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

I sometimes get emails from people who want to know why their hair has taken on a weird, loose, unkempt texture before or during increased hair loss. They want to know if the shedding is affecting the hair or if the weird texture came before or has something to do with the shedding. They also want to know if their texture will return to normal once the shedding stops. I will try to address these concerns in the following article.

Why changing hair texture commonly 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 going into the resting phase at the same time. From the moment the hair cycles until it falls out, it takes a while. This can be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. (This is why many times, you’ll start shedding about 2-3 months after the “trigger” that caused the shedding.)

During this transition phase, many hairs are technically “dead” or no longer grow. They will eventually come off, but this doesn’t happen right away. So, as the hair advances and prepares to fall out, it takes on another texture, which is what you’re seeing now. People often ask me what they can do about it or how they can make their hair look better. In truth, there is no way to get hair back into 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 your hair to stand up, you can spray on a light leave-in conditioner or a frizzy product that will help your hair relax. Be very picky to choose a product that is light. If you don’t, this will weigh your hair down and make it look thinner and/or greasy.

The good news is that once all the resting hairs usually die down, their texture will eventually return to normal, as long as you address and remove the trigger (if necessary) so this cycle doesn’t keep repeating itself. itself.

When to worry about changing hair texture: Like I said, the flyaway hair that goes along with TE will often resolve itself. More worrisome is the miniaturized hair. Because sometimes, what you’re looking at isn’t your typical TE. Sometimes the loss also has a component of AGA or androgenic alopecia (genetic thinning). And when this happens, you sometimes get a miniaturization of your new growth. What this means is that your hair follicle is negatively affected by androgens or other hormonal or genetic issues. As a result, the regrown hair becomes finer and finer. This will sometimes also give the flight path and weird 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. Often this is at least a two step process, but if you approach it very methodically you can change or improve your texture.