When diagnosed with cancer - it's scary. But, fortunately, many types of cancer are safely treated with antitumor drugs.
Often, chemotherapy literally saves a patient's life. This technique involves the systemic administration or administration of tableted toxic preparations with antitumor activity and having a permanently large list of adverse reactions.
Most often, the patient's hair suffers from chemotherapeutic treatment. Do I always lose my hair after chemotherapy?
In the process of treatment, not only abnormal, but also healthy cellular structures are destroyed, which explains the presence of so many side reactions.
How much the hair will suffer after treatment depends on the type of chemotherapy drugs used.
Specialists subdivide antitumor drugs into several groups conventionally classified according to color.
- Red chemotherapy is considered the most powerful and involves the use of antacyclin group drugs that have a red color. After this kind of chemotherapeutic treatment, the hair drops out almost immediately and completely.
- Yellow chemotherapy is a more gentle technique involving the use of drugs such as Methotrexate, Cyclophosphamide, or Fluorouracil. The hairline also falls out, but not immediately and not as intensively as in the case of red.
When does baldness begin?
Alopecia can begin immediately after the first chemotherapeutic procedure, and may also occur in the third week.
There are also such drugs, with the use of which baldness does not come.
Many chemotherapeutic agents of the latest generation do not cause such problems, after their use, the hairline, if it falls, is only partially, which remains imperceptible to others.
Usually the head of hear is safely preserved when using the targeted therapy. These drugs affect the organic structures selectively, without affecting the hair follicle.
Alopecia is also absent in the treatment of bone metastases, hormone therapy and the use of drugs like densumab or besfosfanatov.
Although hair loss for women is considered a real tragedy, after chemotherapy it is normal. In general, hair can fall out right away, but in most cases it happens in 2-3 weeks.
What if I started falling out of my chemistry?
Doctors recommend that the patient at the first signs of hair loss short hair. This will help to avoid such an unpleasant picture, like scraps of hair in your hands after another chemotherapy session. In addition, after the end of treatment, the hair will begin to grow thickly and evenly.
It is completely wrong to persuade or require a doctor to prescribe chemotherapy drugs that are less aggressive against the hairline. This can not be done categorically.
Hair then again grow back, and thicker and healthier than before. But the use of sparing antitumor drugs may not give the desired therapeutic effect, and jokes with tumors - it's dangerous.
In some clinics there is a prevention of fallout. Its essence lies in the fact that a patient wears a helmet with a layer of cooling gel on the head during chemotherapy.
Blood supply to hair follicles decreases with cooling, which minimizes the negative effects of drugs. Volosnyh cells with chemotherapy die less, so the degree of prolapse decreases.
There are also special drugs to prevent this problem. For example, the drug Minoxidil. This drug was originally created as an antihypertensive drug, but during the tests, its other positive effect was also found.
The drug is rubbed into the skin on the head. But it has a lot of adverse reactions, and it is quite expensive.
Will it be new?
New hair grows always, although in a single number of patients there was irreversible alopecia. It was due to too long chemotherapy. In other cases, hair growth with time has resumed with renewed vigor.
Some patients are already starting to grow new hair follicles, which eventually grow into a thick head of hair.
Toxins from medicines suppress hair follicles, but when the introduction of antitumor drugs ceases, their gradual recovery occurs. Accordingly, the hair also begins to grow.
Therefore, do not worry about this. In all it is necessary to look for the positive side, because hair loss also has pleasant moments, especially for women, because hair firstly falls out not only on the head, but also in the groin, pubic, legs and armpits, which temporarily solves the problem of undesirable vegetation onbody.
After what time does the new hairline begin to grow?
Skin and hair are always the first to react to organic detoxification. When the toxic effect passes, the hair will begin to grow with the same intensity.
Although in practice, women note that after such treatment their newly grown hair became much thicker.
The growth of hair on the head after chemotherapeutic treatment usually begins with the moment when all the toxic substances trapped in the tissues during chemotherapy, as well as the products of tumor decay, finally leave the body.
Usually it will take half a year or a year for full hair restoration.
In addition, many women instead of the usual straight and hard hair began to grow soft curls. Therefore, hair loss due to chemotherapy is a temporary and reversible reaction. You just have to wait.
How to restore hair after chemotherapy?
To accelerate the restoration of the hair, it is necessary to begin to properly care for the scalp already during the chemotherapy treatment.
- To wash a head it is necessary only warm, instead of hot water, and children's shampoo;
- It is necessary to abandon hair dryers, plaques, curling irons and ironing, as the hair structure is already weakened, and these devices will only intensify the damage;
- For fixing hair, it is better to use soft tapes, rather than tight elastic bands, otherwise the damaging factor will increase;
- It is better to comb the locks with a massage or a comb with rare teeth, and the actions should be neat and careful;
- Discard the braid, it is better to collect the hair in a slightly tightened ponytail or at all to cut it;
- Choose hair cosmetics exclusively with natural ingredients that strengthen and nourish the hair structure;
- Discard the use of satin or silk material to avoid exposing the hair to static action.
Be sure to talk with the oncologist what preparations you can take. For hair restoration it is recommended to take sorbents and vitamin complexes.
After the chemotherapeutic course, the body cleans the toxins of the membrane plasmapheresis procedure. A total of 2-3 procedures with a 5-6-day interval, after which the nails and hair begin to grow.
Also, the following actions will help to restore head of hair:
- You can accelerate the beginning of hair growth with the help of head massage, which can be done only with complete baldness, otherwise there is a risk of loss of the remaining hair. The head is massaged from the forehead to the temporal region and the occiput. Strongly press on the skin is not necessary, light enough pinkness.
- Additional positive effect will have a mask with oils. Using oils like burdock, nettle, grape, sea-buckthorn or olive, you can achieve additional nutrition of the scalp with vitamins. To enhance the effect, it is recommended to combine them with ylang-ylang, jasmine or rose oil.
Can I paint?
Hair coloring after chemotherapy is strongly discouraged.
Shevelura and so suffered from the toxic effects of drugs, and here also the aggressive effect of the paint adds a negative effect.
If there is an urgent need for painting, it is recommended to use only natural paints( without chemical components).Yes, they will not last so long, but the curls will not suffer so much.
If the styling is performed by the salon master, it must be notified that you are being treated so that he does not use aggressive methods.
As practice shows, in most cases, it is not possible to avoid alopecia after chemotherapy. Therefore, patients, especially women, are recommended in advance to mentally and psychologically tune in to hair loss, and it is better to short hair before chemotherapy.
Hair necessarily grow, you just need to wait. This aggressive treatment has more severe side effects, and hair is only the lesser of evils. The main thing is to defeat cancer, but to achieve this goal, all means are good.