his research, Alex said he discovered he may not be able to get a hair transplant until the age of 25, and he nearly ended up going to a “dodgy”, cheap clinic for a procedure that offered cash in-hand discounts for appointments that same weekend.
However, Alex had his doubts and sought advice from his parents, who suggested he look at Harley Street Hair Clinic. After writing to the clinic and being interviewed by the team, Alex’s hair loss trajectory was monitored for one year before he underwent a follicular unit extraction (FUE) hair transplant at the age of 18, which costs £8,000 to £10,000 on average.
Alex did not think it would be “financially possible”, but his father supported him, paying for the treatment. While Alex was “nervous” before the procedure, he said he felt a sense of “relief” after contacting the clinic as he knew his life would soon change.
The procedure was completed over two days in January 2021, and Alex had to sleep upright for two weeks afterwards, which was really “uncomfortable”. However, he said it was all worth it, as within about six months he pretty much had “a full head of hair”.
“It was nice looking in the mirror and just seeing the hair there, just seeing this new hairline, and then seeing it get thicker and thicker,” Alex said. “I was really happy with it.”
Alex said experiencing hair loss at such a young age and being the subject of relentless jokes at school “impacted him a lot growing up”. However, he now feels it has “made him a lot stronger”, and his hair transplant has helped “boost his confidence”.
He has made many new friends from his time at university, he no longer suffers with depression or social anxiety, and he has since found love with his girlfriend, Marysia, 21, who is studying law at Coventry University. Alex would advise anyone else who is experiencing hair loss to complete their own thorough research about hair transplants, and he hopes that, by sharing his story, he can offer hope to those facing mental health issues due to hair loss.
Most importantly, however, he said it is important to “focus on yourself” and “understand that a receding hairline doesn’t actually change anything about you”, adding: “At the end of the day, it’s down to you who you want to be and who you are. You shouldn’t let other people build you because they’re never going to do it in your best benefit.”
For anyone who may be concerned about their hairline, Harley Street Hair Clinic has launched a new app called Hair Track, which allows users to track their hair and speak to a consultant for tailored advice and guidance. Find out more here.
