Covid-Related Hair-Loss Diseases on the Rise

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I read an interesting article in the newspaper today about how there’s such a high prevalence now of hair loss during the COVID era. And for me, I don’t know necessarily if I’ve seen a higher incident, it’s only because I’m scheduled for several months out right now. And I just still see people with hair loss every day. However, the news article talked about two conditions that seem to be on the rise during the Covid era now. One of which is telogen effluvium and the other is alopecia areata. Telogen effluvium is a shift of our hair through the growth phase into the falling out phase, where in general, the vast majority of our percentages intelligent, which is a sleeping phase where the hair fallout should be about 5% or so. But in someone that has telogen effluvium that can shift up to 40 or 50% very quickly, and it can shed usually telogen effluvium is related to. There’s a million reasons that it can occur at post-pregnancy.

For example, it can occur usually after a significant weight loss stress, it can occur after general anesthesia. It can occur after different types of malnutrition. But I think what they’re relating it to is the stress that people are undergoing with COVID right now. One of the treatments for telogen effluvium is just waiting it out, waiting for it to be restored. The other things that can help during this time is minoxidil. But the only problem is minoxidil contemporarily cause more tillagen shock and then as you withdraw the minoxidil, if you stop it, it can also cause it to come to be shot again. So if it’s a short term telogen effluvium, I usually recommend Nutrafol, which is a great product, we have it in our office.

We sell a little less than what Amazon charges, but it’s just what is helpful to help in terms of nutritional balancing it. Also, they have Ostrow Gonda in there and horsetail root that can also help with some of the stress that’s related to hair loss. The other condition alopecia areata. We don’t know exactly what causes it. We think it’s immune related. It’s usually classically what you see as circles on your head that are lost. Sometimes more extensive loss can be wider areas where you can actually lose your whole hair on the head, as well as eyebrows, eyelashes, and sometimes even body hair. But they’ve noticed that during this time of COVID that there’s an increase in the size and the extensiveness of alopecia areata it is typically a condition that may be immune-related.

So in other words, it could be stress-related, it could be, immune-related usually occurs more in childhood, but it can occur in adult adulthood as well. And this treatment is something that really a dermatologist manages. So if you have alopecia areata, I hate to say, don’t come and see me cause I’m really a hair surgeon, but this is something that as a hair surgeon, I must know, because I can’t transplant that. Well, I guess theoretically you could, if it’s been burned out and there’s no active condition for many years, and it’s just still a hair loss that did not come back, that it could be transplanted, but most cases alopecia areata, it comes back, it can be treated, it should be treated more medically like steroid injections. And for more advanced cases, there are more advanced therapies that are there that lie beyond the scope of this short podcast.

But these, uh, types of hair losses can be stress related. So I guess one word of wisdom has really cut down the stress, the best of your ability during this Covid era. One thing that I’m passionate about is cupping. I have a lady in my building that does great cupping that helps with detoxing, our bodies and some of these homeopathy, this homeopathic medications that can cut down on stress can also be helpful because unfortunately, Western doctors need to throw medicine at it all the time, but I sort of subscribe to the philosophy of that. There are some Eastern remedies that can be very effective as well as Western ones.