what can cause quite extreme and rapid hair loss?

[fredfortoday]

My au pair who is 21 has said that clumps of her hair have stared to fall out when she brushes or even touches her hair and that in the morning her pillow has loads of hair on it. Apparently this is not usual for her and has been happening over the last few weeks. She does not have dyed or chemically treated hair. I know about alopecia although not sure if this just suddenly starts out if nowhere. Can anyone think what might be causing this? Should she go to GP (and would they do blood tests?) or take vitamin supplements? Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Thanks.

That sounds awful. I think she should make an appointment with the doctor asap.

I was advised hair loss goes in 3 month cycles, so if it's cause was a physical or environmental change she should look back to for a trigger from then. If it helps, I went through similar about 5 years ago, I never found what triggered it but it did stop after a few months. Very distressing at the time as I was getting married that summer!

Is she eating properly, extreme diets can do it.

Yes she is eating properly. Thinking about it she did go down to the out of hours urgent care centre about 3 weeks ago for what she was convinced was a urine infection. They did not find this but said there was some sort of infection and she did come back with antibiotics. Maybe this is connected?

No other symptoms though.