'Exam stress made me go bald': 20-year-old's horror as alopecia caused her golden locks to fall out in just WEEKS

A student lost all of her hair within just two months as a result of stress from her upcoming university exams. 

Katie-Anna Moore, 20, previously had a thick head of mousy blonde hair, which she called her 'pride and joy'.

But in the run-up to her summer sittings at Bournemouth University, she began to go bald.

In March this year, while in the shower, she was putting shampoo on her hair before a whole handful came out.

Small clumps would then come out each time she washed her hair and within just eight weeks, 70 per cent of her locks had gone.

Assuming it was just a natural loss from overusing her straighteners, she did not mention it to anyone - but the shedding continued.

Within two weeks, other people began noticing, and she would find her clothes covered in stray hairs. 

After visiting her GP following the end of her exams, Miss Moore was diagnosed with alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease where bald patches appear on the body or scalp.

Her doctor told her the condition was most likely stress-induced and warned it was likely she would lose the remainder of her hair.

The archaeological, anthropological and forensic sciences student said: 'I looked like an old man with a comb-over at 20 years old. It was heart breaking and destroyed me.

'I was crying all the time and didn't want to talk to my friends or tell the university what was going on.

'I got more and more self conscious about it until I stopped going to classes completely and wouldn't socialise with friends for a month.

'The fact it happened so fast meant I didn't have enough time to process each stage.

'When I walked, my ponytail would swish from side to side. I used to always get complimented for it.'

At the end of April, Miss Moore escaped to her fathers house in Salisbury, Wiltshire, telling him she needed space to study.

A couple of days into her stay, Danny, 45, noticed her hair falling out.

She said: 'I had my hair in a ponytail and my dad walked behind me and said "Katie, you have a bald patch".

'That was it. I burst out crying. It's a cycle because once you start stressing out, more hair falls out - which then causes more stress.'

In mid-May Katie-Anna went to see her GP, who did numerous blood tests but could not find anything medically wrong with her apart from low iron levels, which she had always had.

Desperate to disguise her bald patches – which by now had even sprung up on her hairline - she went to her hairdresser who gave her a short cut.

And with her new haircut, she felt ready to return to university.