How do I know if my telogen effluvium is ending?
I sometimes hear from people who desperately hope that their excessive hair loss (which they suspect is telogen effluvium) will finally come to an end. Usually the first thing they notice is that they don’t get as much hair when they wash it. Then they may see less loose hair on your clothes. Some see regrowth, but many don’t. Sometimes, however, just when you are hopeful that the decrease in hair loss means that your ET is slowing down or preparing to end, it will suddenly rise again.
I heard someone say, “Admittedly I count my hair loss. While my telogen effluvium was in full swing, I was losing at least 200 hairs per day, sometimes more. For the past few days, I have only been losing about 100. I was losing it. Hoping this would mean this nightmare was coming to an end. But then this morning when I showed it, 175 hairs came out. Does this mean my shed isn’t over? Has the effluvium ended once and for all? I will try to answer these questions in the next article.
Although there is very little clinical information available, the more “normal” days you see over a longer period of time, the greater the chances that your molt is coming to an end: If you’ve tried researching this topic, you probably already know that not much information is available. And this lack of information may lead you to believe that the detachment should stop abruptly. Many people expect to wake up one morning to find a normal shed that will continue from that day forward. Unfortunately, this is not always the way it happens. Often you will see sporadic shedding that goes up and down before it is fully normalized.
Your follicles may not go through the shedding phase all at once, so they may not go through the growth phase all at once: Think about what happens to start the molt in the first place. Usually some trigger (stress, medication, injury, etc.) causes many of the hair follicles to enter the resting or falling phase in one go. Typically this is staggered so that only a small percentage of follicles rest or shed at the same time. But, when you have telogen effluvium, this process is not staggered and you have many more follicles than normal shedding from the strands of hair. However, this may not happen the same day. It can happen over the course of weeks or days. That is why recovery can also be gradual. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t celebrate or be happy when you notice a day that brings you relief. Likewise, it shouldn’t be squashed if the detachment fluctuates a bit.
So is there a good thing to know when your move is officially over ?: I think the answer is different for everyone. Some people will not be happy until they see many days in a row that their shedding is absolutely normal. And others are happy with any improvement. And because it can be normal to have peaks and valleys in this process, to be sure, most people consider their hair loss to be over if they have had normal hair loss for about three months. And the truth is, once shedding starts to get better, you no longer feel compelled to keep track of the number of shed hairs or the days during which this happens, so you can lose track anyway. .
The bottom line for me is that whenever you see an improvement, it should be encouraged. That said, it is normal to see an improvement followed by an increase in shedding once again. And this does not always mean that your molt begins again. Seasonal or lost shedding for a day or two can be perfectly normal. But if you’ve seen “normal” ranges over the course of several days or months, then it’s a good indication that your molt is in the early stages of completion.
