Young Woman says catching Covid eight times made her bald

A 23-year-old woman has come out to claim that catching covid eight times left her completely bald.

Lydia Morley says she loved taking photos of herself until her long, thick brown hair began thinning and falling out in the shower in November 2023 but when her parents discovered a bald patch on the back of her head in January 2024, shebooked an appointment with her doctor.

Lydia was diagnosed with alopecia areata – a disease that happens when the immune system attacks hair follicles causing them to fall out but the 23-year-old says she’s suffered eight bouts of covid since 2020, and her doctor believes long covid may be responsible.
 

In the first few weeks, Lydia said her alopecia made her feel lonely and isolated and within five months she lost 80% of her hair.

After shaving her remaining hair off for charity, Lydia said her confidence blossomed and she’s now happy to leave the house without a wig.
 

Lydia, from Newport, said: “In November last year I thought my hair was looking a bit thin, I used to have really long thick hair.

“Whenever I’d brush my hair in the shower, I’d have proper clumps come out and it was getting to the point where it was a little bit strange.

“A couple weeks into January I came home from work one day, I was cooking dinner and my dad was standing behind me and noticed a little patch on my head.

“This was quite an intense experience as I knew I had had hair falling out but I didn’t think about alopecia at this point.

“That night was difficult and I was quite stressed about the situation but I think it was more not knowing what was wrong.

“When I first went to the doctors, they did believe the cause to be stress but I’m the least stressed person ever.”

Dismissing stress as the cause, Lydia believes her alopecia to be a symptom of long covid first noticing her hair thinning after recovering from another bout in November.

“Before having covid in November I had it in the summertime. I’ve had it eight times now but in November it was my sixth time.

“I think my alopecia was caused by the multiple times of getting covid as I think after having it so many times my immune system has just been dampened and dampened.

“The doctors did mention that it could be this but alopecia is one of those things where they don’t always know exactly why it happens.

“Personally I believe that and doctors did say that this could be a cause of the situation but they also said it could be a million other things too.”

Since shaving all her hair off in May, Lydia says she has started to experience some hair growth on her head but she remains without eyelashes or eyebrows.

And even though she is happy about her hair slowly coming back, she says it can all drop out again without warning.

Lydia now wears a range of synthetic and ‘real hair’ wigs everyday but also feels confident to leave the house without wearing one.