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(My previous chemo hair cut!) |
Recently we had a door to door charity collector come round for a cancer charity. I eventually managed to cut through her chatter and tell her I already give to a cancer charity (and have since my Grandad died) and that as I currently have cancer I wasn’t looking to add to that list at the moment. Her first response was “But you still have your hair”. Which is something I hear a lot. I imagine it’s the first people think when they hear cancer. Hair loss. And I’ll be honest it was one of my biggest concerns too. Which I know is a really vain thing to worry about but it was a real concern, and so there’s no point lying about it. I’ve written about it before when I thought it was all going wrong.
There were many reasons that I worried about my hair, but most of them weren’t because I didn’t think I could rock the bald look (I could totally have done that!) but because my face is way too fat to rock a pixie cut when the shaved head was growing out. Which is why when I was offered the opportunity to use the cold cap I decided to take it. For those of you not in this world, The cold cap is a gel filled hat that is cooled to -25 degrees with the thought that cooling your hair follicles can reduce the chemo drugs from reaching them and reduce the chance of it making your hair fall out.
Now, I know that I am having my treatment privately, and not all NHS trusts offer the cold cap, but most of them do and it does baffle me that there are a lot of people who don’t take the option if it is offered to them. I see women who find out they have to have chemo and just shave their heads, thinking hair loss is inevitable. Which might be the right choice for them and I respect that, but for those of you not wanting to take that route I wanted to write about my experience.
Because whilst I’ll be the first to admit I had the thickest hair in the world to start with and I have lost a LOT of hair – maybe 60% of it – I still have a full coverage and I don’t look like a cancer patient. Which for me is a big thing.
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So, first things first – The cold cap I had is basically glorified riding hat that has been frozen to -25degrees, so, yes, it’s cold. It goes on half an hour before chemo, and comes off when the drugs have been administered and gets changed every every 45 minutes. Yes, it’s very cold. But I honestly didn’t find it too cold to cope with. Which I know is the fear of a lot of people.
So, in case you have found your way here at the start of your chemo journey and you’re considering the cold cap – here is a mixture of some advice I have been given, some things I have done that are totally against all the advice, and some of my observations on the realities of using the cold cap during chemo;
- On my first time I took painkillers 20mins before the cold cap went on. Just after my anti-sickness. I haven’t taken them since though and I’ve been fine.
- I make sure my forehead and ears are padded with gauze to stop the cold touching skin. This is the most important thing as I can tell when it’s changed if there isn’t enough. I go with 3 gauze pads all the way round. I’ve heard a headband might work but i’d worry about where the back of it would go. Would it cover hair that should be being kept cold?
- Wear something warm. It makes you cold having it on your head so wrap up!
- Make sure that it’s really snug. You should be able to feel the cold all across your head – if it’s not touching your head, it might not be working.
I know there is another style of cap that requires a hair conditioner seal to be made, and leaves ice on your head – I did get some tips for this one, but as I’ve not used it I can’t say, but if you do have any tips for that one please pop them in the comments, because I haven’t used that one!
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Once the actual chemo session is over, and the cold capping is done, this is where being careful about my hair had to start. And this was the bit that I was dreading really, because I’ll be honest, it has been a bit of a pain in the ass – but it’s been worth it to keep some hair on my head!
- I currently only wash my hair once a week. That means there’s only one hair wash for it to come out during. I wash it on a weekend which not only means it’s looking decent if I have weekend plans, but as my chemo day is a Monday, it’s washed quite a while after the treatment is given. Oddly a once a week wash hasn’t really been a problem -maybe because of how dry my hair is after the cold capping!
- I was told to just use Simple shampoo and conditioner. And I did. for a while. But I have such frizzy hair I found it was easier for me to carry on using the Treseme that I had been using before. It’s more moisturising and leaves my hair in a better condition I think! Plus, it seemed to fall out at the same rate no matter what I used!
- The advice is to only use a wide tooth comb on your hair to avoid pressure. I even bought a pink one! Personally, I found this was worse for my hair as I found the comb dragged at any knots and it came out in clumps. Using the large paddle brush I already had has, for me, been easier and I’ve felt my hair comes out less this way! I’m still getting a lot of hair in the brush, but it doesn’t seem to come out in clumps the way the comb made it. I also brush my hair once a day because brushing it less (as I was advised) made it more knotted and therefore, it came out more.
- I was told not to straighten my hair or hair dry it. But I’ll be honest I straighten my hair once a week. Not straightened, the frizz bomb that is my hair was knotting more, and therefore coming out more when brushed it. So for me, straightening, gently, is a far better option!
- I cut my hair from being long to a bob as I figured there was less weight on the hair, so less of a pull on the roots. I have no clue if this works, but I did it.
- It was suggested to me that I buy horse riding nets and a silk pillowcase to reduce hair loss at night. I bout the nets but found my hair got stuck in it and tangled up, so stopped that quite quickly. And I didn’t buy the silk pillowcase as I thought that mu pillows were silky enough!
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See – hair – recently – in February! |
And for those of you not facing chemo, or the hair loss – good on you for making it this far! That’s one hell of a commitment to blogging. You’ve done better than I do with baby posts 😉
Thanks for the insight into cold capping.
I cold capped and a year and a half post chemo sessions, I can kinda put my hair in a ponytail (wouldn’t be able if I had shaved my hair off). http://neverstandingstill.blogspot.com/2021/08/my-hair-obsession-during-and-post-chemo.html
I cold capped with an application of conditioner first and where I could feel the cap touching my head, that was where I lost my hair, I ended up looking like a monk., just a fringe of hair round a bald crown. My hair has always been short so only took about 6months to regain a reasonable going out length, and in the meantime I wore a wig. Whilst this all sounds very positive and matter of fact, believe me, I shed many tears in the shower maybe through vanity but mostly through shock at the clumps that washed out. I am 3yrs post treatment now and can look back and think that the hair loss was a small price to pay for my life but it seemed huge at the time. Lots of very mixed emotions.