Tory MP Nadine Dorries has revealed she cries every morning because she has started losing her hair and is "terrified" of it getting worse.
Dorries, who has only recently had the Tory whip restored after an supposedly unauthorised trip to the jungle for I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, said she noticed her hair coming out during a television interview a few weeks' ago when she caught a glimpse of the back of her head in a camera.
She told ITV1's Daybreak that she was speaking out about the problem to highlight the fact that treatment is available to other women who may suffer from hair loss.
Nadine Dorries said she noticed her hair coming out during a television interview a few weeks' ago
"When men go bald and when they lose their hair, what they tend to do is have a mid-life crisis and go out and have an affair, but what women tend to do is to actually go into their houses and lock the door, and there is help available, you can do something," she said.
"The worst part is every morning you wake up and you look in the mirror, that actually does make you cry every morning.
"It's a bit like your femininity is going down the shower, it's going down the plughole."
The controversial MP for Mid Bedfordshire said she had found losing her hair to be a "confidence stealer" and likened it to when women have a mastectomy.
"Everything's against you and you're losing your feminitiy," she said. "You're losing your confidence and you're losing your ability to go out and actually face the world because you think what identifies and woman are her hair and her breasts.
"Women who suffer from mastectomies, I think, go through the same confidence-draining loss because what defines you as a woman is disappearing."
Dorries, who revealed last month that she is looking at the possibility of standing as a joint Conservative-UK Independence Party candidate at the next election, told the programme she was due to have her first appointment to try to combat the problem this morning.
Dorries said she did not know exactly what had led to her hair loss as she said she has just had the "best year of my life", but knew it was often linked to stress.
A friend of hers has begun taking anti-depressants due to her own hair falling out, she said.
Earlier this week, Dorries launched into a Twitter tirade against the "toupee-wearing" BBC presenter Andrew Neil.