I remember searching this topic quite a bit! I was really upset about losing my hair and I don’t think you can ever truly comprehend what that means until you actually lose ALL of your hair. Not only do you lose the hair on your head, but you lose all of the hair on your body!
Everyone is different and your hair loss will depend on the type of chemo you receive. Some will lose it quicker than others, but ultimately, we all lose it if our type of chemo drug causes this side effect. There are many chemo drugs for other types of cancer that will not cause hair loss, unfortunately for breast cancer, they all do.
Here’s my experience. I was given Taxol, once a week for 12 weeks. I made it halfway through and my hair was still holding on pretty well. Yes, it was thinning but I still had a lot of hair on my head. After week 5, I started seeing more and more hair on my pillow in the morning and each time I washed my hair a small fur animal came out along with the shampoo. A week of this was about all I could handle. So that Saturday, August 19, 2017, I bravely asked my husband to shave my head. I cut it with scissors myself and then just let him get it over with. Looking back, I really didn’t understand what this meant. I loved having my long hair and new I would miss it but I really missed it for a long long time!
Friends and family, who mean well, will tell you, it’s only hair and that it will grow back. But you know what?! It’s devastating to lose your hair! A baby with no hair looks cute, an adult with no hair looks sick! I tried to embrace it but I hated every minute of it! I kept my head covered as long as possible until I had enough hair to style into some kind of cute hairdo.
I lost the hair on my legs but that came back first of course! Ugh! I had lasered some hair on my body and had wondered what would happen, but those hair follicles were dead, so all good there. I lost my eyelashes and eyebrows 6 weeks AFTER chemo ended and went into a major depression. No breasts, no hair, no eyelashes, no eyebrows, equaled NO femininity in my eyes. (I lost my eyelashes two more times but by then was used to this cycle and handled it much better). Today, three years after chemo ended, my eyelashes are still suffering and very sparse, but the hair on my head is back to normal and I even have to cut it constantly!
It’s so hard to be patient but IT WILL GROW BACK! I promise you will get through this!
Timeline: From the day I shaved my head until I felt I had a good amount of hair again was 16 months. Two years from the day I shaved my head I felt even better! Photos below.
