Losing Your Hair After Surgery? It's Usually Telogen Effluvium

A commenter mentioned that they'd had two major surgeries at the end of last year, and now their hair is falling out. Understandably, they wanted to know what on earth was going on.

I can't tell you what's happening with any one person without examining them. But this is a great opportunity to talk about something that catches a lot of surgical patients completely off guard: telogen effluvium.

Telogen effluvium is sudden hair loss after a physical trauma to the body. You start losing your hair, sometimes quite a lot of it, after an event that stressed your system.

Surgery is one of those events. So is physical trauma generally. But it isn't limited to the physical:

• Surgery or physical trauma
• Psychological trauma
• Medication changes
• Hormonal changes

It's extremely distressing. Losing handfuls of hair while you're already recovering from a major operation is a genuinely awful experience, and patients often worry it signals something seriously wrong.

Thankfully, telogen effluvium is self-limited.

That means the hair loss starts, progresses for a while, and then stops, and your hair eventually grows back with no intervention needed at all. You don't have to do anything to make it resolve. Your body corrects it on its own.

Here's the part I really want you to take away, and it applies well beyond hair:

Hair loss can feel like it has nothing to do with the operation on your breast or abdomen, so patients often don't mention it. Mention it anyway. We want to help you through it, make the right diagnosis, and make sure something else isn't going on. Telogen effluvium is the common explanation, but it shouldn't be assumed without someone looking at the whole picture.

That's a big part of why post-op follow-up actually matters, and why your surgeon should be the one managing what comes up after surgery. If something feels off, here's how to handle it.

If you've had a major procedure and your hair is falling out:

• It's very often telogen effluvium, sudden shedding triggered by the physical stress of surgery (or by trauma, medication changes, or hormonal changes)
• It's self-limited: it progresses for a while, then stops, and your hair grows back on its own
• Tell your surgeon anyway, so they can confirm the diagnosis and make sure nothing else is going on

It's frightening, but in most cases it's temporary, and it's one of the less-discussed things your body can do while it recovers. (More on what recovery generally looks like.)