Cancer Help: Chemotherapy Hair Loss

What follows is the result of comprehensive research and documentation. This article has been created after the study of many resources.

Chemotherapy hair loss is one of the numerous effects of this cancer treatment. Why does one lose hair during chemotherapy? Well, the drugs used in this type of cancer treatment are very strong, therefore very efficient in attacking the rapidly developing cancer cells. These medicines also attack other cells in the body that have a rapid growth; among these, the cells in the hair roots, as well. The effects of chemotherapy on hair are manifest for all the body parts covered by hair. Thus, patients will experience the loss of eyebrows, eyelashes, pubic and armpit hair.

There is a wide variety of drugs that are used in chemotherapy. Among these, obviously some are more likely to cause chemotherapy hair loss than others. The concentration of the drugs is relevant for chemotherapy hair loss, and while some patients will experience thinning of the hair others will go completely bald. Thus, discussing the medication that will be prescribed with the doctor and nurse is very important as they are the specialists able to inform the patient on what to expect from chemotherapy.

In most cases you’ll start losing hair within ten or fourteen days after you start chemotherapy. It may fall out quite fast, either in clumps or gradually. Hair loss usually continues throughout the treatment and even one month after it. Half the hair will be gone without one even noticing. Luckily, in most cases, chemotherapy hair loss is a temporary effect. Hair can be expected to grow back within six months to one year from the end of the procedure. Although the regrowth of the hair occurs in most of the cases, the new hair could be of a different texture and shade temporarily.

It usually takes about four to six weeks for the hair to recover from chemotherapy, and the growth rate will be somewhere around a quarter inch per month. When the hair starts growing back again, it might be a little different from the hair that was lost because of therapy. The color and texture alteration will stop and the hair will recover the look previous to the treatment the moment the cells that control the hair pigment begin working again. Unfortunately, chemotherapy hair loss cannot be prevented as none of the treatments available is completely free of such side effects.

I hope you got what you wanted out of this article. Thanks for reading.

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Filed under: Hair Loss

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