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Oct 10, 2009 12:01PM
malaika
wrote:
Oct 1, 2009 09:50 am malaika wrote:
Hi all....
okay it is the day before I begin my third tx. I am losing my pubes!!!!! I tugged on a little portion of my head hair and it is still attached tightly. I'll post again on Saturday or sunday if something dramatic happens with my head hair..
Oct 4, 2009 12:19 pm malaika wrote:
Okay...so it is sunday. Day 15 after first treatment. So far I've had three treatments of taxol..one including carboplatin and no hair loss. I am still reserving judgement (thats the scientist in me) until later on. Why? well, so woman somewhere said that Frank (the caps inventor) told her that if she hadn't lost hair after 21 days she wouldn't. I'm still 7 days shy of that 21 days. I am assuming that he is basing his statment on something factual and am trusting that to be the truth for now.
Some hair did come out in the comb yesterday, but it didn't seem like an overnormal amount to me. Moreover, it didn't have follicles attached. I think I broke it off in the velcro attached to the caps and when i took my braids out, it came off. Still..it really wasn't that much at all. I lose far more than that when I comb my hair roughly on any given day. So. I'm still hopeful. I'll give another update in about a week. after the next treatment or if something dramatically devastating happens
A few seconds ago malaika wrote:
Day 22
Setbacks and success
Setback: So on the first day of treatment I got the pccs too cold. They froze to the point of burning my scalp in the front/top of my head. It was obvious that they were too cold on that day, and the burning became evident in the days thereafter. It was quite sore, and a scab formed. It eventually peeled and dandruff formed daily in the spot. I didn't say anything about it because it didn;t seem to affect my hair.
Well on the thursday before my 4th treatment, I noticed that long strands of hair were coming out of my head. I checked for follicles, and they were obviously attached to the strands. I wondered if I was getting the shedding other women talk about on the pcc threads elsewhere. Then, I checked that spot that had burned and noticed that it was devoid of hair. The entire area that had been burned was bald. Looking closely, I noticed light stubble in the area. So some of it broke off and some of it came out in that area. It is a small spot, and easy to cover because I haven't lost any hair anywhere else. My hair is fairly long and quite thick. And the hair next to the bald spot looked as wavy and shiny and thick as ever. So I chalk this up to overzealousness at the outset.
I caution all you ladies who decide to try this process...if you feel that you're burning your scalp (I had a perm phase in jr high school...it feels just like a perm application thats gone on too long) Be more mindful of getting the caps warmer before continuing. This is a problem I think because the caps get colder in the top generally and its easy to be impatient waiting for the things to warm up a bit.
Now the success:
As I mentioned before, my hair on thursday was every bit as thick and long as it was when i started the pcc treatment. I've heard women say that they lost their hair a month out in one night after their third or fourth treatment on the regimen that I'm on.
This hasn't happened to me. I'm 22 days out from the 1st treatment...I have not thinned at all. I guess my new goalpost will be on day 30. I'll let you know if things change for me. For now, I have to say that these caps work, and I find that they were worth the cost even though I don't think that I really needed more than 5 caps at a time. I keep reusing the same few caps and haven't had any problems getting them cooled down appropriately. I can say that they are worth it now because I found myself unexpectedly horrified when I lost that bit of hair in the top. Its a small area, and covers, but moving my hair away from it and looking at the white patch of scalp moved me in ways I can't describe here. I knew then that I wouldn't take the loss of my entire head of hair very well.
I'm also a bit concerned now that I might have a delayed loss of hair....I'm very much looking forward to ending this regime.
Dx
IDC, Stage II, Grade 1, 2/23 nodes, ER+/PR-, HER2+