All about chemotherapy & hair loss

What is chemotherapy ?

It is a systematic treatment given for cancer. It could be in the form of infusion or as pills. The drugs used goes into your blood stream and targets rapidly dividing cells and destroy them. So hair loss is seen as one of the major side effects of chemotherapy as hair follicles usually divides rapidly.

In the case of cancer patients, chemotherapy aims at destroying all rapidly dividing cells be it healthy cells or cancer cells. If you are not undergoing treatment for cancer, hair follicles divide every 23 to 72 hours. But once you are into chemotherapy, your cancer cells as well as hair cells are destroyed. So within a few days of this treatment you would start losing all your hair. It could be a slow process or sudden also. Remember that some of the drugs used for chemotherapy not only destroys your hair on the head but also ones on your eyebrows, eyelashes, pubic hair and even hair on your legs, arms or under arms.

Chemotherapy drugs and extent of hair loss

Adriamycin is a chemotherapy drug which can lead to complete hair loss on the head whereas in the case of some women, they lose hair from even eyelashes and eyebrows. Methotrexate is another drug causes thinning of hair. Cytoxan and 5-fluorouracil causes only minimum hair loss but in women it is more. You have also Taxol which causes complete hair loss not only in head but also in brows, lashes, pubic areas, legs and arms.

How to handle hair loss during chemotherapy?

Try to visit a specialist in wigs before hair loss begins and choose one based on quality and advice. Always go for wigs with tape tabs and know about the insurance coverage for the wigs. Also look into other hair loss accessories. It is good to know that hair re-grows slowly and differently after the treatment.