Female baldness has been a very important topic of conversation this last year. Christina Milian opened up about her postpartum hair loss. Jada Pinkett-Smith recently shaved off her hair because she has been suffering from alopecia the last few years. Gabrielle Union started her own haircare line as she battled tension alopecia from weaves and wigs. Many people have suffered from hair loss due to another culprit, COVID. One of the symptoms of long haul COVID is hair and teeth loss. Khloe Kardashian can attest to this. Khloe contracted COVID back in March 2020 and although she recovered, she experienced hair loss. Khloe opened up about her post-COVID hair loss in a Twitter Space chat where she plugged a new brand she’s representing. Below are a few more highlights via People:
“My hair really fell out with COVID,” Kardashian shared, before noting that her bout with the virus happened around March 2020. “So after, it was really a struggle for a minute.”
The conversation came up while Kardashian was discussing New Zealand-based brand Dose & Co, for which she’s a global spokesperson. According to the Good American designer, taking collagen powder has “helped me so, so much” in stimulating hair growth.
“I do the powder, just because that’s what we had for so long,” she said, “and I take so many vitamins a day, it’s just so easy for me.”
Later in the chat, Kardashian said that her sense of taste and smell was “the only thing that I didn’t lose” when she had COVID.
“But I had everything else — like anything else you can imagine,” she added.
Temporary hair loss is a possible side effect of COVID-19, and a pre-print study from Indiana University found that around 33 percent of patients they surveyed noticed it as a symptom. Hair loss frequently happens due to stress, an effect called telogen effluvium, and severe illnesses like COVID-19 can stress out the body.
As someone whose hair started thinning in the front when I was under a crap ton of stress a few years ago, I know how devastating hair loss is. I ended up shaving mine off and felt empowered, but I understand that it is one of the smallest privileges as a Black woman that I have and not everyone would be comfortable to do that. I feel for Khloe. We have watched Khloe struggle with how she looks so I can only imagine how losing her hair has affected her self-esteem. A daily dose of collagen does help strengthen nails and hair. I began using it during my hair loss journey. I then added Jamaican and Haitian castor oils and Chebe oil. My hair is still thin in the front compared to the rest but it is not as bad as it once was. I am also having my hormonal levels checked to see if that is a factor.
I am assuming Khloe was initially using clip ins or wigs so that you couldn’t tell she was losing her hair. I am happy that Khloe is opening up about her hair loss journey. Conversations around female hair loss need to be normalized. I felt so alone in my struggle but now realize how common it is. COVID is brutal and it is not like we need anything else to make us hate this virus, but the fact that hair loss is a possible side effect makes it that much worse. I hope that Khloe is able to to heal her hair and body. I also hope that as we learn more about COVID and its side effects we are able to combat it better.
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