COVID-19 and Your Hair: How to deal with post-viral hair loss
Let’s talk about COVID-19 and hair loss. This is something that has affected quite a few people, but it is not a problem that is well-known. As we are recovering from the pandemic (and hopefully will continue to) here in the UK, there may be patients who are finding themselves suffering from sudden unexplained hair loss after having recovered from COVID months ago!
What is Happening?
You caught COVID-19 a few months ago, and were lucky enough to fully recover. While some have suffered from serious illness or long COVID, you’ve been feeling almost like your old self. Until one day you notice that your hair is falling out in clumps!
What is happening? It is a condition known as acute telogen effluvium. Telogen effluvium is a very common cause of increased hair loss.
To understand why this occurs, we have to know a little about the hair growth cycle. Revisit our article about hair in cosmetic medicine to learn more details, but the short summary is that our hair follicles exist in anagen (growing) and telogen (resting) phases. Our hair will usually be in the anagen phase for about four years, then take a break in the telogen phase for a few months. It’s normal to lose between 20-120 hairs a day when they are in this resting phase.
Now, if there is a stress to the system, our hairs in the growing phase can suddenly be pushed into the resting phase. This happening with childbirth (which is why you get postpartum hair loss), extreme stress, and of course illness.
Telogen effluvium is the medical term that described this process, a non-inflammatory form of alopecia. Do we know that COVID-19 causes it? There is growing evidence that it does, and if we understand that the triggers of telogen effluvium it makes complete sense that COVID-19 could be one of these.
How do I know it’s Telogen Effluvium?
Telogen effluvium hair loss is, strangely enough, a sign of hair regrowth! The only reason the resting hairs come out of the scalp is because new hair are emerging underneath and pushing them out. This can be seen by the characteristic “club shape” seen at the end of the hairs on a gentle pull test. This can also be confirmed under a microscope.
The Good News
This is a self-limiting condition, meaning that it will get better on its own. Complete recovery and hair regrowth is expected to happen within 6-9 months.
Now, that does not minimise the huge impact significant hair loss can have on your self-image and self-esteem, so here are some tips to help in the meantime.
Handle your hair with care, avoiding vigorous brushing and combing.
Try to minimise your stress as much as possible with self-care, including a good well-rounded diet and good sleep.
See your doctor to rule out any contributing hormonal issue (like hypothyroidism) or scalp conditions.
References
Olds H, Liu J, Luk K, Lim HW, Ozog D, Rambhatla PV. Telogen effluvium associated with COVID-19 infection. Dermatol Ther. 2021 Mar;34(2):e14761. doi: 10.1111/dth.14761. Epub 2021 Jan 14. PMID: 33405302; PMCID: PMC7883200.
There's a whole corner of the internet teaching teenage boys and young men to chase a chiselled jaw — some of it harmless, some of it genuinely dangerous, and quite a lot of it built on the advice of two dentists who've since been struck off.
Here's what actually works, what's nonsense, and the thing underneath it all that I think we need to talk about.
Most of my work — and most of this blog — has, historically, spoken to women. But there's a trend I can't really ignore any longer, because it's aimed squarely at boys, some of them very young, and because bits of it are landing people in trouble. It's called looksmaxxing, and if you have a teenage son, or you are a young man, or you've simply fallen down a certain kind of TikTok rabbit hole, you'll already know the vocabulary: mewing, mouth-taping, bonesmashing, "canthal tilt," "hunter eyes."
The easy move is to mock this latest trend, but mockery is exactly the wrong response. Let me explain what it all is, sort the sensible from the silly from the genuinely harmful — and then talk about the part that actually matters.