Hair Hair Hair - Another question
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Hi Issymom....
Suspect you and I will be trading places on Sunday. You will be walking into the neighborhood where I live and I will be heading to Issaquah to Cycle the WAVE. Hoping for good weather. Last year was sunny in September.
I have taken the view that my look is "evolving" and have no idea where it will end up. Hoping for a chic bob eventually, but I will rock whatever stages I go through.
But not with my "real" hair color!!!
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Hi Carrol,
In your situation, I would look into Penguin Cold Caps. There is a thread here about the topic. With 4 treatments, all the prep is do-able.
And they do appear to work. You need to check with your oncology team for their take too.
I had 12 total chemo spaced every 2 weeks, so just wasn't worth it.
Having said this, I didn't find hair loss as traumatic as I had thought in the beginning. No, it wasn't fun, but once I realized that I would be just fine with chemo, losing my hair was relatively unimportant.
Otherwise, I got a buzz cut three weeks in. Was really helpful as I realized that I could rock uber short just fine. I never lost quite all my hair until after chemo was over. By that time, I wasn't worried as I knew that I was about to start regrowing hair. I was wondering what to do with those odd hairs anyway, so glad they fell out.
Also, get yourself a wonderful eyeliner and soft eyebrow pencil. You will need it. - Claire0 -
Carrol: If you hair is as long as shown in the photo, then it would be a good idea to get it cut into a shorter style. Some people shave their hair off soon after starting chemo to re-empt the fall, but I didn't have the courage to do that.
I think it's important too to pick out a wig while you still have all your hair. The wig seller can help you choose one that is close to your own color and style. Emotionally, it will be easier for you to do this before you start chemo. You don't have to buy yet, just choose a wig and have them put it aside. Your insurance may cover part or the entire cost of the wig but you do need to get a prescription from the oncologist for a "head prosthesis."
Oh, if you can find one nearby, go to a Look Good Feel Better session. They will help you with wig choices, scarf tying, etc. Follow the link and input your zipcode to find a session near you. I went before I started chemo but many of the women there were already half way through chemo and when I walked in I had no idea that some of them were wearing wigs. They looked great. It took some of the fear out of it for me.
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I had a similar experience to Everett and Emegram...I returned to work last week since being off for treatment. My hair is about 2 1/2 - 3 inches and a co-worker stopped me in the hall and said "wow, your hair is so different...what made you do that." I told her I had cancer and she didn't know what to say to that.
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Carrol2....
I am using Elasto-Gel Caps, and am very happy with them....but, I must say have had only 2 AC treatments of four, with 12 weekly Taxol to follow. The are available online, and are manufactured in Kansas City, MO. I paid $75.00 each and I own them, no deposits or rental, and received them in two days, thanks to my wonderful children. I have posted on the Cold Caps Forum, and these caps are doing their job. We shed, some more than others, but keep our hair, mine is much thinner, but I am comfortable with it, and am at a Day 20 where it is said that if I don't lose my hair in clumps by Day 21, I should just continue to shed, and the shedding does lessen....at least I sure hope so. I will posting a before and after with baggies of my hair loss that has occurred over the last week....a bit scary, but you will see that I do have 'enough' hair still.....
All my best to all of you very important ladies!!
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whichway2run wow I will have to look into that especially since I live in KC. I look forward to your pics. I have very thin hair normally so not sure if that will work well for me though.
thank you
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Hi! I am 7 weeks out of chemo and was glad to be able to read your posts. My hair has microscopic growth and my eyebrows just came out last week.
Thanks for sharing your stories on this journey -- it helps lots of folks! 0 -
For those of you that are getting frustrated with little to no hair regrowth, I thought I would let you know I thought mine would never grow back. It wasn't until about 7-8 months PFC that I realized I now have quite a large bushy head of hair. But it seemed like it really was thin and struggling and then all of a sudden after month 7...wow! So hang in there! {{{HUGS}}} Donna
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Donna's right....all of a sudden there's lots of hair. I finished chemo in February and I have bangs that reach down below my eyebrows. It's thick and curly and I'm really liking having curls for a change. It's so easy to style and I plan to keep it short for a while. I feel like the curls are my little reward for doing chemo!
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Sugar77 - That is so funny that you consider your curls your reward. I always had curly hair and spent most of my life straightening it! Now I have 1 to 1 1/2 inches of lovely straight hair! My reward for chemo!! I love it, I can go swimming and my hair looks perfect, I can get caught in the rain and my hair looks perfect, I can drive with the windows down and my hair looks perfect and extra bonus - it doesn't get in my eyes or stick in my lipstick! It's the little things that make us happy...
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LOL...isn't it funny how we all wished we had different hair, then chemo comes along and knocks us all for a loop~! My hair was always very straight, fell out (LOVED having no hair, BTW...uhhhh, no SHAVING?????
Then it grew back VERY curly, my bf's father absolutely LOVED running his hands thru it, it came so very soft too. LOVED it...then it started thinning (tamoxifen) and straightening out, so I got a VERY CURLY perm~! I will continue to perm it, as I don't even comb it now, as it is thinning and hard to comb (even with wide-tooth comb, and it's very long), so I can just 'scrunch' and go. We are all different, and the things that make us happy vary with each individual~! As it should be. I forget how long it took to regrow my hair, but it was quite some time after chemo, months actually, as I have a picture 5 months after chemo, and it is VERY short. To each her own! ~juli0 -
Ok, I seem to have a real problem here. My hair is almost 1 inch long (7 weeks PFC) but it came back with lots of white and the rest BLACK. My normal hair color used to be dark ash blonde.You can see how it looks if you go on the May 2010 chemo thread - I've posted photos there.
I tried to dye it a week ago with a natural hair dye - nothing happened.
I tried today to dye it this time using the "glossy color" of L'Oreal (no ammonia) and the whites are still whites and the black is slighly brown.
My hair seems like it doesn't want to get any hair dye on! What do I do? I thought of waiting another month and then go with my regular Wella color. If that doesn't work either, I don't know what to do!
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Day: Have you thought about seeing a hairdresser for this? Sounds like you need some professional help/advice with your hair. I know my hairdresser said not to dye it for like 2 months, let it grow out a bit (as it came in totally GRAY, I was a brunette up til then). Good Luck! (I let my hairdresser color it now every 6-7 weeks, brunette of course, otherwise it'd be totally GRAY/WHITE, ughhhhh...too young for this!) ~juli
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Day......I have had good results with Feria. But it has ammonia. I am using same color I used to use. Also helps greatly with texture issues.
Without it, my head looks like "pelt of deceased rodent" and who needs that???
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I think it's common for new, post-chemo hair not to take color well or if it takes, it can look dull or muddy. In September of last year, on this thread, there was some talk about hair coloring problems. Not sure if this link will work - if not, perhaps copy and paste
http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/69/topic/707348?page=108
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OK, friends. The suspense is still on. I finished chemo mid May so it's been 4 months. Had straight hair before and the 1-2 inch of what I have now is still straight.
I know it can get curly suddenly and in a hurry, but if yours turned curly, how long after the final chemo did this happen? I may have asked this question before a month back but really can't remember - chemo brain hehehe...
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As a natural curly headed blonde who also longed for paper straight hair most of my life. After chemo my hair too grew back straight, I enjoyed my new pixie do! Until one day after it got a little past 2"....BAM, curls! Oh well, my motto for the past 10 months since PFC is any hair is better than no hair! {{{HUGS}}} Donna
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Just checking in to see what the latest hair concerns are....I did my last chemo July of last year so have had many haircuts since then. At first it was sort of this colorless fuzz, but now it is just as thick as it ever was and since I decided I didn't feel like coloring it any longer, I am a nice shaded silvery gray...dark mixed in and more white in the front so it almost looks frosted. I never thought I would want to be gray (but hey, I am 60 years old), but I really like the color and get a lot of compliments on it. I always had straight hair and the only time post chemo I have seen any sign of curls at all is if I have night sweats and then I wake up with waves in it, but no actual curls. I kept wondering where the curls were everyone predicted, but it just goes to show how different we all are with SEs and reactions to things. I also got so many compliments on my hair when it was first growing in that I have kept it short. I had fuzz all over my face and thought Oh no, now I am going to have a beard, but it went away on its own. I hated wearing a wig and gave mine to a friend of a friend who went through chemo after I did and she likes it so much that even though she has hair now, she prefers to wear the wig when she goes out. Again, shows how different we all are....to me it felt like I was wearing a hat all the time and it itched and was hot......but it must have been very natural looking because unless I chose to tell people I was not really close to, no one even knew I had cancer. When my hair first started coming out I saved it...SAVED it!....for what I don't know, but I had little baggies full of it. The only thing I can figure is that this must have gone back to when we were little and my mother would have us put our hair outside for the birds to build nests with after a haircut. Once my hair started coming back in I could not keep my hands off my head, was constantly touching it, petting it because it was just soooo soft. I was always thick, but now it feels a lot softer in texture. I shampooed with Nioxin even when I was bald. I think chemo gives a whole new perspective to the bad hair days.
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faithfulc, my hair came back straight and fine. I'm 17 months PFC and it's still very straight. Maybe yours won't curl now since it's already 1-2 inches long. Or maybe you'll be like Donna and just wake up with a head full of curls one day. It's all just a crap shoot, isn't it?
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Mid-October will be 5 months for me and I'm feeling like I should be able to ditch the wig entirely by then. I have been going out "bare" in public here and there, I bared it all at a get together with close friends on Friday and all my kids' friends are used to seeing it, because I rarely wear the wig at home anymore. Oh and my neighbors, because I walk the dog without it most of the time too. However, before I go all out, a dye job is definitely in order - it's way too gray! I'm actually hoping it curls up a bit, it's kinda flat and blah but wavy at least.
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Day - google Joseph Mullen. He is a colorist who has experimented with chemo hair.
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Hello -
Been off the boards for several days; wanted to take the focus off cancer and just have some good days. Had significant hair "events" this week so thought I'd share.
Last Wednesday (day 15 after first AC chemo infusion) my hair started coming out in small handfuls by just running my hand through my hair. I have (had) lots and lots of fine, curly hair so I decided to cut it off because I didn't want to deal with the mess of having it come out in clumps. Our golden retriever does that enough!! Jennifer cuts hair for my entire family (me, DH, DD and DS) and offered to come to my house to cut my hair, no charge. Very sweet! Anyway, she took the bulk of length off with scissors, and then used her trimmer to buzz it down, first to a level 4, then to a level 2. It feels like a butch, but having the little tiny hairs fall out is no big deal for me, and at least whatever washes out in the shower won't clog my drains!
I don't have a wig yet so I've just been wearing hats or scarves when I go out. At home, my head is free! It does feel good in a way, and "getting ready" is much easier without having to do my hair. I ordered wigs on Friday; I have a "large" head in terms of wig cap size, so the pickins are slim. I look forward to having a wig, but probably won't wear it too much until I go back to work in mid-November.
Monday I go to the "Look Good, Feel Better" class, so I am excited to see what kinds of makeup tips they have for us hairless girls. Eyelashes (which were very scarce to begin with) are starting to come out too, especially when I take off mascara. I'm hoping I can wear falsies; but if not, then eyeliner will be my new best friend!
Have a good week, girls! Blessings to all!
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Sorry if I'm repeating things that have already been discussed, but I am close to the end of my chemo (Sept 28th last FEC, yipeee). I have had 9 rounds of weekly Taxol/Herceptin, and 3 rounds of FEC. I recently lost the last of my eyelashes and eyebrows and for some reason that makes me look "sicker", and people react to me a little more cautiously. It's strange to look in the mirror and not even recognize yourself anymore! Anyway, I'm really curious as to how soon I should be expecting my lashes and eyebrows to start growing back. I know it will be awhile before the hair on my head starts coming in, but really curious about the lashes and brows.
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Well, my 2nd set of eyelashes are on their way out again. That is just so odd. You can already see the new growth and the old is thinning . I bought some Rapid Lash but think I will wait to use it until lashes return and stay a while.
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janny99, i know what you mean about people looking at you diffferently when the eyelashes and brows thin and go. I had FEC and taxotere - and was quite eye bald right at the end of treatment. About 7 weeks after chemo I woke up one day with little dark dots like eyeliner and boom my brows and lashes were back really quickly.. My hair started growing back on the taxotere - I'm 10 weeks PFC and it's now about 3/4 inch long on back and sides, and 1 inch on top - all slate gray and white.
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Been reading through some of these and thought I would chime in. I did 4 rounds from AC and then 4 rounds of Taxol. I finished July 8 and 2 weeks later my hair started growing. I still had no eyelashes and eyeborws though. I had a BMX on Aug 12 and shortly after my eyelashes started growing now both are fully grown back. I did use the Loreal lash booster and they are now longer than they were before chemo. Now if only my hair would grow back that quick. Its still short and I gel it and it is growing back kinky and curly of course. I colored it my natural dark brown about 3 weeks ago and it looks much better.
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4-5 weeks? Then it started to come in like wildfire. Your hair WILL grow back. Mine did come in very curly, though. Was wavy before. Color came in nice, but I still color it because I have a few grays. It came in very soft, not wirey.
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Carole: Your post made me feel a lot better...I did the same exact chemo you did, but finished on Aug 5. My eyebrows are finally starting to come back, but not so much the lashes
The hair on my head is coming back a little bit, but it's hard to say because I never lost all of it - I still had some stubble throughout. My hairline is not coming in as much though. I'm wondering when you won't be able to see scalp anymore? I'm DYING to not wear hats/scarves anymore. And I really miss my lashes. I will look into the lash booster. 0 -
Carole- where did you get the lash booster stuff? and what do you do with it...very excited over here as my lashes are still pretty sparse.
I finished TCH chemo on June 30th and my hair is about 1/2 an inch now...but still thin..can't wait for it to thicken up
My brows came back almost as quick as they came out and now they are really thick..already had to wax them, but the lashes...not so much.
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I did 4/AC treatments and have had 2 of 12 Taxol .... in the right light you can see a LOT of whispy 1/8 in. long hair on my head! I've always been able to feel stubble (since shaving it) but this is definitely new growth. I hope I keep it!
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