WARNING: THIS IS NOT ABOUT PEOPLE WITH JUST A FEW BALD PATCHES - BUT DEALS WITH THE MUCH RARER UNIVERSALIS FORM.
From the NY Times article: "Alopecia areata (AA) is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own hair
follicles. AA, which is a different disorder than normal male-pattern
baldness, affects nearly 2 percent of the global population and has no
universally effective treatment. Its progression is unpredictable and
can range from a few bald patches to a completely hairless scalp to the
loss of every hair on a person’s body — known as alopecia universalis (AU). Sometimes the hair
regrows, sometimes it does not, and sometimes it grows in only to fall
out again years later."
Only a small number of people with AA progress to total hair loss or the universalis variant. The NY Times had an excellent intro to AA (with an emphasis on AU) in the July 6, 2010 issue. Times Article: A ‘Forest Fire of Hair Loss,’ and Its Scars. This has the link to the multimedia "Patient Voices" or you can link directly here at: Voices of Alopecia.