A 9 year-old Tampa girl was bullied at school after a rare disease caused her hair to fall out. It wasn’t until Gabby Ruiz starting seeing doctors in Orlando that her life began to turn around.
Ruiz now gets injections into her scalp to make her hair grow back but her hair loss was a mystery for years. Doctors couldn’t figure out a treatment that worked.
Kids would pick on her at school, so her mom, Emilia Ruiz, decided to homeschool her. "The kids didn’t understand what was happening, so she would come home crying, and as a mom the worst that you want to do is see your child upset.”
Her mother said she lost 70 percent of her hair, her eyebrows, and even her eyelashes.
“She has a condition called alopecia areata. It’s is almost like an auto-immune disorder where for whatever reason her immune system starts to attack her own hair,” said Dr. Tace Rico from Florida Hospital.
It also attacked her emotionally. Her mom said Gabby became reserved and didn’t want to leave the house until she started receiving treatment at Florida Hospital.
Instead of using topical cream, doctors said they started to inject medicine into her scalp. It was the only thing that made her hair grow back.
“I think it was exciting for the whole office when she started back at school cause she came back and the teacher had a welcome home party for her and it was really special for us,” said Dr. Rico.
“They helped me get my hair back,” said Gabby.
Gabby just started the 4th grade this week and is happy to be in class with all the other kids.