Hair loss from illness
After recently receiving many inquiries on hair loss after being sick, I wanted to share a little information.
SO, LET’S START WITH THE BASICS
Hair is made up of keratin protein that grows from a follicle under the skin. The hairs growth cycle is made up of 3 main phases:
The Anagen (growing) phase, which lasts 2 to 8 years. During this phase, the hair is firmly attached to its root.
The Catagen (transitional) phase, which lasts a few days to weeks, when the hair stops growing and forms the basis for the next hair.
The Telogen (resting) phase which lasts 3 to 4 months, even up to 5-9 months. This is the hair shedding phase and causes the stem cells to move deeper into the dermis to start a new anagen phase.
Now, this hair loss that people are experiencing has nothing to do with the recent virus. Any viral illness with a high fever or very high stress situation can have this affect. Let’s face it, we have normalized chronic stress over the last couple years more than ever and most people don’t even notice it anymore.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
When the body is experiencing these occurrences, it begins to shift into a repair phase, or slowing phase, and telogen phase, called the telogen effluvium stage, which can last anywhere from weeks to months. This is a hair shedding stage that can be triggered by a sudden shock, high fever, virus, bacterial or high stress. When it shifts into this phase the body does not put resources into the anagen stage (growing), it just kicks the body into telogen phase(resting) more rapidly. This does not mean fevers are bad. Fevers are the bodies response to speed up circulation and blood flow. (When I fractured my knee last summer I had a fever every night for two weeks, my body creating more blood flow to help in the healing)
HELP YOUR BODY HEAL
The best thing you can do during this stage is to support your body. It is possible to regrow it back, it just takes time. Some things we want to consider:
High Stressors - They can be emotional, mental and physical. The body doesn’t know the difference.
Sleep – Not only the amount of sleep your body is getting, but also the quality of sleep.
Nutrition – I cannot stress how important balanced nutrition is for hair health and healthy hair growth.
WHAT I DID TO FIND ANSWERS
One of the best ways I have found to help with this is a Hair Follicle Analysis. It took the guess work out of the nutrition piece and showed me what systems in my body are stressed, what deficiencies there are, any toxin overloads, and provides you with what foods would support all these factors.
Reach out for more information on Hair Follicle Analysis.