The reality of hairloss during chemotherapy
Chemotherapy hair loss is one of the numerous effects of this cancer treatment. Why does one lose hair during chemotherapy? The medication used in chemotherapy is extremely powerful and it destroys all the developing cancer cells, although they affect other body parts too. 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 another aspect to consider when hair loss is under discussion, as hair loss ranges from thinning to complete baldness. Thus, make sure to discuss all such details with your doctor, in order to be prepared to cope with hair loss psychologically.
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. Fortunately, in the majority of cases, chemotherapy hair loss is a temporary effect. Hair will probably grow again 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.
The hair recovery period after chemotorapy is six weeks on the average, and the growth rate will be somewhere around a quarter inch per month. The changes that took place in the hair follicles during chemotherapy will be obvious in the way the hair grows back, but in time, things will get back to normal. The color and texture alteration will stop and the hair will become what it used to be before the treatment the moment cellular pigmentation is functioning normally all over again. Unfortunately, one cannot prevent chemotherapy hair loss as none of the treatments available is completely free of such side effects.
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