Hair loss due to chemo can be avoided with a new and unusual technique

Hair today, still here tomorrow

It was a warm Sunday evening in late spring. My friend Robert and his wife, three sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, and nephews, were gathered at his parents’ house for dinner.

The next day Robert was scheduled to begin chemotherapy. He knew he was going to lose his hair, but he wanted to be in control of that.

So after dinner he took a kitchen chair out to the front porch, draped a towel around his shoulders, and his youngest sister give him a close-cropped buzz cut with an old electric hair clipper his mom used to use to give him haircuts when he was a kid.

But don’t imagine this was a sad scene. It wasn’t at all. As I’ve heard the story told, Robert was cracking bald jokes while his sister was yelling at him to hold still. The mood was actually festive and upbeat.

Then, when they were done, one of his brothers-in-law sat down in the chair and said, “Now me!”

In a spontaneous show of solidarity, five other family members, including Robert’s father and even one of his sisters, got their hair buzzed off that night.

Can you imagine a better way to show a loved one that you’re with them all the way?

Now…can you imagine that, even with chemo, you could all keep your hair?

Chilled out

Another friend of mine recently found out she has breast cancer..

When I wrote to find out how she was doing and wish her luck on her first chemo treatment, I was surprised that her response was remarkably positive. She clearly wasn’t dwelling on whatever anxieties she might have been feeling.

In fact, she was thinking about you.

That is to say, she passed along some information she thought would be helpful to any e- Alert readers–perhaps like yourself–who are about to go into battle on two fronts: against cancer on one hand, and the side effects of treatment on the other.

She let me know that during her research, she stumbled on a product designed to help you keep your hair during chemo. (By the way, neither my friend or I or HSI are involved in the sale of this product in any way.)

I copied and pasted her email for you…

“Here’s something I just found out about that you may have already heard of–too late for me but it may help others–Penguin Cold Caps. They help minimize or prevent hair loss from chemo.

“They’re essentially super cold ice packs that you wear on your head during chemo. Freezes the hair bulbs or follicles so that the chemo drugs can’t get to them.

“The issue is that a normal freezer doesn’t keep them cold enough. I don’t remember the exact temp, but it needs to be super cold. Dry ice will work. But since I need them tomorrow, I won’t have time to have them shipped and cooled. And you really need them for each treatment.

“My neighbor told me about this. He works for Kenra, the hair care company, and they sponsor something called the Rapunzel Project which donates the special freezers to infusion centers so that people can keep their caps there when they’re having treatment and don’t have to pack coolers full of dry ice.

“At least I’m learning a lot.”

But there was even more to learn when she talked to her oncologist about using the Cold Caps. He explained what he called “a theoretical problem.”

Chemotherapy basically bathes the cells of the body so that the drug reaches cancer cells wherever they might be. Cold Caps block chemo access to hair follicles by constricting blood vessels in the scalp. That decreases blood flow AND the flow of chemo.

But in rare cases, cancer recurs in skin nodules on the scalp. So theoretically, the scalp would be at risk if any cancer cells were hiding there.

That said, her oncologist had no problem with using the Cold Caps. He just wanted her to understand the risk, even though it’s apparently very small.

I wish my friend had heard about Cold Caps a little sooner.

With all the side effects of chemo, hair loss may be the least medically significant but it has the effect of making you feel like a cancer patient all the time. So finding a way to keep your hair may not only make you feel better about how you look, but also have a positive impact on your health and well-being.

So if you or someone you care about is beginning a fight with cancer, take a few minutes to see whether this option makes sense for you.

You can find more information about Penguin Cold Caps and the Rapunzel Project at rapunzelproject.org.