‘At last, 20 years of worry are over’

Yet Claire has spent 20 years hiding a physical condition which remains so stigmatised it is rarely discussed.

If left untreated, dark hair grows on her face and torso, her waist and the top of her thighs. It used to be so dense she had to shave her face every morning with a disposable razor. For years, her husband Derek helped her cope with the fear of the black strands curling at her neckline by shaving her back.

Now she has received laser treatment on the NHS – and spent hundreds of pounds of her own money at a private clinic in Glasgow – and found a way to manage the problem, but it has been a long journey.

Claire says: “Way back when I did not have the medical profession taking it seriously, maybe because they did not understand it, and I was told there was no treatment available, I had no hope. I thought I was a freak.”

In fact, 5 to 15% of women suffer excessive hairiness or hirsutism and Transform Cosmetic Surgery clinics in Glasgow and Edinburgh see, on average, 200 women a month requesting laser hair removal.

One of the most common causes, and the condition which afflicts Claire, is polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) – a disorder characterised by cysts on the ovaries and a range of other symptoms including hirsutism, infertility and weight issues.

Perhaps, surprisingly, clinicians report that it is the extra body and facial hair which causes most distress, an observation confirmed by a survey by PCOS charity Verity. Excess hair came out as the worst symptom with 30% of the votes in a poll on their website.

Claire first encountered signs of PCOS when at the age of 24 she came off the pill after six months because she found it did not agree with her.

At first she experienced weight-gain and bloating, then her periods became erratic. Her GP put it down to the hormonal changes caused by the contraception. Then she began noticing small hairs on her shoulder in the shower.

One day as she was drying herself, Derek swept his hand to brush what he thought was a stray hair from her back only to find it was attached. Suddenly embarrassed, Claire says the reality of the extra growth hit home.

She says: “I went back to the doctor and was sent backwards and forwards to hospitals and eventually ended up with an old gynaecologist who had a student with him. I had to stand there in my bra and pants and he was pointing out areas of hair to the younger doctor. No matter what way you look at it, it was humiliating. He told me I had a hormone imbalance and I was going to have to live with it. He said it was one of those unfortunate things that comes with being a woman.”

By now she was approaching her thirties and hair was appearing on her face as well; on her top lip and from the nape of her neck to her ears. Within six months, she says, she began to suffer from a “five o’clock shadow”.

“I was having to get up in the morning and shave and tweak and then by 5pm at night I could see them coming back again,” she says. “I lost a lot of my confidence with that because everyone could see it.”

Claire turned to the internet and found all her symptoms pointed to PCOS. Fired-up by her husband, she returned to her GP where she was seen by a locum who immediately ordered blood tests.

A diagnostic scan followed. When the sonographer pointed-out Claire’s ovaries on the image, she joked: “I do have them then.” He also drew her attention to the little black dots indicating cysts – both ovaries were full of them.

In many ways it was bad news. PCOS cannot be cured and is a leading cause of fertility issues. But Claire and Derek were not ambitious to start a family. It was the hair growth which affected her every day.

Her diagnosis triggered a referral to the Greater Glasgow clinic which provided laser treatment for skin problems including burns, scars and excess hair.

A panel was due to consider whether Claire’s case was severe enough to warrant NHS treatment, but she says as soon as the consultant saw the medical photos taken of her face she was referred.

“I felt fantastic,” she says. “I said to him, ‘You are the only one to given me a bit of hope.’”

The laser treatment had to be repeated regularly and the change was gradual, but after nine months she could see the difference.

Claire no longer feels the need to talk with her hand over her mouth to hide creeping growth and her skin is not sore from scraping.

She says: “I still get the odd one. That is nothing when I do not have to shave every day.”

Treatment for Claire’s torso and legs, however, was not available on the NHS. When she began to talk about spreading depilatory cream around her shoulder blades, ahead of a holiday, her husband offered to shave her back.

“I could never have let anyone else do it, not even my sister,” says Claire. “It probably did bring Derek and I closer together because he understood where the lack of confidence was coming from. He said, ‘This is not like you.’ I would tell him it was bothering me and he would say, ‘It is only me that sees it.’”

Nevertheless she ritually checked for visible hairs every time she left the house.

On a night out with her sister she was standing at a bar when a strange man tried to pluck a hair from her shoulders – one her husband must have missed. Claire was so embarrassed she left immediately. She says: “It was humiliating. I thought I was dealing with it, but then you suddenly realise how one comment that you would normally ignore, sets you back years. A big part of my confidence went again.”

Finally she saved up the money to fund private treatment for her back.

Under a special offer she says she paid around £800 for a course of eight treatments using what is called near infra-red technology – a system which uses pulses of energy to gradually heat the follicles in the skin’s sub dermal layer to prevent re-growth.

Like a dieter trying to avoid the scales, she tried not to take peeks in the mirror until the programme was complete – but says when she saw the before and after photographs side-by-side she felt fantastic.

“Now I can put on a wee strappy top if I want to,” she says. “I still check what is showing, but I think that is years of habit.”

The hairs still grow on her stomach, chest and thighs – but she says it would cost thousands to treat each area and there would be the on-going cost of “top-ups”.

She believes the NHS should consider funding more treatment for hirsutism where it is caused by illness.

Rachel Hawkes, chair of Verity, agrees. She says: “It gets seen as a cosmetic problem and not a medical condition and therefore does not get the attention it deserves. It plays havoc with a woman’s personal life and self esteem and it has a big impact on her emotional wellbeing, but the NHS very rarely funds treatment.”

Claire says knowing she can get rid of excess hair has been life-changing. “The things I have had to worry about for 20 years, I no longer have to worry about,” she says.