Melanie Sykes proudly shows off her baldness after battling alopecia

The TV presenter has shared a proud photo on Instagram amid a worrying diagnosis.

Melanie Sykes shared a powerful post on social media after a long battle with alopecia. While the TV host announced her diagnosis last year, she has shared in recent months that her hair is now falling out “really fast”.

While the autoimmune condition had initially left the 55-year-old in “so much pain”, it seems she has now fully embraced the condition, proudly showing off her new hair. Instagram today (June 28). Seen as smiling, Melanie has uploaded a photo of herself with a completely bald head.

Adding the caption: “Loss + Gain + Life”, the image has been reposted over 800 times by fans of the presenter as a way of showing their love and praise. This new look comes just days after Melanie revealed she was now “two-thirds bald” as a result of the condition.

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Melanie explained that her condition had improved over the year since her first diagnosis, recently saying: “I’m really two-thirds bald. Every time I say I’m bald I laugh, I don’t know why… Thank God I can laugh.”

During her fight with alopeciaMelanie was seen wearing a number of headscarves to cover up noticeable patches of hair loss. However, she explained last month that she was now trying wigs as she is keen to “get some hair”.

According to NHSwhile alopecia is the general term for hair loss, it can vary from patient to patient and can range from thinning hair to complete hair loss. While the condition can affect the scalp, it can also affect body and facial hair, such as eyelashes and eyebrows.

The most common condition is alopecia areata, which can occur at any age. The condition is caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking the light follicle, preventing it from growing hair.

Although the cause of the condition is not always clear, it may be associated with other autoimmune conditions such as thyroid disease, vitiligo and type 1 diabetes. However, it is also believed that genetics, family history and stress can also play a role in the condition.

Although there is no cure for alopecia, there are some treatments that GPs can offer, but patients are warned that they are not always effective and do not work for everyone. This includes steroid creams, steroid injections and immunosuppressive treatments.

Melanie opened up for the first time about her diagnosis last year and how it had affected her life at the time. She shared, “I have an autoimmune condition, I’m losing my hair, I keep having crazy inflammation all over and I’m working on healing.”

At the time, she admitted to fans that she had been unable to complete her meditation teacher training as she had become too ill.

She said: “I was too sick to finish it like. The last two days of it I couldn’t do. It’s meditation teacher training, I don’t necessarily want to teach, but I can do it… For the most part, I’ve lived a very, very very spiritual life.”

Her condition reportedly began after being “harassed” amid allegations that surfaced against TV chef Gino D’Acampo, who she had worked with from 2011 to 2014 on the ITV series Let’s Do Lunch with Gino and Mel.

Melanie shared in a video at the time that she had developed one irregular heartbeat and “rapid” hair loss. She added: “I went into the new year with so much energy. I’ve slowed things down because I got a heart problem that I developed during the whole Gino D’Acampo bull**** that was in the news.

“And suddenly the stress level in my life increased because I left that industry years ago, but it won’t leave me alone.”