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The trigger lies two to three months before the shedding — and the hair grows back.
Also known as: delayed diffuse shedding · hair loss after fever, surgery, dieting or childbirth
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Telogen effluvium is the most common diffuse hair loss — and the most explainable. Every hair runs through a growth phase of two to six years and then a resting phase of about three months, at the end of which it falls out. Normally around 10 to 15 of 100 hairs are in that resting phase at once. A strong stimulus sends far more into it at a stroke — and because the resting phase lasts three months, the hair falls only two to three months after the event.
That delay is the key. Someone losing hair in March looks for the reason in March and finds none. The reason lay in December. The usual ones: high fever or a severe infection, an operation or anaesthetic, childbirth, marked weight loss or a strict diet, iron deficiency, a thyroid disorder, a mentally very heavy period, a newly started medicine.
How it is recognised: hair comes out in handfuls when washing and combing, but no bald patches appear — the hair thins evenly everywhere, often first visible at the parting. The hairline stays. It does not itch, it does not scale, the scalp looks normal. Looking at a shed hair, there is a small white club at the end — that is the root in its resting phase, not a broken hair.
The most important sentence last: it grows back. Once the trigger is gone the cycle recovers over six to twelve months and the density returns. What counts in that time is not a product but the search for the trigger — above all ferritin, TSH and the blood count. And the distinction: round bald patches, scars, redness, itching or a receding hairline point to something else and belong looked at.
Diary, photos, appointments. Fever, surgery, dieting, childbirth, a new medicine, a very hard time — the trigger is nearly always there.
Several groups can trigger diffuse shedding. Stop nothing on your own — take the list to the appointment, that is the usable route.
Round bald patches, receding hairline, scars, itching: each of those is something else.
An underactive thyroid is one of the most common and most easily treated causes.
And ask for the reason: heavy periods, bleeding in the gut, coeliac disease, too little iron in the food.
Strict diets and rapid weight loss are a frequent trigger. Hair is the first thing the body puts aside.
Iron is the substance with the most encounters of all — coffee, tea, calcium, zinc, stomach protection, thyroid hormone. The calculator shows what needs spacing.
The hair’s resting phase lasts about three months — hence the delay. Thinking back three to four months usually finds the reason.
Several together are common — a febrile illness, eating less, iron down.
The fright is large because it is visible. The amount says nothing about severity — only that many hairs reached the end of their resting phase at once.
Round bald patches, scars, redness or itching point elsewhere and belong looked at.
Short hairs standing up at the parting are a good sign: that is the regrowth.
The question is not "what helps against hair loss" but "what happened three months ago".
The most important single value here. For hair a ferritin in the lower normal range is often regarded as too low — the value is worth discussing, not only labelling "normal".
Anaemia of any cause belongs here; it often explains the tiredness at the same time.
Only useful when there are pointers to a deficiency — after a long very one-sided diet or with bowel disease.
Only for a proven deficiency and with follow-up. Iron without a deficiency does not help the hair and can burden.
Pulses, eggs, meat or fish, plus vitamin C with plant iron sources. Coffee and black tea right at the meal slow iron uptake.