“After having coronavirus, I’m experiencing excessive hair loss and a terrible scalp condition (flaking and itching). How is this related to COVID? how to treat it?”
Geniusbeauty reader, 36.
For the past year and a half, the world has been living in a new pandemic environment due to the spread of coronavirus. Coronavirus infection is an acute viral disease with predominantly upper respiratory tract involvement caused by an RNA-genomic virus of the genus Betacoronavirus of the family Coronaviridae. People become infected mainly through airborne droplets (sneezing, coughing, etc.) and contact with household items, food, etc. One of the consequences of SARS-CoV19 infection is severe hair loss. Why does the hair fall out?
Hair follicles are a hair factory with an extremely high speed and need for energy, oxygen, and nutrients (vitamins, amino acids, and minerals). The ability to regenerate, that is, the regenerative potential of this factory, depends entirely on meeting the needs for building material and sufficient oxygenation.
Long-term post-covid conditions
After a covid infection, some people still have hypoxia and microcirculatory disorders for quite a long time. In addition, prolonged fever, complex medications used to treat the disease, malnutrition, and weight loss during the illness (and many patients refuse to eat because of severe intoxication), and stress also lead to impaired hair growth.
Therefore, regardless of the infection severity, about one-third of those who contracted COVID-19 show symptoms of hair growth disorders within 2-10 weeks, on average 1.5 months after recovery. Primarily the symptoms are hair loss and increased sensitivity, flaking, and itching of the scalp. In this case, women, men, and children are all affected. Thus, patients develop acute telogenic hair loss when 150-200 or more hairs fall daily, making people start panicking.
So what are the chances of successful hair regrowth?
It should be noted at once that it will take quite a long time to restore the lost volume of your hair. In most cases, hair loss reduction will not begin sooner than 2-4 months after treatment, and the full hair volume will be restored in 6-9 months (not the length, of course). It is advisable to choose a complex of therapeutic measures individually with the doctor.
Post-covid hair loss treatment
The treatment includes a complex of measures correcting trace element, vitamin, and amino acid disorders. Patients usually receive a prescription of a combination of supplements, external growth promoters, as well as regenerative procedures. In addition, various methods of physiotherapeutic treatment (laser therapy, magnetic therapy, LED light) are widely used.
