Telogen effluvium is a common type of hair loss that affects people after they experience severe stress or a change to their body. Symptoms include thinning hair, usually around the top of your head. Treatment exists to reverse hair loss, but hair will typically grow back in three to six months without treatment.
Stress and hair loss don't have to be permanent. And if you get your stress under control, your hair might grow back. If you notice sudden or patchy hair loss or more than usual hair loss when combing or washing your hair, talk to your doctor.
Prolonged periods of stress can result in telogen effluvium. Hair loss typically occurs about 3 months after the stressful event.
If your daily hair fall is more than the usual 80-100 strands of hair, you might be suffering from stress-related hair loss. If you notice bald patches on your scalp, it may be a sign of Alopecia Areata. If you have had the urge to pull out your hair, it may be stress-induced Trichotillomania.
Hair shedding will decrease. If your hair reaches a normal amount of shedding (i.e. 50 to 100 hairs per day), that's a pretty clear indication that telogen effluvium regrowth is occurring. If you have long hair, you will notice more short hair strands throughout your scalp.
If the doctor gently tugs on some hairs on your scalp and four or more hairs come out, you probably have telogen effluvium. Also, the hairs will look like hairs in the telogen phase — they will have a white bulb at the end that was in the scalp, and will not have a gel-like covering around that end of the hair.
Telogen effluvium is the name for a common cause of temporary hair loss due to the excessive shedding of resting or telogen hair after some shock to the system. New hair continues to grow.
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Acute telogen effluvium lasts fewer than six months, and your hair loss tends to happen two to three months after a stressor or change to your body. In 95% of cases, acute telogen effluvium goes away (resolves). Chronic telogen effluvium lasts longer than six months.
Signs of Hair Loss
While men usually see a receding hairline, women tend to lose hair from the top of their scalp. The gap on the part of your hair may widen, or you may notice bald spots when you put your hair up.
Chronic telogen effluvium (CTE) is idiopathic diffuse scalp hair shedding of at least 6 months duration.
Sleep deprivation is a form of stress and stress is known to affect hair loss. It can cause temporary hair loss conditions such as telogen effluvium, and can also exacerbate hereditary hair loss in both men and women with a genetic predisposition to androgenic alopecia.
Only riboflavin, biotin, folate, and vitamin B12 deficiencies have been associated with hair loss.
Hair follicles are part of your skin that are responsible for growing your hair. If you accidentally pull out a strand of your hair and it has a ball (bulb) on the end of it, you didn't pull out the follicle, and instead, you removed your hair root. That root grows back and your hair will grow back, too.
Some of the mild to severe symptoms of associated psychological problems with hair loss are: anxiety, anger, depression, embarrassment, decreased confidence, reduction in work and sexual performance, social withdrawal, and suicidal tendencies.
Telogen Effluvium symptoms
Your hair will feel thinner due the increased amount of shedding, and even though each hair is replaced with new hair, it can take months for it to grow significantly enough to contribute to the overall thickness of your hair.
It consists of a growing phase (anagen), an involuting phase (catagen), and a resting phase (telogen). The anagen phase can last for about two to five years, and around 90% of scalp hair is in this phase [8]. The catagen phase is a much shorter phase, lasting three to six weeks.
Hair cycle implies sequential phases of growth and rest that each follicle goes through which includes anagen (active hair growth), catagen (involution) and telogen phase (resting). The anagen phase may last for about 2 to 8 years, the catagen phase lasts for 4 to 6 weeks and the telogen phase lasts for 2 to 3 months.
Acute Telogen Effluvium
Often patients as a result will reduce the washing regiment in the hope that this will stop the hair falling out. If you don't wash your hair thoroughly, you will lose more hair! Often the quicker you shed hair the faster you will recover.
Even cutting your hair into a lob will help disguise sudden hair loss and diffuse thinning. If you're open to it, talk to your hairstylist about a haircut that will work best for your hair texture while you wait for telogen effluvium regrowth.
Telogen effluvium is triggered when physiologic stress causes a large number of hairs in the growing phase of the hair cycle (anagen) to abruptly enter the resting phase (telogen).