FOCUS ON HEALTH:

It’s not likely that a bald man would be approached by strangers in public asking sympathetic questions about how he’s dealing with the after effects of chemotherapy.

Bald women, on the other hand, are easy targets for that type of invasive public scrutiny.

Thea Chassin, the founder of Bald Girls Do Lunch Inc., a New York-based nonprofit group for women with alopecia areata, would know. She’s been bald for 10 years.

Chassin was in town recently to host a Bald Girl’s luncheon at Maggiano’s restaurant in Costa Mesa, the first time the group has visited Southern California.

Alopecia areata is an auto-immune disease where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys hair follicles, disrupts normal hair growth, and results in a partial to complete loss of hair.

The disease most often affects the scalp, but may occur on any part of the body where there is hair growth, and varies in degrees and frequency.

Alopecia areata affects about 1.7% of the population overall, including more than 5 million people in the United States alone, according to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.

Some women, like Chassin, start out with patches on the back of their head. Cortisone injections into the scalp where the patch is located often cause hair to grow back there, only to begin falling out in a different location.

With long, beautiful hair she was very attached to, Chassin was faced with an incredible challenge when she lost all her hair, her eyebrows and her eyelashes.

“For a woman, losing your hair is like losing a part of yourself, your femininity,� she said. “There’s a very deep sense of grieving and loss. Other people identify us by our hair.�

Chassin went to a few support group meetings for men, women and children with alopecia areata, before deciding to start her own group — for women only.

She believed women needed a more intimate, social setting where they could share thoughts, feelings and ideas, which is why her meetings involve lunch.

“Friends and family mean well, but it’s a relief to talk to someone in the same situation and get tips on living openly and happily with this condition,� Chassin said.

For Chassin and many of the other women she meets at the lunches she attends, hair has become as much of an accessory as jewelry, makeup and clothing.

Sometimes she wears a wig, sometimes she creatively ties a scarf around her head, sometimes she wears a hat, and sometimes she goes out as she is — bald.

Though the group is called Bald Girls Do Lunch, many women attend wearing wigs. Whether to come bald is a choice each woman should make for herself, Chassin said, and she always makes sure the restaurant hosting the lunch knows that the group doesn’t want to be hidden away in a back room or corner.

“We don’t want to hide, we want to mainstream the idea that there are bald women who don’t have cancer. By hosting lunches [in restaurants] we’re also educating the restaurant owners and managers about alopecia areata.�

One of the big issues and topics of discussion at the lunches is how to break the news to other people that you have alopecia areata, especially if you’re wearing a wig when you meet them initially.

Mary Ecker lives in Long Beach, has been bald for 10 years and owns seven wigs. Each wig has a name, allowing Ecker to have a little fun in spite of what could be a difficult situation.

Not wanting to let her hair — or lack of it — define who she is initially, Ecker wears a wig when she’s working and when she first begins dating someone.

She said it usually takes only a few dates for her to decide whether she wants to invest herself in a relationship with that person, and if she does, to disclose that she has alopecia areata and is bald.

Chassin said women often share that even though there was a lot of anxiety and fear involved in telling someone, once they did it they never regretted telling the person.

What they regretted was not doing it sooner.

What about the questions, then, from well-meaning people who assume she’s sick?

“Everyone does it differently,� Chassin said. “Some women don’t want to have to explain, but usually that just creates more distance. I’ve got the routine down. I tell them, ‘oh, I’m not sick, I have alopecia areata.’

“You educate the rest of the world one head at a time.�

MORE EVENTS

Bald Girls Do Lunch will be hosting two more lunches in Southern California. For information, call (914) 584-7662 or e-mail [email protected].

SUE THOENSEN may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or at [email protected].