How to Deal With Losing Your Hair from Chemo
Cancer survivors and experts share their advice on how to handle chemo-induced hair loss.
There are a lot of challenges associated with losing your hair during cancer treatment. First of all, there’s the emotional impact.
“People will say, ‘Oh, it’s just your hair…’ But it’s really important to validate women’s feelings about that,” advised Elizabeth Comen, MD, Medical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) Researcher. “It is really scary for them and even though it will grow back, the psychological trauma of having to shave their head and get a wig and see their hair fall out on their pillow…all of that is real. In some instances it’s minimized for patients, and that does a disservice to the emotional experience of it.”
Then there are the financial implications. For instance, wigs can be a big expense, noted Lauren Chatalian, LMSW, Director of Advocacy and Women and Children’s Program Manager at CancerCare, a nonprofit organization that provides free support services to people with cancer, cancer survivors, and caregivers. But there’s financial assistance available, she said.
CancerCare, for example, has a service where they provide free wigs to women undergoing…
