Hairloss afte radiotherapy - what's your experience.

Hi Izzy

a good few months if I remember rightly, maybe even a year before it was back to normal. Hair is very fine anyway. 

Hi Izzy

I’m just over 4 months post treatment and I’ve about 1cm growth along base of skull. There was nothing and then it just seems to have appeared! 

Ally x

Hi Izzy 

I'm 9 months post treatment and also lost hair at the base of my skull , it started to come back around about the 5 month mark, it’s slow progress but it’s returning so that’s good news  i I checked it regularly to no avail and then it started to grow all of a sudden 

take care 

Helen 

Hi Izzy im 24 weeks post treatment. My hair fell out completely from the ears down and thinned a lot on the remaining hair. Ive now got about inch regrowth at the back and throughout, it stopped falling out about 4 weeks ago. I was loosing a lot up to that point . 

Tracy x

4 months post radiotherapy. The hair at the back of my neck started to regrow at about the 3 months period and is now quite noticeable but not fully there yet. My moustache hair stubble returned at about the same, initially little white hairs but darkened over time and is now thicker and coarser than previously. My beard hair stubble is a little behind but some signs of white hairs starting which hopefully will darken. 

Izzy,

One thing I forgot to mention was how to check if there are hairs starting to grow. From my experience very fine white hairs appear first which are really difficult to see. 

To check whether the white hairs are starting to appear I did/do the following.

When it's dark outside is the best time to do this. Go into a room with the curtains/blinds drawn. Turn all the lights off so it's dark. Turn a torch on and hold it at an angle so the light shines sideways across the skin. If there are little white hairs growing they catch the light and are really obvious. 

This is easy for beard hair loss but as your area is the back of your head you'll need to have some assistance with this.

Hope that helps.

I don't miss the moustache   

Thanks all!

Good to hear most of us will get the hair back x

Izzy. 

Hi there ,im 19 months post treatment and my hair hasnt grown back around base of skull or my beard, but we are all different ,my head hair was thinning anyway ,so could be a factor ! 

I’m coming up on a year from starting radiotherapy on just one side of my jaw area. I’ve had a beard since I was 18 (I’m now 60) and it fell out completely on the side I had zapped. Sadly it’s not yet grown back at all so now I have to shave the other side as half a beard just looks very odd. I’m still hopeful it may grow back in time but a the months go on I’m thinking it’s less likely. If anyone reading this had growth start after 12 months or more it would be good to know