Shedding And Loss Are Not The Same Thing

Every hair is on a clock

A follicle spends years in the growing phase, a couple of weeks in a brief transition, then about three months resting before the hair is released and a new one begins. At any moment roughly nine in ten of your follicles are growing and the rest are resting, and because they are out of step with each other, the shedding is spread out and invisible. Fifty to a hundred hairs a day is normal and always has been.

Shedding: too many clocks synchronised

Telogen effluvium is what happens when a stressor pushes an unusually large share of follicles into the resting phase at the same time. Three months later they all release together, and you get handfuls in the shower and a drain that keeps clogging.

The three-month delay is the crucial detail and the most missed. The cause is not what was happening when the shedding started; it is what was happening a season earlier.

• A high fever or significant illness
• Surgery, or general anaesthetic
• Childbirth — extremely common and reliably alarming
• Rapid weight loss or a very restrictive diet
• Severe psychological stress, bereavement, a divorce
• Starting or stopping certain medications, hormonal contraception among them
• Iron deficiency or thyroid disease

The reassuring part: the follicles are intact and the hair grows back. It typically resolves over three to six months once the cause has passed, and the density returns. What it needs is patience and, if the cause was iron or thyroid, treatment of that.

Loss: follicles changing rather than resting

Androgenetic hair loss is a different process. Follicles progressively miniaturise, producing finer, shorter, less pigmented hair each cycle until they produce nothing visible. It follows a pattern — receding temples and crown in men, widening part and diffuse thinning at the crown in women — and it is gradual rather than sudden.

Where a supplement fits, honestly

In shedding caused by a genuine nutritional shortfall — iron most commonly, then Biotin and Zinc — correcting the shortfall genuinely helps, because the shortfall was the cause. That is a real and reasonably common scenario, and it is why a blood test comes before a purchase.

What to actually do

• Work backwards three months. Illness, surgery, birth, crash diet, new medication, major stress. The answer is usually there.
• Get iron and thyroid checked. Ferritin specifically, not just haemoglobin. Both are common, both are treatable, and neither is fixed by a skin supplement.
• Photograph the part line monthly, in the same light. Gradual change is impossible to judge from memory.
• See a doctor for anything patterned, patchy, or accompanied by scalp symptoms. Patchy round bald spots are a different condition again and need diagnosing.