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Nov 13, 2012 09:12PM
Hortense
wrote:
ndmk - Don't worry about chemo, it isn't as bad as you think it will be. I was surprised. It doesn't hurt going in and probably won't affect you for a day or so. My husband and I would walk ten blocks from our hotel to the chemo center the following morning so I could get my Neulasta shot, then walk back again, and I felt fine.
Be sure to ice your fingers and toes during your Taxotere infusion to prevent nail damage and ward of neuropathy - nerve damage. I just met someone who didn't and she lost every toenail and many finger nails. Ziplock bags of ice or frozen peas work very well.
I had 4 rounds of T/C spaced three weeks apart and did shed during it, starting around the second treatment. It was heaviest around the third treatment, then let up, only to start shedding in earnest three weeks after my final chemo. It lasted long enough to make me very nervous and thin out the volume of my hair - I still have full coverage. Shedding didn't end until sixteen weeks after that last chemo. Sixteen weeks seems to be a number other women have mentioned as how long their shedding lasted after chemo.
My shedding was uniform and didn't leave me with any bald spots. I have plenty of hair above my ears probably because my helper cleverly used Penguin's gel brow bands just below my caps to be certain I had full coverage. If you have a big head like I do, try using the browband trick too.
My hair continued to grow normally throughout chemo and I have long and healthy roots to prove it. They are about 4" now, six months after I started chemo. So it grew more than half an inch a month which is a very good rate. Much as I would like to color my hair back to my usual blonde, I am going to wait the full six months after my final chemo.
301724 - I had two frost bite spots the size of quarters because we had the caps too cold the first time. They should have been at -32 C. We were more careful after that and had no more trouble. Both spots lost all of their hair, which was upsetting at the time, but they healed up quickly and to my surprise started vigorously regrowing hair right away. I'd been afraid I might be left with two permanently bald spots, but that didn't happen.
By the time I went for my final chemo I think I had about half an inch of growth, enough to cover the bald spots anyway. The only thing is the new hair in those two spots came in very dark which I have never had before. It's pretty funny.
Check your frostbites spots carefully, when mine started to grow I thought I was just feeling more flakes of skin, but what I was feeling turned out to be new hairs - an army of them.
Cold Cap user - kept my hair
Dx
1/24/2012, IDC, 1cm, Stage II, Grade 2, 2/2 nodes, ER+/PR+, HER2-
Surgery
2/28/2012 Lumpectomy: Right; Lymph node removal: Right, Sentinel
Chemotherapy
5/7/2012 Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), Taxotere (docetaxel)
Radiation Therapy
8/23/2012 Breast
Hormonal Therapy
10/15/2012 Arimidex (anastrozole)