Hair loss

Hi Rosiexpx and a very warm welcome to the online community which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.

I lost most of my hair when I had the chemotherapy combination epirubicin and cyclophosphamide to treat my breast cancer. I had very long hair so had it cut into a much shorter style before I started chemo and bought a wig in a similar style at the same time.

My hair started to thin and come out in handfuls after a couple of weeks of starting chemo and, by week 4, my middle parting was getting too wide to be able to disguise the fact that I was losing my hair. At that point I got my husband to use his clippers on my hair to take it to about half an inch all over. Over the coming weeks the hair coverage got less and less but having short bits coming out wasn't so traumatic, I felt, as having long hair coming out.

I only wore my wig on special occasions and most of the time wore ready made head covers from a company called annabandana.co.uk. They have lots of different styles to choose from and I didn't think they were expensive.

As the online community is divided up into different support groups, you might benefit from joining a group relevant to your type of cancer so you can ask questions, share experiences and get support from people who will understand what you're going through.

You could either let me know what type of cancer you're being treated for, or look through this list and choose the relevant one for you.

It would be great if you could pop something about your diagnosis and treatment so far into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.

x

I'm a 70-year old male, so possibly my not worrying about hair loss doesn't really apply to many who aren't so happy with the loss of hair, just to get that point clear. The reason I am posting is I noticed none of the replies cover an important point --- it grows back. I lost all my hair twice, as I had an aggressive relapse, but both times the hair grew back. In fact, as I sit here at this work station I am using a hair holding back thingy (sorry, I forget what it is supposed to be called) --- but the key is the hair does grow back. Well, it did for me. I am not so sure that is the case for all types of chemotherapy treatment and/or cancer types, but I have Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. So I can get it that at your age of 34 it may be a whole bunch different in thinking when that hair goes away, but I think it will be back. Maybe one of the smarter members around here can confirm that is true in all/most cases.

One more thing, by the way, from an old man --- if you are a fine human being with hair, you are still a fine human being without it. At least, it seems to me that could be the case. As I made note of above, I just didn't care. I figured just remaining in the living column was pretty good and if that required the absence of hair, so be it.

I sure don't know if my style of expressing myself is comforting in any way, as I do write in a rather weird style. But I hope something I've written may help.