Some chemotherapy drugs affect the rapidly growing cells of hair follicles. Your hair may become brittle and break off at the surface of the scalp, or it may simply fall out from the hair follicle. The medical term for hair loss is alopecia. While it is not a life-threatening event, it certainly does have a social and psychological impact on many people. Patients and their families should be prepared for this.
Basic facts about hair loss:
- Whether hair loss occurs depends on which drugs are given, their doses, and the length of treatment.
- Hair loss can vary with each person. Some people may have complete loss of hair while others may just notice thinning. Loss of eyebrows, eyelashes, pubic hair, and body hair is possible, but usually less severe because the growth is less active in these hair follicles than in those on the scalp.
- If hair is going to be affected, you may see “shedding” start 2 to 3 weeks after treatment begins.
- Hair loss from chemotherapy is almost always temporary. When your hair grows back, its color or texture may be different. For some people, their hair grows back darker and curlier. Hair may start to grow near the end of your treatment or after the treatment is finished. The texture is usually soft and downy at first and tends to improve over the next few months. The color change may be permanent, though sometimes it gets closer to your pre-treatment color over time.
- Unlike some other side effects of chemotherapy, hair loss is never life-threatening. But it may have a substantial impact on your quality of life. Some people feel depressed, lose self-confidence, and grieve over losing hair.
- Although there is no research suggesting that hair dye can further damage hair after chemotherapy, most doctors recommend that patients not use hair dyes until hair texture returns to normal. This may be as long as 6 months after treatment. Some women have also observed that they cannot get the color result they want if they dye their hair too soon after chemotherapy.
- Along those same lines, chemicals that are used to perm or straighten hair may have unexpected effects on the hair and possibly irritate the scalp until it recovers from chemotherapy.
- Women who are bothered by lost eyelashes may want to try eyeliner which can be feathered to look more like lashes. False eyelashes do not work as well when you have no lashes, since real eyelashes are not there to hide the base of the false ones. Also, the glues required for false eyelashes may irritate skin or cause allergic reactions in some people.
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