Why does your hair texture change when you have telogen effluvium or shed?

I sometimes get emails from people who want to know why their hair has acquired a strange, loose and unkempt texture before or during increased hair loss. They want to know if the fall is affecting the hair or if the strange texture came before or has something to do with the fall. They also want to know if its texture will return to normal once the molt stops. I will try to address these concerns in the next article.

Why changing hair texture often goes hand in hand with telogen effluvium: When your hair goes into TE or fall mode then you have a large percentage of your hair follicles entering the resting phase at the same time. From the moment the hair changes cycles until it falls out, time passes. This can be from a few weeks to a few months. (This is why many times, you will start to lose weight around 2 to 3 months after the “trigger” that caused the shedding.)

During this transition phase, many hairs are technically “dead” or no longer growing. They will eventually fall off, but this doesn’t happen right away. So as the hair goes at its own pace and prepares to fall out, it takes on another texture, which is what you are seeing now. People often ask me what they can do about it or how they can make their hair look better. In reality, there is no way to return the hair to the growth phase. It’s going to drop sometime soon and there’s no way to change that. However, sometimes wearing your hair up or in a ponytail will help camouflage this. If you don’t want to wear your hair up, you can spray on a light leave-in conditioner or frizz product that will help your hair lay flat. Be very picky when choosing a product that is lightweight. Failure to do so will make your hair look thinner and / or greasy.

The good news is that once all resting hairs are generally disconnected, their texture will eventually return to normal, provided you address and remove the trigger (if necessary) so this cycle doesn’t repeat. itself.

When to worry about changing hair texture: Like I said, the loose hair from the dryer that goes hand in hand with TE will often resolve on its own. More concerning is hair that is miniaturized. Because sometimes what you’re seeing is not your typical TE. Sometimes the loss also has an AGA component or androgenic alopecia (genetic thinning). And when this happens, sometimes you get a miniaturization of your regrowth. What this means is that your hair follicle is adversely affected by androgens or other hormonal or genetic problems. As a result, the hair that grows back becomes thinner and finer. This will also sometimes give the flyway and a strange texture that I often hear and know from personal experience.

In this case, you will need to decrease the effect of androgens and hormones while vigorously stimulating new growth. This is often a process of at least two steps, but if you approach it very methodically, you can actually change or improve its texture.

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