Denisha Henry had been living with hair loss quietly. After the death of her daughter, she stopped putting her own health on the back burner and began addressing the changes she saw in the mirror.“If I can live and survive the loss of my child, what is hair?” Henry said. “I can live and survive without hair.”Her perspective, forged in grief, now anchors a message she hopes other women hear sooner: get help early, and don’t let hair loss define you.Henry said she had access to dermatology expertise but didn’t seek treatment right away.“I worked with a dermatologist … and I didn’t seek early treatment,” she said.Doctors later diagnosed her with lichen planopilaris, or LPP — a rare form of alopecia that can cause scarring and permanent hair loss if not treated.“That India.Arie song, ‘I Am Not My Hair,’ was really one of the things that I clung to early on,” Henry said. “That does not define me.”For many women, hair is more than style. It can be identity, culture and confidence, something some describe as a crown.“When you think about hair and a woman, they go together,” said Tiffiny Smith, a trichology practitioner who studies the scalp and follicles.But for millions of Americans living with alopecia, that “crown” can thin or disappear.Alopecia is an umbrella term for hair loss with many causes. Alopecia areata, an autoimmune form, affects about 0.2% of people in the U.S. at any given time, roughly 2 in 1,000, according to large population studies.Dermatology research also shows some hair-loss conditions are more common in Black women, including traction alopecia (often linked to chronic tension from certain hairstyles) and central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia, or CCCA, a scarring alopecia that can permanently damage hair follicles. Experts say differences in hair-care practices, styling-related tension, and delayed access to specialty care can all play a role in outcomes.Briana Craddock, a pediatric dermatology nurse practitioner who treats patients from newborns to young adults, said early evaluation is critical, especially when scarring is possible.“Time is hair and time is scalp,” Craddock said. “So if you ever start experiencing hair loss, you want to make sure you are seeing a provider quickly.”Craddock said treating hair loss often requires more than one provider.“I think that you have to approach it with not just your dermatologist, not just your hair loss specialist, not just your stylist, but also with the mental health therapists as well,” she said.Smith describes her work as a connector for people searching for answers.“I’d like to think of myself as the in-between bridge between the stylist and dermatologist,” she said.She also encourages patients to pay attention to what their hair may be signaling.“Hair is so disposable that it’s the body’s way of alerting you,” Smith said. “Before it’s your heart. Before it’s your kidneys, your hair, and your nails will be affected first.”Hair loss can appear suddenly or gradually, in patches or diffuse thinning, and it can change over time. WLKY's DeAndria Turner was diagnosed with alopecia areata in September, but a month later, her hair looked dramatically different. “It has grown in tremendously,” Smith said. “This is all new.”But Smith said stress can still show up physically.“Still a little inflammation … still red,” she said. “Your scalp says you carry stress in your scalp.”For Henry, peace came from redefining what hair means, and what it doesn’t.“It just comes down to knowing who you are,” she said.And for many women living with alopecia, that becomes the lesson: their crown was never just their hair.