5-year-old Audrey Layne Larson is the second child of Kyle Larson and his wife, Katelyn. Born back in 2018, she completes the family of five along with her parents and two brothers, Owen and Cooper. Around 18 months after her birth, Audrey began suffering from Alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss. Katelyn came out with the news to the public back in 2022 with an Instagram post.
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In an interview that followed, she detailed how her daughter experienced the effects of the disorder since she was an 18-month-old, and doctors had held off on giving a definitive diagnosis until the time of her revelation. She said, “In the beginning, it was just little pieces that I could cover, and it was no big deal. It would grow right back. The last time that she lost her hair, she lost a significant amount. Those were the pictures that I had posted.”
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The timing of Katelyn’s post coincided with two things: The diagnosis from doctors and the streaming of ‘Race for the Championship’. On her husband’s segment on the show, Audrey was seen wearing hats and other accessories that covered her hair. Not wanting people to draw the wrong conclusions about her daughter reinforced Katelyn to take the story public.
She added in the interview, “She kind of looked like she was going through chemotherapy and losing her hair. I just wanted to protect her from anything that might come out later.” The post and the interview both came during the Alopecia Awareness Month of September.
The reasons behind Audrey’s condition and awareness T-shirt launch
Though the exact causes for Audrey’s condition were yet to be known, Katelyn had been able to link the random hair fall back to the flu shots and vaccinations that the kid got. However, her doctors had suggested otherwise by stating that stress could be the reason behind things. This once again left the Larsons confused over what kind of stress a toddler could go through apart from dietary challenges.
Katelyn also revealed that Audrey has a lot of allergies including an aversion to dairy products. She said, “She’s pretty Tomboy at this stage in life. Dresses and hair — she hates if I touch her hair. She’ll wear a ballcap. She’s completely unbothered and I don’t think she even notices, which is great.”
Despite the harshness of the situation, the Larsons have been strong and ready to deal with the challenges of Audrey’s hair loss. During the time of the interview, they also launched a T-shirt to create awareness of Alopecia and announced that the proceeds from its sale would go to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF).
