Television presenter Melanie Sykes has shared a brave and deeply personal health update, revealing her completely bald head on social media just days after informing fans she had lost “two-thirds” of her hair to alopecia.
The 55-year-old former Today with Des and Mel and Let’s Do Lunch co-host has been candidly documenting her journey with the distressing autoimmune condition, using her platform to reframe her hair loss as part of a broader spiritual transition.
Melanie Sykes has shown off her completely bald head days after revealing she had lost ‘two-thirds’ of her hair.
The star, 55, has been battling alopecia and gave an update on Friday about living with the distressing condition.
On Sunday, Mel flashed a smile as she posted a selfie of herself and wrote: ‘Loss + Gain = Life’.
She added the hashtags: ‘#wise #tistime #sage #yogi #smile’.
The TV presenter, who first opened up about her battle with alopecia in April last year, posted images showing the extent of her hair loss.
Photos taken of both sides of her head show her hair loss due the impact of the alopecia, and she captioned the Instagram clip ‘#Liberty’.
Melanie Sykes has shown off her completely bald head days after revealing she had lost ‘two-thirds’ of her hair
The TV personality (pictured in 2017), has opened up on her heartbreaking health battle after first confirming her alopecia diagnosis in April 2025
Back in December, Melanie reported: ‘I am not well, as you know, I’ve been ill all year. I’ve got a condition. I’m losing my hair. I keep having crazy, like, all over everything, and I’m working on healing.’
She revealed that not only has she been struggling with alopecia, she also has a heart condition, which causes palpitations, and is suffering inflammation all over her body.
Melanie shared a positive health update to end 2025 and revealed she was suffering from ‘Post-Traumatic Growth’.
On Instagram she said she was ‘vibrating high’ after ‘transcending trauma’, amid her battle with the autoimmune condition that’s left her ‘two-thirds bald’ and with excessive inflammation all over her body.
Post-Traumatic Growth is the positive psychological change that some individuals experience after a life crisis or traumatic event.
She said: ‘Even the most difficult times do pass, they do, and I just want to use this term post traumatic growth, it’s real, you can be suffering from PTSD but still at the same time be experiencing post traumatic growth.’
‘I’m in both camps because you can be both things at once, as long as I attend to myself and what makes me happy and feel grief about whatever has gone on and process it and move on from it’.
Before adding: ‘We can transcend all trauma, we can be changed, and I am living f***ing proof of that!’.
In an update earlier this year, she told fans: ‘Hey strumps, my crown is pretty much what’s left of my hair now and how healthy it is.
‘I do get cold, however, hence my beanie and various headwear, but I’m learning to live with “loss” and counting my blessings instead.
‘It’s not always easy to be grateful, but it is the key to happiness and takes daily, moment-to-moment practice. Practice love.’
The TV presenter first spoke about her alopecia in April last year and on Friday she showed the extent of her hair loss on either side of her head
Melanie captioned the clip showing her hair loss ‘#Liberty’
The star, who was the face of the Boddingtons Bitter beer advert in the mid-1990s, first confirmed she had alopecia when she showed a bald spot on her head in April last year.
She said the photo was taken while she was in London investigating some health issues.
‘I am experiencing alopecia and heart issues due to all that has happened over the last few months. PTSD, shock, mistreatment and malpractice,’ the former TV star revealed.
Melanie urged fans not to ‘worry about her’ amid her health woes and insisted that she has ‘learnt to take care of herself’ and is ‘healing’.
She said: ‘Life is so good, and I know it because I’m right here right now and there’s nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear.
‘The more I tune into faith, and believing that all is well because it is, because I’m experiencing it, so I know that it is, that it’ll only get better.’
Melanie said she would rather not speak about her illness all the time and added: ‘We don’t need to bring that to the conversation.’
She continued: ‘It’s not like I’m hiding it, I’d just rather have a conversation about something else because I’ve got that down and I’m healing myself.
‘Worry about yourselves, if anything, and I don’t even mean worry about yourselves, I just mean attend to your own spiritual garden, yourself, your body, your mind, your creative spirit.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ve got me, I’ve always got me, I’ve learned to really take care of myself in the last two years.’
Melanie revealed in a clip that she is also living with excessive inflammation all over her body.
Wearing a jumper, jacket, scarf and hat, Melanie took to social media to explain that she has been ‘living a spiritual existence’, and encouraged people to start meditating as she tried to remain positive.
She said: ‘In the last three months, I’ve done a meditation teacher training course. I was too ill to finish it, like literally the last two days of it I couldn’t do, it’s a meditation teacher training, I don’t necessarily want to teach, but I can do…
‘Mostly I’ve been living a very, very very spiritual existence. It’s been a while I have ignited my YouTube channel again after a long period of learning, meditating and healing (this is ongoing.) Remember I love you always.’
