Chemo hair loss - Hair Loss / Alopecia Message Board

Alkawelinkar · 08-04-2008, 11:54 AM

Before I got cancer I had very thick and lots of hair. After chemotherapy stopped I thought I would have reasonable growth in about six months. It is taking forever to come back and it makes me feel ugly. My oncolgist insists it has nothing to do with the chemo and thinks I may have female baldness. I am surprised as nobody in the family suffers from this. Any ideas of how to stimulate hair growth.

Laura B · 08-06-2008, 12:24 PM

I think you have to be patient with your hair growing back. Especially thick hair seems to take longer. My sister's girlfriend also lost all her hair to chemo and it seems to take forever to grow back, even though it is a year, she still has bald spots on her head.

Mine finally starts to grow back, I always had very fine hair. My last chemo was on May 19th and I got about 1/2 inch of hair now. I was told by the chemo nurse not to be surprised if now and then I lose some strands of hair after they grown back, but she said eventually you will have all your hair again.
Laura

SamQKitty · 08-09-2008, 07:18 PM

I agree with Laura B...you get quite a bit of hair growth after six months, but it takes about a year or so before it gets back almost to what it was before.

The other thing to be aware of is that your hair can thin out after menopause. If you had some treatment that put you in premature menopause, or if you're approaching menopause naturally, you may experience some thinning. But again...it may take some time to determine just how much is the lingering after effects of the chemo.

One other thing I just thought of...there is a condition called alopecia. Sometimes there's no known cause for it, but sometimes stress causes it. I'm not sure what the treatment for it is (maybe short-term steroids?), but if you actually have bald spots, you should bring it up again with your doctor and ask if it could be alopecia.

Ruth