Hair Shedding After COVID or a Fever: When It Starts and Stops

You were sick in winter, felt better, and then in spring the hair started coming out by the handful. That delay is the hallmark of a shed after illness.

The timeline

A high fever or a recent illness, especially one with fever, is a well-known trigger for this kind of shedding, called telogen effluvium.¹ Most people notice it a few months after the event, and fullness tends to return within six to nine months.¹

For COVID specifically, a 2022 review pooled 19 studies of 465 people with this kind of shed.²

Finding	Detail
Who	Median age 44; 67.5% women2
When it started	A mean of 74 days after symptoms began, a little earlier than a classic shed2
Outcome	Most recovered; a few kept shedding2

So an infection in early January would put the shed around mid-March, when the illness already feels like old news.

Not every hair change after illness is a shed

A larger 2022 review of 1,826 people with hair loss and COVID found:³

• Shedding (telogen effluvium) was almost always new, set off by the infection: 93.6%.³
• Patchy hair loss (alopecia areata) was almost always a relapse in people who’d had it before: 95.1%.³
• Pattern hair loss was the most common type, but it came before COVID, not after.³

The studies varied in quality, and the senior author consults for hair-product and drug companies.³

What to do

1. Write down the date the shedding started and the date you got sick.
2. Expect it to ease over months; ongoing stress or illness can keep it going.¹
3. Look past the drain. A widening part points to pattern thinning, and round smooth patches point to alopecia areata, both of which need different care. See a widening part after 50 and what alopecia areata is.

For how much shedding is normal, see how many hairs a day is normal to lose and why your hair is shedding so much.

Try: “I had COVID with a high fever in January and started shedding heavily in March. It’s now July. Is this still within the normal timeline, and should we check iron or thyroid?”

Hair, Everywhere covers this in Chapter 5, “The Shed,” in a section called “After a Fever, After COVID.” Its Hair Log puts a date on the start of the shed and photographs your part monthly, so you can see when it turns. See the book.