This Male Model Who Lost His Hair Is Giving Men Hope & Confidence


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Speaking with model Justin Hopwood is like speakme to someone who has been positioned through the wringer, inched and crawled his way thru, and somehow got here out more potent on the other stop. Today, there’s a renewed experience of hope in his voice.

Rewind to simply 3 years in the past, and he changed into singing a different song. Hopwood’s hair changed into falling out in clumps, and crippling tension became making it not possible for him to get thru the day. A prognosis of alopecia areata—an autoimmune disorder in which the frame attacks its own hair follicles—is devastating for everybody. But for a model acknowledged worldwide for having tremendous hair, Hopwood says it turned into “like dropping an arm.”

It turned into best after knowing that he had to treat his tension firsthand and beginning to take Nutrafol Men that Hopwood was able to start his adventure back to wellness. Today, he’s just now over the hump, on the other side. He’s sooner or later due to the fact that the whole thing is going to be OK.
The call that could trade everything

Hopwood’s modeling career can most effective be defined as a chunk of a whirlwind. He modeled as a younger blonde child in South Africa, gave it up for his “awkward” teenager years, then went on to do a quick-time period modeling gig in Hong Kong. He lower back to South Africa briefly, questioning he was carried out with the modeling enterprise.

But at 21 years old, he were given the decision that would trade his lifestyles. He became being recruited to model for Abercrombie & Fitch in Miami, in the end main him to Ralph Lauren. There, he have become the face of the Polo brand and settled completely in New York.

The fulfillment continued, and his reputation grew until 2015. That’s whilst the whole lot he’d worked towards became  threatened. At the time, he become going thru a transition, seeking to determine out if he would keep modeling or could circulate directly to something new. Unfortunately, that brought on added strain and a bit of an internal crisis.

“I agree with every 10 to 15 years the frame collects itself,” he says. “For me, I was going via a period where I turned into seeking to discern out what I wanted to do with my existence. But it delivered on tension I’d by no means skilled earlier than.” He started to suffer from a vicious cycle of crippling panic attacks. “Anxiety is horrifying if you don’t understand it,” he says. “I’d go searching and notice each person else became normal and glad, thinking, why can’t I experience like that?”
Imagine getting hit via a semi-truck from the side

Despite the whole lot he tried, the anxiety continued. Hopwood then observed a patchy spot in his beard, questioning it wasn’t a huge deal—he would just move easy-shaven on shoots. But while whole clumps of hair commenced falling out of his head, leaving bald patches, he knew some thing turned into wrong.

Working via it, he changed into nevertheless going to photo shoots on the time, having hair and make-up artists reduce his final hair to disguise around the patches. “It become a piece of a nightmare,” he says.

He become in the end diagnosed with alopecia areata, which he says, “Was like being hit by way of a semi truck from the facet.” He did one ultimate shoot with Peter Miller Luxury Apparel earlier than identifying he needed to take a break from modeling and attention on his fitness. “It become certainly taking a toll on me, because I felt like what I was doing became fake advertising and marketing,” he says. “I’d display up and they’d anticipate a complete head of hair, and I’d have patches. And having patches on my head turned into stressing me out even more than I already became. Eventually, I became executed.”

It wasn’t till later while he’d find out what a strong connection to stress and tension the disorder has.

“Patients will frequently report alopecia areata approaching after a totally worrying occasion,” explains Dr. Patti Farris, a board-licensed dermatologist in Louisiana. “The thoughts-skin connection here hasn’t been completely described, but we do know that many skin sicknesses flare with emotional pressure and that stress influences our immune device in general.”

Farris says that genetics and environmental factors often play a position, too. But whether or not it became genetics or strain, or a aggregate of the 2, bringing on Hopwood’s situation, traditional treatments weren’t cutting it.
Seeking and locating

In order to try to develop lower back his hair, Hopwood got around four hundred cortisone injections—a common remedy for alopecia—in his scalp.

“Recent studies display that there are certain inflammatory mediators that play a function in alopecia areata, so we use cortisone due to the fact it's miles a totally powerful anti inflammatory,” Farris says. “It isn’t a domestic run for each patient, but usually it is able to stimulate some regrowth.

In Hopwood’s case, it didn’t paintings. He then went on a chunk of a adventure, attempting everything from Rogaine, to garlic shampoo, to religious acupuncture to regrow his hair—however no dice. His doctor endorsed Prednisone and different corticosteroids, but Hopwood, who has usually been greater into organic remedies wasn’t interested by taking such strong medicine.

He ultimately decided to shave his head, which he says felt freeing after trying to get his hair to grow in for goodbye. “That turned into like my come to Jesus second,” he says. “Shaving my head represented putting myself loose. In the modeling enterprise, I was very well known for my thick hair. I wouldn’t say my hair completely described me, however it turned into a large part of my package. Once I shaved my head and freed myself of that, I now not felt that additional pressure that I was receiving from modeling, from my process.”

Eventually, he heard about Nutrafol Men. Nutrafol supplements take a multi-focused approach to hair growth, which include help stability stress hormone, DHT, oxidative damage, and compromised nutrients with natural elements. Hopwood changed into interested in the herbal component list, which incorporates ashwagandha, a clinically tested botanical that is proven to help loosen up the apprehensive center and enhance the frame’s potential to manage cortisol (stress hormones).

“Once I delivered Nutrafol and ashwagandha into my life, I changed into able to loosen up and manage my anxiety,” he says. “I was capable of feel like a normal man or women once more.”

He also credits the opposite vitamins in Nutrafol like marine collagen, noticed palmetto, and bio-optimized curcumin (turmeric) for supporting his hair slowly start to grow again. “The components of Nutrafol are what’s key, which includes ashwagandha. It’s genius due to the fact you’re seeking to help human beings with their hair increase, but you then add ashwagandha in there due to the fact that is what calms humans down from strain.”

He credit it a lot, in reality, that he supplements and takes 3 ashwagandha tablets, plus four Nutrafol pills, each day. “I feel satisfied as a clam,” he says. “I’m able to navigate my day, stress-free, irrespective of what’s thrown at me. Two or 3 years ago, I became crippled via anxiety, crippled via my hair loss, and probably at one of the lowest factors of my lifestyles. In a variety of ways, Nutrafol sort of stored my life.”

In addition to taking Nutrafol each day, he commenced taking a probiotic and began to devour higher and deal with himself mentally and bodily, too.

“It wasn’t a brief turnaround, but I may want to start to see a touch progress. First, I might see little white hairs growing and they'd get longer and darker, more potent and thicker.”
Coming again to existence

It’s been two years seeing that Hopwood first noticed the patch on his beard. Today, the hair on his head is a hundred percentage back and his beard sport is more potent than ever before.

“Most docs just want to prescribe you a few Band-Aid to take care of the issue, while you aren’t without a doubt solving what’s below it,” he says. “But you have to deal with the foundation of the difficulty. If the root of the problem is stress and tension, you’ve got to take some thing that could help restore that. Once you repair that, your hair will come lower back.”

Nowadays, Hopwood is back to modeling. He nonetheless takes Nutrafol Men each morning. He has also gone public to his 44,000 + followers on Instagram approximately his struggles with alopecia and his health transformation, becoming an suggest for others going thru the same factor.

“There’s guys, girls, grandparents, or even seven- and 8-12 months-antique youngsters obtainable who've alopecia who're truly struggling,” he says. “I concept, I’m going to use my platform to get the message out to the arena, not due to the fact I want any sympathy or a pity party, however I just want to assist others who are suffering.”

Hopwood credit “winning the genetic lottery” for his modeling achievement and when it comes to others suffering with alopecia, he thinks he's in a unique position to help them. “I hope it makes you available sense better that I’m a model and lost my modeling job, my profession. I wish you recognize it'd suck extra for me and which can make you experience better in a manner.”

Since going public, he now gets messages each day from people all over the world who're living with alopecia who take consolation in his tale. “It’s now not a quick repair, however I need anyone to see that I’m again having hair once more and if I did it, you can do it.”

Special offer for Daily Beast readers – use code BEAST for $20 off your first month’s subscription on Nutrafol.Com (valid till September 30, 2019).