Physicians are seeing an influx of patients experiencing a troubling side effect after COVID-19: their hair loss.

Dr Brian Abbiton, director of skin and hair rejuvenation at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, said he sees several patients a week who have reported hair loss after COVID-19.

Although many patients clearly report symptoms after COVID, there is no reliable data to describe how many patients experience this phenomenon or what factors put a person at risk.

While there are still many unanswered questions about COVID-related hair loss, experts say the good news is that it appears to be temporary and clinicians 

Some evidence has shown that the risk of hair loss increases after a COVID infection. Follow Our More Stories

A study published in Nature Medicine last month found that hair loss was one of a wide range of symptoms that post-COVID patients reported to their primary care physicians.

Researchers found that patients with a history of COVID-19 were nearly four times more likely to have hair loss than those who were not infected.

Additionally, a study in the Lancet estimated that 22% of patients hospitalized with COVID experienced hair loss after the illness.

The most common type of hair loss seen in post-COVID patients is telogen effluvium. The assumption is that COVID-related hair loss is very similar to stress-related hair loss

Telogen effluvium occurs when the hair growth cycle is disrupted, induced by surgery, illness, or a stressful life event, such as a move or trauma such as pregnancy.