Love Island star Kaz Crossley has shared her top tips on living with alopecia as she fights to raise awareness about the condition and offer support to others suffering from it.
The 28-year-old reality star was a contestant on the hit ITV2 reality romance show back in 2018, where she placed third alongside now ex-boyfriend Josh Denzel after meeting him in Casa Amor.
Kaz has recently been opening up against her battle against alopecia – a medical condition that causes hair to fall out when the immune system attacks hair follicles and can be caused by stress, ageing or genetic predisposition.
The TV star has been an open book in discussing her own experience with the condition, which has caused a circular area at the front of her scalp to lose hair.
Taking to social media earlier this week, Kaz updated fans to let them know that a series of treatments had helped her hair return.
She shared a string of images, showing the areas of her hair that had experienced balding and the progress she had experienced after a combat training retreat.
She wrote alongside the candid photos: "A lot of you have reached out for advice so I will be completely honest with what I’ve found."
The first picture she shared showed her looking at the camera with a full head of hair.
She wrote: "This pic was taken yesterday, It’s finally growing to what I feel like is my normal growth rate and the patch has faded.
"I tried every single trick to grow my hair back.. it only started to grow literally the day I got back from the @combat.collective retreat. It’s crazy how clever the body is… it literally grew back from pure happiness and love."
She highlighted some products she had used to encourage her hair to re-grow, explaining: "@weareplantmade do natural shampoos and oils, I only used these to wash my hair then I would use their 'inches' oil on the patch every single night and day."
She also highlighted another treatment, writing: "@hairlossclinics for my laser and PRP injections. I noticed a big difference straight away and hair follicles started to appear after the first session" – and included an image of her sitting under a laser machine.
Kaz went on to share her top tips to help combat alopecia.
She warned: "Stressing about it WILL make it worse. Focus on things that make you happy and what you are in control of. In my case it was exercise."
The stunning star continued: "It may get worse before it gets better. ALOPECIA is so unpredictable you can’t even keep track, don’t stress yourself measuring your patch everyday. As soon as I stopped measuring and taking pictures I felt a lot lighter in my healing process."
A further tip from Kaz is to: "embrace the hair loss, stop trying to hide it, accept it’s a part of you. No one cares apart from you! Trust me! I became consumed with sadness everytime I looked in the mirror and made it worse in my head."
And she continued: "Give yourself time. Love yourself. You are beautiful no Matter what.. Allow yourself the time to heal and adapt to new circumstances. This is your journey no one else’s."
The TV star went on: "Even if my mental health is in a better place now, no one talks about how hard it is to navigate feeling 'better', the PTSD and feeling of anxiety thinking that something bad will happen.
"It’s a s**t feeling not feeling like the person you were before. It’s also s**t being aware you don’t ever want to feel like that again and everything you do is consumed by trying to stay happy and positive."
She added that she hoped to spend more time on social media in due course.
Fans were quick to praise Kaz for her honesty and advice, with one writing in response: "Just amazing! Hats off to you for being so honest and open as it must have been scary. What you are doing is working for you."
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