I was sectioned and ended up homeless on a park bench, but with my first proper wig I’m in a really good place now

I was sectioned and ended up homeless on a park bench, but with my first proper wig I’m in a really good place now: TV presenter GAIL PORTER describes the toll of living with alopecia for 18 years By SARAH RAINEY

Gayle Porter has spent most of the last 18 years talking about being bald.

The 1990s TV presenter lost all her hair to alopecia, a chronic condition that causes the immune system to attack hair follicles, in 2005. It came out of nowhere and happened in just four weeks, while she was away from home filming in the US.

Her long blonde locks fell in a tangle on her pillow as she slept, along with her eyelashes and eyebrows.

It felt, she reveals, ‘like someone was physically rubbing me’.

‘I remember calling my then-husband and telling him to tell our two-year-old daughter that Mummy had gone with all her hair and she was going to come back with nothing. . I cried all over the house.’