Medical Concerns
Coping with Hair Loss
For many people, hair loss is one of the more trying aspects of cancer treatment. When hair falls out, it affects our self-image and our quality of life. But you don’t have to despair – you can go a long way towards boosting your own self-confidence with an educated attitude and some advance preparation.
Everyone's experience is different, so it’s important to become well informed about how your particular treatment affects hair loss. Talk to your doctor, nurse, or social worker about what to expect. Read on to learn more:
- Questions and Answers about Hair Loss
- Tips for Obtaining, Wearing, and Paying for a Wig
- Getting Emotional Support
- In Their Words: One Woman’s Personal Experience with Hair Loss
Questions and Answers about Hair Loss
Q. Why does hair loss happen?
A. Hair loss from chemotherapy treatment occurs for a very simple reason: hair follicles are weakened by chemotherapy which causes your hair to fall out much more quickly than it would normally
Q. When does hair loss happen?
A. Depending on the type of treatment you receive, hair loss may start anywhere from seven to 21 days after treatment begins. Your hair will start to grow back when you are finished with chemotherapy but it may take six to 12 months to grow back completely. It may even have a different texture – for example, curly hair can grow back straight and dark hair can become lighter. These changes are usually not permanent. Radiation to the head or scalp, however, can cause permanent hair loss.
Q. Where does hair loss happen?
A. Depending on where radiation is directed, you may also experience hair loss on your legs, arms, underarms, pubic area, chest, eyelashes, and eyebrows, in addition to your head.
Tips for Obtaining, Wearing, and Paying for a Wig
1. Buy a wig before all of your hair falls out so that you will have a good match to your own hair color and will be prepared when hair loss starts.
2. Keep in mind that there are full-service wig salons that fit and style wigs, some of which specialize in hair loss from chemotherapy.
3. Wig salons also sell turbans and scarves that come in a variety of colors and fabrics so that you can look good even when you're lounging around the house or at bedtime.
4. Wear stickies to keep your wig on. They are so effective that you'll forget you're wearing a wig.
5. If you can't afford a wig, contact CancerCare at 800-813-HOPE (4673), or a local cancer organization or support group for one that is free of charge.
6. Bear in mind that some health insurance plans cover the cost of wigs. Check into this.
7. If you buy a wig, save your receipt. It can be a medical tax deduction.
Getting Emotional Support
Talking to others who have experienced hair loss, or who have professional experience, will help you during this difficult period. Here are some suggestions: Join a support group. You'll get emotional support and feel less alone. Plus, you can share valuable tips for coping and receive helpful guidance. Find a buddy who understands what you are going through and call this person when you're feeling sad or uncertain about what to do.
Talk to a counselor who can assist you in finding resources, guide you through difficult decision-making, and help you feel more in control.
CancerCare’s staff of professional oncology social workers can also help you cope with the side effects of cancer treatment. Our social workers offer people with cancer and their loved ones individual counseling and support groups via the telephone, online, or in person. You can contact us at 1-800-813-HOPE (4673).
In Their Words: One Woman’s Personal Experience with Hair Loss
Jane Read Martin, supporter of CancerCare and children’s book author, went through chemotherapy treatment for ovarian cancer four years ago. Every year around Halloween time, she is reminded of the difference between wearing a wig for fun and wearing one to cover-up hair loss. In this essay, she details her personal experiences with one of the most common – and most trying – side effects of chemotherapy.
With Halloween approaching I am reminded of the last time I wore a wig. Not because I wanted to but because I had to. It was four years ago at our building’s annual Halloween party and the wig I wore was a multi-colored clown’s wig sent to me by my father and intended to lift my spirits. Nobody at the party mentioned it and, mercifully, a few other adults wore costumes as well. Still, I felt terribly self-conscious and lived in fear that a child would pull it off. You see, earlier that day, Ruben, the man who has cut my hair for twenty years, had come over to our apartment to shave my head. Due to a recent diagnosis of ovarian cancer I was rapidly losing my hair to chemotherapy. For the sake of our four and a half year old son, my husband and I decided to make it as “fun” as possible and asked Ruben to give me a Mohawk first. We even took before and after pictures. I have never had to try so hard to smile when all I wanted to do was sob. Then my son wrapped his arms around me and told me he liked me better bald. A few hours later we went downstairs to the party, thus beginning my seven months of going out in public without hair.
I had heard that when your hair starts falling out—as it invariably does with the kinds of chemos I was given—it is less traumatic if the clumps are shorter. Since I did not relish the thought of waking up each morning to a pillow with more hair than me, this made sense. The day after my first chemo I went to Ruben’s salon and got a pixie cut. It was my way of preparing myself--and my son--for my new look. Shortly thereafter a friend took a picture of us that to this day sits prominently on my husband’s desk. I call it my East German swimmer phase. My husband calls it my Halle Berry phase and wishes I’d kept it that way.
“Listen, it is what it is,” my friend Barbara told me after the last hair had fallen out and I was complaining that the wig I’d purchased itched like hell and looked like a pelt. “Skip the wig and wear a scarf,” she suggested with exactly the right mix of encouragement, practicality and empathy. “This is New York City. Every day I pass a woman wearing one.” Of course she was right. But most decorative scarves are made of silk and don’t stay tied well. So, having wasted entirely too much time and energy on the subject, I marched over to Ninth Avenue, bought three bandanas from a man selling his wares from a card table on the street, and with the exception of a beautiful black cap with three silver buttons that another friend had given me for evening wear, decided that would be my public look. At home I went bald, a decision that worked well for me. For starters, I had already cut my hair so donning a shoulder-length wig at that point would have surely confused my son. What was I supposed to do if he had a nightmare in the middle of the night? Make him wait while I threw on my wig? Forget it.
It was what it was.
It goes without saying that it’s beyond unsettling when all your hair falls out over the course of just a few weeks. I remember hating my reflection—in a mirror, a store window, silhouetted against a wall—because it was a constant reminder that I was sick. It was my reflection, yet I didn’t recognize myself. I could have been having a perfectly lovely day feeling utterly healthy and then, oops! I’d catch a glimpse of my bald head and be reminded that, Oh, yeah. I have cancer!
And, of course, I had to contend with my friends’ Hair Questions. First they’d ask if I was going to lose all my hair. (Yes.) Then, a bit more incredulously, “All, all your hair?” (“Yes,” I’d say. “All, all my hair. Arms. Legs. Armpits. Eyebrows. Eyelashes.”) I always stopped at that and then watched as their eyes inevitably drifted south and a slight pall crept over their face. When we both stopped blushing I would add, “You forgot nasal hair.”
Not long ago on Third Avenue I noticed a striking woman walking ahead of me. She was radiant. Late fifties, early sixties. Beautiful, bold earrings. Luminous skin. And completely bald.
“Wow!” I said, without even thinking. “You look beautiful! Not too long ago I looked exactly the same,” I said, running my hand over my head. “It does come back.”
“I’m so afraid it won’t,” she said. “How long does it take?”
So there we stood, two strangers bound by something we never would have wished for,
carrying on an intimate discussion ten seconds after meeting. That evening when I told my husband the story he was amazed at my chutzpah. What if she’d been offended, he’d asked. I assured him that it wasn’t I who had the chutzpah. It was she. And she looked damn good.
Later that night I found myself wondering why I hadn’t gone bald in public. Was it vanity? I guarantee you my head is not nearly as perfectly shaped as hers. Had I gone through chemo in the summer, would I, too, have had the guts? Perhaps the chemo had zapped some of my spunk as well. And then I realized it was simply a matter of inner comfort as well as outer comfort. I chose to journey through ovarian cancer in a bandana.
It has been four years since that uncomfortable Halloween party. My son is now eight and planning what to wear to this year’s party. And I am cancer-free and in need of a haircut.
Jane Read Martin is the author of two children’s books and a made-for-TV movie. She lives in New York City with her filmmaker husband Douglas McGrath (“Emma,” “Infamous”) and their son.
