Hair loss news

One of the most devastating side effects of chemotherapy for women is hair loss, as it can negatively impact self-esteem and confidence. Whilst the sufferer will be relieved to be free of cancer, the treatment can have more long-lasting effects.

Speaking to Wales Online this week was Cathy Fisher, a breast cancer survivor who lost all of her hair during chemotherapy treatment. She has explained her battle with hair loss – marking it as the worst part of her illness – and the effect it has had on her life.

Cathy, now 45, started to lose her hair during her third course of chemotherapy. She describes what happened:

“I woke up one morning feeling like death and I looked at the pillow and there was my hair. It was devastating.”

Cathy took the bold step of cutting all of her hair, but this upsetting experience made her feel even worse. She says that she no longer felt attractive in her partner’s eyes.

Describing how she felt when the hair started to grow back, Cathy says:

“I couldn’t wear a scarf over my head or a wig because it was too hot so I was walking around with this awful hair until it grew to a certain length and I became socially acceptable again.”

For women like Cathy who lost their hair during chemotherapy, there are now more advanced solutions available to help. You could try hair replacement treatment, or one of the increasingly realistic human hair wigs now being made.

Losing your hair can knock you for six, shattering your confidence and changing your perception of yourself and your place in the world. Some people will take the view ‘it’s only hair’, but it isn’t only hair; it’s an integral part of your self-esteem.

From being a young child to an adult woman, we are conditioned by the media, entertainment and fashion industries to believe that shiny, healthy hair is a symbol of beauty, youth, femininity and sexuality. This is why losing it can be so devastating, as we feel that all of these ‘attractive’ qualities are robbed from us, often without warning.

Confidence-boosting tips

The key to regaining your self-esteem and confidence when interacting with the world is acceptance. Once the initial panic of losing your hair has passed, you can accept what has happened and start to look for solutions.

Here are some confidence-boosting solutions for:

Temporary hair loss (caused by hormonal changes such as pregnancy)

Whilst you are waiting for your hair to fully grow back; human hair wigs are a great idea. Some of the latest wigs are extremely realistic, so you never need to feel self-conscious about your appearance.

Permanent hair loss (caused by alopecia, female pattern baldness)

Hair replacement treatment has improved rapidly in the last few years, with solutions such as the Intralace system offering you a way of disguising hair loss even if you cannot cure it.

Many women notice changes to their body after pregnancy, one of the most upsetting being hair loss. But what causes this to happen, and what solutions are available to treat your hair loss problem?

Causes of post-pregnancy hair loss

At any one time, around 90 per cent of your hair is in the ‘growing’ phase whilst 10 per cent is in the ‘resting’ phase. This ‘resting’ hair falls out every few months, allowing new hair to grow in its place.

The hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy can disrupt this cycle, causing more hair than normal to simultaneously enter the ‘resting’ phase. This is called telogen effluvium, and it usually occurs a few months after giving birth in around 40-50 per cent of women.

Solutions

Like many other changes that take place during pregnancy, this type of female hair loss is generally temporary. Although you may notice thinning or light shedding, the condition of your hair should improve approximately 3-5 months after giving birth as the hormone levels start to return to normal.

However, this condition can be extremely distressing for women, especially if you have the stress of being a new mother to contend with as well. This is why hair loss specialists have developed a number of interim, such as human hair wigs.

Although nothing can be quite as devastating as cancer, some of the side effects of cancer treatment can be fairly traumatic. For women, this means hair loss.

Chemotherapy treatment attacks all rapidly-dividing cells, regardless of whether they are healthy or not. As hair follicles grow so fast, these are amongst the first to be depleted. This results in rapid shedding of the hair, at a rate that can be alarming and upsetting to the patient.

Losing all your hair at once can be a frightening and debilitating experience, especially for women living in a world that sees thick, healthy hair as a sign of youth and beauty. Breast cancer charity founder and radiation oncologist Marisa Weiss elaborates on this, saying:

“There are studies that show that for many women, losing their hair is worse than losing a breast. That’s because you can conceal the loss of a breast, but hair loss is so obvious and apparent,”

Preparing for hair loss caused by chemotherapy

The best defence against the rapid hair loss caused by chemotherapy is to prepare for it ahead of time. It generally happens to everyone who undergoes the aggressive treatment, but you needn’t let it come as a shock.

But what are your options? Some women choose to take back control of the situation and shave their heads before their hair can fall out, whilst others prepare to use headscarves and other head coverings. One of the best options, however, is human hair wigs, which can now be made to look as realistic as your original hair. Consult a hair loss clinic or human hair wig specialist to find out more.

For a lot of women suffering from hair loss or hair thinning, the simplest solution is to cover up the problem area with a hat or a human hair wig. This isn’t a permanent solution, but is it preferable to extensive and potentially expensive hair loss treatment and medication?

The answer is that it is different for everybody, and which option you choose to some extent hinges on how you feel about your hair loss and your new self-image. Some sufferers find their hair loss devastating to their self-esteem and are willing to do whatever it takes to recover their hair. These women take advantage of the latest treatments for female hair loss, and can end up with a successful and permanent solution in place of hair that may never grow back naturally.

Other patients choose to embrace their hair loss, throwing off society’s typical association of hair with beauty and youth and celebrating their own ‘bald is beautiful’ look.

For those less willing to give up on their hair but who aren’t convinced that medical or cosmetic treatments are worth the hassle, the perfect compromise is human hair wigs. The latest wigs are so realistic; other people need never know the hair isn’t your own.

According to recent statistics, around 30 million women in the US suffer or have suffered from thinning hair, with a further 1.6 million UK women admitting some degree of female hair loss too.

Hair loss is a common problem, more common than you may think, and sufferers can go through a whole range of psychological traumas because of it. London trichologist Dr Philip Kingsley sheds light on why losing hair can have such a devastating impact of self-esteem, confidence and emotional well-being:

“You don’t need it to keep you either warm or cool, so its primary function is to increase attractiveness.”

In modern times, hair is a sign of beauty. You only need to switch on the TV and see a shampoo advert featuring a glamorous supermodel to see that. If a woman loses her hair, it causes her to reassess everything about her physical appearance, and can make her feel a loss of youth, sexuality and femininity.

This doesn’t have to be the case. The fact that there are many other sufferers of thinning hair out there means that there is a lot of support for female hair loss, in the form of specialist clinics and trichology professionals. These experts can help you find ways of managing your thinning hair – through solutions such as human hair wigs or the intralace hair system – so that daily life becomes easier.

There are a number of methods for managing hair loss and many cases a wig is not the best solution. Even in cases where someone has experienced total hair loss, there are alternatives. For example, the Intralace system.

What are the advantages of the Intralace system?
First of all, the Intralace system offers greater flexibility than a wig. For people suffering only partial hair loss, the Intralace system can be integrated with your natural hair.

It is also the case that, unlike with wigs, you only need one Intralace system. No spare is required because it is possible to attend the hair loss clinic when necessary if anything needs to be done. It lasts for two to three years and offers much greater freedom than a wig. It also offers a natural hairline, which means greater realism.

If you use the Intralace system, you can highlight and colour your hair when you visit the clinic and treat your hair completely as normal. You can do activities and play sports and can even swim with it in place. Maintenance is only required about once every six weeks.

Losing your hair to any degree can have quite profound psychological effects. It can reduce your self confidence and give rise to anxiety and depression. Different people will respond in different ways and a lot will depend on the extent to which that person is losing hair.

Different degrees of hair loss also require different management options. Slight, patchy hair loss can often be camouflaged using scalp make-up for example or even by styling the hair in a certain way. However, when hair loss becomes greater, you need to look to other treatments. There are several options and what you choose will probably depend on how much hair you have lost.

A consultation is advisable to discuss different hair management options. Here are three recommendations:

• Medi Connections – this treatment is ideal for hair that is thinning or for milder cases of alopecia areata. Medi Connections are essentially an ultra fine version of hair extensions.
• Intralace System – this can be used for greater hair loss, such as that resulting from trichotillomania. It can be integrated with existing hair.
• Intralace Freewear – this is used for alopecia totalis (total hair loss).

Choosing a wig is an extremely difficult process. You need to find one that suits you perfectly. One thing that has a major impact on how your wig looks is how it is fitted. If you have a wig custom made, monthly fitting and maintenance will often be included as well.

A wig will appear more natural if correctly fitted. This might involve foundation alterations and cutting and styling according to the individual. Also, if you are getting a wig due to chemotherapy, it will appear more realistic if it is a shade lighter than your natural hair colour. This is because your skin tone is likely to change during treatment.

Another option, other than a wig, is the Intralace system. It can function as a wig, but then, as your hair starts to grow back, you can integrate it with your new hair. You can use it until you have enough hair for a short hairstyle or hair extensions.

The Intralace does not prevent hair growth and in fact, keeping your head warm may encourage growth to a degree.

A well-known effect of undergoing chemotherapy is that a person loses hair. It may be that they only experience a thinning of their hair, or it could be that they experience alopecia totalis, which is total hair loss.

In the majority of cases, the hair will regrow after the course of treatment, but it will take a while to do so and in the meantime the person in question may want to manage their condition. It may also be the case that hair transplantation is required to fully restore hair, although full regrowth will normally occur.

Different treatments affect a person in different ways. Some drugs lead to hair loss more frequently than others and it also depends on the person being treated.

If you have undergone chemotherapy and lost some or all of your hair, you have a number of options in terms of how you deal with this. The Intralace system is popular as a full head of hair can be created using only an inch and a half of regrowth. Intralace is integrated with a person’s hair and can be looked after as if it is the person’s actual hair.