After Telogen Effluvium, I Learned to Love Myself Again

Realizing that aspect of physical appearance is temporary, I fell in love with my hair. Growing up, we didn’t have much money to spend on beauty products or clothes, but as an avid gallery-goer, I instead found comfort and beauty in the similarities I shared with the women in some of the paintings. The walls of my local gallery were adorned with Victorian paintings, mostly pre-Raphaelite women depicted with long, bushy curls, a prized possession in their age. It was like looking in a mirror. I had never seen hair like mine represented with such beauty, so when I struggled to love my body, my hair made me feel beautiful. 

Fast-forward to 2021, and as my hair started to thin all over my head, self-love became more difficult. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself. My deep-seated insecurities and influence from social media made me embarrassed to talk to my friends about my hair shedding, let alone a doctor. Adult hair loss is so often associated with men, but what I didn’t know is that female pattern hair loss can affect around 40 percent of women by the age of 50, according to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 

When I finally mustered up to courage to make my own doctor’s appointment, she told me that “all the signs are pointing to telogen effluvium,” which is a form of temporary hair loss. It wasn’t long before my doctor’s suspicion was confirmed by a dermatologist, who examined my scalp and hair, and then ran a blood test. 

“The important feature of telogen effluvium is that the shedding comes from the whole scalp rather than favoring certain parts, so the overall volume of hair shrinks. Most people can tell by the thickness of their ponytail, often noticing they now need to wrap their hair band many more times to secure it” explains Sharon Wong, MD, a GMC-registered consultant dermatologist and hair specialist The Harley Street Specialist Hospital in London, England. “Diagnosing telogen effluvium is the easy bit. The challenge is finding the cause, and more often than not, several coexistent factors may be contributing to it.” 

She identifies the most common culprits as stress, acute illnesses (especially when accompanied by a high fever,) nutritional deficiencies like iron deficiencies medications, dramatic weight loss from crash dieting or post-surgery, and fluctuations in hormones (i.e. post-partum, and stopping, starting or changing contraceptives). My own hair loss was categorized as a byproduct of stress and malnutrition, so I was advised to monitor my nutrition and look after my mental health. It felt comforting to have an answer and professional advice, and for a moment, I felt like I’d regained a sense of control. But with no real cure to curb the hair loss and realizing it could take years for my hair to return to its normal state, I knew the real fix needed to happen inside my head, not on it.