Claire Fullam [00:00:04]:
I was drinking for a lot of reasons, Kevin. I think I was drinking to escape the trauma of the hair loss. I think it affected me a hell of a lot more than I really knew. And I think I dealt with it strangely. Like, I dealt with it. You know, most people try and hide, right? Well, I went online and I made this Persona, and I lived through this person that I called Claire Balding. And she was everything I've ever wanted to be.

Kevin Rolston [00:00:44]:
Welcome to Hairpod, the podcast where you get to hear real people talk about their hair journeys. I'm your host, Kevin Ralston. And each week I get to interview people from different walks of life whose lives have been touched by hair loss in some form or fashion. Many of our guests have experienced hair loss themselves and found a way to get their confidence and their hair back. As some of you may know, May is mental health awareness month. A theme that arises during almost every episode of Hairpod is the unforeseen impact that hair loss can have on our emotions, our stress, our daily lives, and our relationships. Losing your hair can feel devastating and isolating, but it doesnt have to stay that way. For this episode, I spoke with Claire Folum, a Dublin based trichologist who, like so many others, has faced the struggle and shock of dealing with rapid hair loss.

Kevin Rolston [00:01:38]:
Claires search for answers and support led her to begin a bold journey. Is the social media presence of Claire Balding. And eventually to open her own trichology clinic. Claire discusses the impact her hair loss had on her mental health, her struggle with addiction, and her choice to pursue a career that will help give others struggling with alopecia more options and more community. Claires path has been a rocky but inspiring one. And today she shares with us not only what she learned about alopecia, but what Alopecia has taught her about herself.

Claire Fullam [00:02:18]:
I lost all my own hair almost eight years. Go to the day. It was actually, I think, next week, eight years ago. So I lost 90% of my hair and went on a big journey with that, a huge journey with that. And then decided, you know what? I really want to learn why this happened to me in the first place. I want to go back to college. I want to study, and I want to try and understand, because I'm a big believer in, like, things happen for a reason, you know, and I think that there's always a reason behind some sort of pain that you got through in your life. And I think that I really wanted to understand how was I supposed to help others going through hair loss? And, you know, also for me, I still suffer with it.

Claire Fullam [00:02:55]:
I still get patches of alopecia. So how am I going to manage this? Because I understand that it's something I'm going to have to manage. It doesn't just go away from lotion or a potion, you know, that kind of way. So how am I supposed to manage this? So I did that. I opened my trichology clinic then four years ago. It's called Trua. We're an online trichology clinic. Trua means compassion of school.

Claire Fullam [00:03:17]:
That's the irish language. And I suppose that's what our clinic is based on, is compassion and is understanding, you know, and trying to come at hair loss and scalp conditions from a huge, you know, all different angles, I suppose. So that's what has led me here. So kind of, I suppose, quite a full circle story, because I visited a trichologist when my hair was falling out, and I visited dermatologists, my general practitioners here in Ireland as well. And the only one who gave me that little bit of hope, to be really honest with you, was a trichologist, you know? So it's funny, if you asked me eight years ago, Kevin said, claire, what do you want to be when you grow up? It wouldn't have been a trichologist, to be honest with you. I didn't even know what one was. So it's funny where life takes you.

Kevin Rolston [00:04:00]:
Let's talk about your journey, where it began. It sounds like it began with hair loss. And what age were you when that first started to appear?

Claire Fullam [00:04:08]:
Yeah, so I was 27 and. Yeah, that is, I was 27, nearly 28, actually. So that's eight years ago now. And I had two children who were very young at the time. I think my daughter was about five and my son was about one. And I think. I suppose I got, you know, did everything really young, like most of my friends. I'm nearly 37 now.

Claire Fullam [00:04:30]:
Most of my friends are only starting their families and stuff now, you know, whereas I started, like, 13 years ago and like that. Myself and my husband, we grew up really fast. We bought a house in the area that we grew up. We raised our kids. My friends were going to college and going on nights out and traveling Europe, and I was changing athys, you know, and I was paying bills and I was doing all that kind of stuff. And I suppose I didn't manage my stress very well. You know, I think that I internalized a lot of it, and I think that I tried to pretend that everything was okay because you can't really drop a ball when you're a young parent, you know, it's hard to drop that ball and also pick it back up. There's a lot of expectation on you as well.

Claire Fullam [00:05:07]:
So I think a lot of people would say to me, God, Claire, like, when your hair started to fall, like, were you. What was going on? Like, was something really traumatic going on was, you know, but it wasn't. It was just life. You know, life is stressful and life can take a toll on you sometimes. And when you're trying to continuously juggle balls and pretend you're okay and that you're coping, I think sometimes your body is a funny way of showing you that you're not, you know, and I think that when I first found my first patch of alopecia, I found it just in my split here. And I assumed that I'd. With the curling iron or something too close to my scalp. And then I remember, like this time of the year, like, you know, coming into the summer months, well, the summer that we get in Ireland isn't spectacular, but it's slightly warmer for a couple of weeks.

Claire Fullam [00:05:50]:
But, you know, I just assumed, just assumed that, you know, around that time of the year, I lose more hair. We all do. We're like animals shedding kind of, you know, for the summer months and stuff. So I always knew. And I had a lot of hair. Big, classic redheads, big, classic irish head on me. And I was losing a lot of hair at that time. But again, I assumed that, oh, that's fine, that's the time of year.

Claire Fullam [00:06:11]:
But this time was different, you know, I started to lose an extreme amount of hair. I was scooping it up in the office, I was hiding it, I was emptying the bins in the office because I was so embarrassed of it. And within five weeks, I was in a wig, you know, a full blown wig. I'd lost 90% of my hair in five weeks.

Kevin Rolston [00:06:27]:
Did you say 90%?

Claire Fullam [00:06:29]:
990. Yeah. Yeah. So I went from somebody who was hugely identified by my hair, like everyone would say, oh, you know, Claire with the red hair. Like, that's the way people would describe me now, Claire with the red hair to having no hair, really, you know, in five weeks, at 27 years of age, doesn't matter what age are, you know, it's spectacularly stressful. I went on every radio show, every tv show that would have me trying to find this answer, I suppose, you know, somebody will tell me what to do. Somebody like nobody knew. And my family, my friends group, nobody knew.

Claire Fullam [00:07:05]:
And I remember uploading a status on Facebook to like my 400 close friends at the time. And I remember the Irish Times. It's a big national newspaper here in Ireland. Picked up the story and shared the story. And from there, I suppose, I started to document my hair loss online, you know. So at the time, Snapchat was really big. Apparently, it's back again with a bang, with the kids too old for that now, but Snapchat at the time. And when I called myself Claire Balding, and Claire Balding is a big tv personality, actually, over in the.

Claire Fullam [00:07:37]:
Over in Great Britain. And I named myself, I suppose, after her. And it's a real irish trait to, you know, almost slag yourself and take the mick out of yourself first before anybody else can. Does that make sense? It's like a self deprecating kind of thing. So Claire Balding was born, and Claire Balding is still around to this day. I suppose I kind of cultivated a community and an audience, you know, that were looking for help with hair loss as well. But then, you know, slowly but surely, it kind of became my life and just documented my life and the ups and the downs of it. I had a large audience, somewhere about 90,000 followers on Instagram, which is big for Ireland, because there's only about ten of us in the country.

Claire Fullam [00:08:19]:
So, you know, it was. It was, you know, white went from zero to 90 pretty quick.

Kevin Rolston [00:08:30]:
Claire's baldness was not permanent. When her hair began growing back, people assumed that she had overcome the emotional aspects of her hair loss, but her alopecia would continue to flare up, and the challenges this brought to her mental health were far from over. Her experience with hair loss had started her on a journey, and there was no turning back. She had become a public figure, and now, for better or worse, had a social identity tied to this condition.

Claire Fullam [00:09:02]:
Within about a year, my hair started to come back, which was unusual. People didn't think that that was going to happen, but very, very quickly, quite, you know, as fast as it fell out, it started to come back. Now it was white, the pigments never returned, and it was a different texture, all that kind of stuff. So really, really weird one to manage. But I suppose I thought then, and especially when my hair started to come out, or even when I wore my hair piece, when I wore my wig, people were like, Claire's grand now. Like, she's fine now. She's got her hair back now. But there's so many demons, I suppose, you know? And I suppose some of the things that were going on, but my mental health, you know, it was masking all of that a little bit.

Claire Fullam [00:09:42]:
And eventually that erupted along those years. Like, that's eight years ago now. I'm three years sober, thank God. You know, it led me to a path of addiction, and it all stemmed from my hair loss. So, I mean, as strange as that story is, Kevin, you know, there's a lot there. I've just like, embarked eight years on top of you there now. Sorry about that. But as strange as that story is, that's why I'm a great trichologist.

Claire Fullam [00:10:07]:
That's why I'm great at running our business. That's why. Why I'm passionate about scalp and hair health and people like you bringing awareness of it. Because I think hair loss can sometimes get lost in this level of vanity, you know, whereas it really, truly can affect people's lives, you know, and not just your life and your God, through your family's life and everybody else's life as well. So it's so important to speak about it as much as possible. I think.

Kevin Rolston [00:10:37]:
The stresses of life and the impact of living with alopecia continued to weigh on Claire, even as she worked so hard to adapt to it and provide a community for others to do so as well. Claire began leaning on alcohol more and more.

Claire Fullam [00:10:57]:
I was drinking for a lot of reasons, Kevin. I think I was drinking to escape the trauma of the hair loss. I think it affected me a hell of a lot more than I really knew. And I think I dealt with it strangely. Like, I dealt with it, you know, most people try and hide, right? Well, I went online and I made this Persona and I lived through this, you know, person that I called Claire Balding. And she was everything I've ever wanted to be, but I was always too scared to be. So I treated her as this Persona and, you know, allowed all of life. Stress has come out through her.

Claire Fullam [00:11:32]:
And I did a tv show, I did countless live shows all around Ireland. And all the time my drinking just kept getting a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, you know, but I suppose when. And look, we have a culture here as well, you know, that we rely on it a lot. And it's a deep rooted issue within Ireland that we run from, you know, a lot of people, especially. What age was I then, like 33? And it's very young to kind of, you know, I suppose, face these demons a little bit, you know, but I knew that if I didnt, I die.

Kevin Rolston [00:12:06]:
Like many people who find themselves struggling with addiction, Claire was not fully aware that she had a problem. By all appearances, Claire had it all together. She was a mother, a wife, a business owner. Not to mention her hair had come back. It can be hard to recognize that youve even got a substance abuse problem when its so normalized by the society around you. It wasnt until she heard a few familiar voice on the radio that Claire was able to face her budding addiction and turn things around.

Claire Fullam [00:12:39]:
I remember hearing on the radio, I was sitting, I was working in my front room in my kitchen, and I remember the radio came on. And again, a really famous program in Ireland. And I heard somebody I knew on the radio, and she was talking about her own alcoholism. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, I didn't know Sophie suffrage, like, with alcoholism at all. Like, I didn't realize this. I met Sophie. She's a podcast in Ireland.

Claire Fullam [00:13:04]:
She's very well known. She's an author. She's a brilliant person, you know, and I didn't have any idea that Sophie was struggling so much. So I remember going, like, so close to the radio. It was actually a radio. It wasn't like a Siri or my Google. It was an actual radio in my kitchen, right? And I remember I went up to it, and it was as if I could, like, feel Sophie's breath coming through the radio and talking to me. And I remember holding my own hand as if I was holding hers.

Claire Fullam [00:13:29]:
And every single thing she said, I was like, oh, my God, she's describing me. She's describing my life. She described this, that every day she lit this fire in her own home, and every day she tried to control it, you know, and she knew that if she let it get out of control, it would ravage her and her home and her boys and her husband. But she kept lining it every day, and she couldn't understand why she was doing this to herself. And I just remember that analogy stuck with me. And I said, she's Claire. Like, what are you doing? There was no rock bottom for me, Kevin. I think it was more like a real deep realization.

Claire Fullam [00:14:07]:
I remember I went to my first AA meeting. It was 2021, so there was no physical AA meetings, really, because it was still COVID times back then, of course. And I went to my first one on St. Patrick's Day of all days. And I remember it was actually all my friends were having pints, you know, and I was sitting on my bed crying at the spectacular. I was like, oh, my God, what a day. Yeah, but I'll never forget it. I suppose that's a good one, you know, but I remember it was actually an american AA meeting, because I was too scared.

Claire Fullam [00:14:40]:
Scared to go to an irish one. So I joined an american link because nobody would know me over there. This would be fine, you know? And it just. It was a real eye opener, you know? And I think that my hair loss started that. Maybe not started it. I always loved to drink, you know? And I think, again, being a young parent, when I get a night off, I'd go wild, you know, because I had a night off, and I was always the friend who had a story. I was always the friend. She went too far.

Claire Fullam [00:15:06]:
I was always a big drinker. But I think the hair loss didn't help. And then having this big community online, the pressure of that didn't help either, you know, and I think that it kind of came to a point. And when you recognize yourself and somebody else, it's so important. That's why I think these stories are so important, because somebody else will hear this and say, that's me, you know, or that's her, that's him, you know, and their family. So sharing those stories are hugely important. They'll save people's lives, you know? Again, like, as I said earlier on, like, it's funny where life brings you, isn't it? Because fair balding was such a painful thing for me for a while, you know, she. I say she, like, she's a different person, but, you know, she.

Claire Fullam [00:15:45]:
It was. It was a painful place because you can only be on top for so long, you know, and what comes up must come down. So even though people are very fond of you, they might have a different opinion on one thing than you. And social media can be cruel. It can be a cruel place, you know? So I think I ran from her for a while. I took six months off social media, and I said, you know what, Claire? You're gonna have to sort. Sort yourself out. And that's when I started, you know, my sober journey, thank God, and started that whole process then as well, you know, so it's given me huge strength.

Kevin Rolston [00:16:22]:
Talking with Claire has been such a great reminder of how important community can be, especially when it comes to mental health support. It can be so comforting and inspiring to discover that we are not alone in our experience and to learn from those who have already walked the path. If you want to hear more from Claire, make sure you subscribe to the show, because were going to be having her back on to discuss living with alopecia. And make sure you check out our show notes for links to follow Claire on social media. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hairpot. Check us out Araclub on Instagram or search Hairpot on Facebook to continue this conversation. If you know somebody who could benefit from hearing this episode, we would love it if you would share it with them. If youre enjoying the show, consider leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Kevin Rolston [00:17:12]:
We also have a website. Check it out by going to podcast dot hairclub.com. Were here to build people up and share real stories of people experiencing hair loss so they feel a little bit less alone. And when you share, review and subscribe, it helps us do just that. So thank you. Until next time.