A woman's hair loss story.

Hair loss... on a woman? It's happening to increasing numbers of us - and it eats away at your femininity like an acid.

At a glittering reception at the House of Commons, I manage to catch actor Martin Kemp's dazzling blue eyes. Next thing I know, he has his arm around me and we are posing for a photograph together. I am on Cloud Nine.

A few days later, I see the photograph and couldn't be more disappointed. My smile is big and my make-up perfect but, as always, my thin hair and 4in bald patch spoil my look.

I started life with hair so bushy my father used to say I looked like the American comedian Harpo Marx. But in the Seventies - when I was 16 and long, straight hair was in fashion - I took the fateful step of having it straightened at a local salon.

I had a terrible reaction to the chemicals they used, suddenly feeling as if my scalp was on fire. My hair fell out in big clumps, leaving it thin and sparse, and I was horrified to be told the damage was irreversible.

I spent a fortune consulting a trichologist, who informed me the hair-straightening debacle had triggered pattern baldness. I'd inherited the risk of this from my father, who was balding by the age of 25.

After months of applying cream to my hair and scalp and ingesting mountains of brewer's yeast on the trichologist's advice, there was, sadly, no improvement.

I had bald patches, and 30 per cent less hair than I'd had before that life-changing visit to the salon. I was in despair, made worse every time I saw a friend with thick, lustrous hair who constantly ran her fingers through it.

My first book was published when I was 25. But when the Queen's cousin, Patrick Lichfield, took my photograph for the cover, I was so ashamed of my thinning hair I insisted the picture be cropped to hide it.

Worryingly, female hair loss is on the rise in the UK. In a survey of GPs, 64 per cent said they had noticed more women patients with hair loss in the past five years.

Meanwhile the Transform clinic, one of the UK's leading providers of cosmetic surgery, has reported a 41 per cent increase in female hair loss inquiries in the past year. Women constitute a third of their hair transplant patients. 

It's nine years since I had a hair transplant. My thin hair and balding scalp was eating away at my confidence, and when my second book was published, I'd resigned myself to spending hour-upon-hour having my hair curled and back-combed to make it look presentable.

I hoped a perm might hide my balding scalp - it didn't - and had my hair cut short in the vain hope it would look thicker, but all my efforts failed. In 2004, I saw a photo of myself and noticed a 4in bald patch.

I decided to travel to Paris and spend £3,500 on a hair transplant. I was assured the post-op pain would last a few hours, but for days afterwards my scalp felt as if it was on fire. Even OxyContin, one of the strongest painkillers available, didn't help.

The result of the transplant was disappointing, but my hairdresser has been my salvation. Twice a week I have five false pieces fixed into my hair and my own hair styled around them, at a monthly cost of £200. It's worth every penny for the confidence boost it gives me.

Experts say the increase in women seeking help for hair loss is in part due to a greater availability of treatments. But they also warn that modern lifestyle habits - from delaying having children to fad diets and over-use of products and straighteners - may be causing more of us to suffer from thinning, receding and shedding hair. 

Dr Bessam Farjo, medical director of the Institute of Trichologists, says: 'It causes great distress because a woman's hair is her crowning glory, and a big part of her identity.'

The most common cause of hair loss in women is post-menopausal female pattern baldness, according to Dr Farjo. Falling levels of the female sex hormone oestrogen mean the male sex hormone dihydrotestosterone becomes more dominant - this hormone causes men's hair to fall out and has the same effect in women.

Baldness is afflicting women of all ages, with Transform reporting that the average age of female hair-loss patients has fallen from 51 in 2010 to 34 in 2013. 

Any woman suffering baldness should consult a doctor to rule out conditions such as diabetes, underactive thyroid and polycystic ovaries. The Pill can also cause hair loss.

However the most common trigger for thinning hair in younger women is iron deficiency, which affects 20 per cent of British women aged 19 to 34. 

Iron in the body binds to ferritin - a protein involved in the production of hair cells which also guards against hair shedding.

Red meat is one of the best food sources of iron, so a deficiency may be due to a rise in vegetarianism.

But Dr Hugh Rushton, consultant trichologist at the University of Portsmouth, says the key problem is women are delaying motherhood. He says: 'They spend more time menstruating and this, coupled with health fears about meat, means around 30 per cent of pre-menopausal women are shedding hair because they lack iron.'

Dr Farjo adds that extreme dieting has also been linked to female hair loss. 'Nutrients like protein, vitamin B complex and zinc are important for healthy hair. Red meat is rich in protein and iron, so if you're going to cut it out you need to address that with supplements or other foods.' 

Vitamin D deficiency may also trigger hair loss.

Another major lifestyle habit contributing to female baldness is the products applied to hair and skin, according to Dr Farjo. 

He says: 'Certain dyes, particularly ones containing peroxide bleach, can cause severe hair breakage over time.'

Alopecia affects two in every 100 people in the UK. It is an auto-immune disease in which the body attacks the hair follicle.

Dr Farjo says: 'The most common treatment for alopecia is steroids, but it often goes away of its own accord. In extreme cases, it may be that nothing can be done.'

Hair experts are warning that a previously rare type of alopecia seems, inexplicably, to be on the increase. This condition - frontal fibrosing alopecia - causes the entire hairline to recede.

Many women with thinning or balding hair may be tempted to turn to extensions - but Dr Farjo says they could make it worse. 

'Traction alopecia, or mechanical hair loss, is where the use of a product which pulls the hair, such as straighteners or extensions, traumatises the hair and causes it to come out.'

I still dream of finding a solution. A few months ago, hoping that hair transplant techniques had improved since 2004, I visited a hair doctor in London. 

He examined my scalp and informed me that my only option was to have my scalp tattooed in a darker colour to disguise my bald spot.

The procedure would take the greater part of a day, and involve countless needles. A tattooed head? Even in my hour of need, that sounds like a step too far.

I love the way this story ends. She was able to put her priorities right. Some actions can literally be going too far.