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These are difficult times, and a lot of us are experiencing disrupted schedules and life patterns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But can it also cause hair loss? Surprisingly, there are some aspects of this pandemic that may be responsible for some of your hair loss. Thankfully, we have lots of treatments available at the Hair Restoration Institute that can help both men and women. 

What’s the relationship between COVID-19 and hair loss? For many of us, the answer is stress. 

There are two types of stress that may be contributing to your hair loss these days – physical and emotional stress. There’s no doubt that the pandemic is causing a lot of emotional stress every day across the globe. Whether you or a friend or family member has been sick or whether you are dealing with disrupted routines or closed workplaces or schools, it’s easy to get overstressed right now. And if you have more responsibilities to handle these days, whether it’s work or family related, the physical aspect can take a toll on your health. 

Stress is something we all experience because it’s important to our survival. When faced with a dangerous situation, stress is what triggers the fight-or-flight response that gets us to safety. Unfortunately, stress can happen in your body even when the stress isn’t quite so dangerous – like during everyday work, school, or home experiences. That means that most of us are overloaded with stress to the point where it can start affecting our health. 

Stress can do a lot of damage to your physical health. In the long term, it can affect most of the functioning systems of your body, such as the immune system, cardiovascular system, digestive system and more. That’s where the processes that regular hair growth can also be negatively affected.

And if you have or have had COVID-19, one possible side effect may be hair loss. That’s because excess inflammation, which many COVID-19 patients experience, can increase your hair loss rate to the point where new hair growth no longer replaces lost hair quickly enough, leading to thinning. Normally, we shed our hair naturally at a rate of about 100 hairs per day. That’s what you’ll find every day on your hairbrush and in your shower drain, and that’s normal. But an inflammatory response from COVID-19 may speed this up to several hundred per day, and it makes it harder for the new hair to keep up.

Other reasons people who have or had had COVID-19 may experience hair loss include fever, less sleep, disruptions in healthy eating, changes in your blood’s flow, and missed hair loss treatment appointments when some states had closures.

Thankfully, we can help with effective hair replacement treatments here at the Hair Replacement Institute, such as: 

• MEP-90 Laser therapy. The MEP-90 is an FDA-approved medical device that stimulates hair regrowth. For some people, hair loss happens because hair follicles become miniaturized – they shrink – to the point where they can no longer grow hair. The MEP-90 helps stimulate follicles to reverse this process and grow them back for better hair growth function. 
• Platelet therapy. This therapy uses platelets from your own blood, which contain natural growth factors and stem cells that can stimulate hair follicles in your scalp to help enhance hair growth.
• Transplants. If COVID-19 effects have accelerated hair loss to the point where there are large areas of thinning hair, transplant surgery may be the solution for some people. Transplants use donor hair follicles from other areas of your scalp (or beard) where hair is thicker and transplants them into the thinning areas. There are two different types of transplants: FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) and FUT (Follicular Unit Transplant). FUT treatments use strips of donor hair that in some cases can leave a linear scar, while FUE uses a few hairs that are strategically positioned to fill in thinning areas without a scar. The different types are appropriate for different needs, so your Hair Replacement Institute medical technician will help you decide what’s right for you.

These are just a few examples of the many hair replacement therapies available today. Whether your hair loss is caused by COVID-19 or other factors, you can take control and restore your thick head of hair. The first step is a confidential appointment, so make an appointment today at the Hair Restoration Institute. Our experienced medical technicians will assess your individual needs and build a treatment plan that’s right for you. You can find us at 8030 Old Cedar Ave S #202 in Bloomington or the Edgewater Town Office Park at 2598 Rice Street in Saint Paul in Minnesota, or at 1201 West Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas, or call 612-588-HAIR (4247) in Minnesota or 817-854-HAIR (4247) in Dallas/Fort Worth for a complimentary consultation.