Question related to hair loss: What to expect as it falls out?

Hello...I am scheduled to start chemo at the end of November...but today, I was reading online & came across something called a "Cold Cap" for Chemo patients to aid with hair loss.
I sent my Oncologist an email to ask of the hospital offers this treatment.

Hope this helps.

While I did get the cool footies and cool hand wraps for the neuropathy I wasn't all that concerned with me hair, if your center does not have them, you can look on amazon, I have seen them there. Just to update everyone too :)...I did shave my head 3 days ago, the hair that was coming out was just too much and in the shower it had gotten so tangled that I couldn't brush through it so my husband wound up having to cut it out anyway...then my husband, a very good friend of mine and I all shaved our heads...it was quite a surprise when my husband handed me my tablet and my friend was on skype and did hers as my husband did mine...then my husband handed my the clippers and told me to do his too...I was crying by the end of the whole thing...one interesting thing, some is starting to grow back, so I am assuming I am going to be one of those that needs to have her head shaved once every once in awhile.

It depends on which chemo cocktail you're on. Docetaxel caused my entire long, thick head of hair to fall out within 2 weeks of starting chemo for breast cancer. Oddly, despite having one more chemo treatment to go, new hair is already sprouting on my head, which apparently is normal. I really miss my hair and look forward to seeing it again. Regardless of color or texture.

I started losing my hair at about the two week point. It came out slowly; I still had strands after 4 months of treatments. I was advised to refrain from shaving my head but to get a buzz cut instead. Covid hit and hairdressers were shut down so that didn't happen. I mentioned the cold cap to my oncologist who was dismissive of the idea. I did research online and found that cold caps don't work with certain cancer drugs which, of course, were the ones I was given so I didn't pursue the idea.

Thank you guys for sharing your journey with ne..GOD bless each & everyone of you!

I was told 6 weeks. I had my mid back red hair cut to my shoulders after my first chemo. I had 12 rounds of taxol/carboplatin. i was told by the doctor week 2 it would go. Seems standard. I did that week have my sister cut it to two inches after much came out in the shower. What i had left? I lost almost all by the 3rd to 4th week. I then had what i call some 'old man" wisps. I wore hats from headcover.com. I started with a wig and wore it rarely. Two years later it is about 5 inches long all the way around. I have not had short hair in 40 plus years. I have also got to wear all the hats I have and have bought, as my thick hair is no more and will take years to grow back, if I let it.

Hi. I lost about 50% of my hair from having 8 cycles of FOLFIRINOX (chemo) for pancreatic cancer. My final chemo was 8-2-23, and I believe that some of the chemo was still circulating in my body on 10-3-23, when I shaved my legs shortly before my surgery. I base this assertion on the relatively thin and light hair on my legs -- chemo made my arms hairless and my legs nearly so. (I'm a woman, btw.) My legs are quite forest-like again, three months after the final chemo, and I think this correlates to the return of at least some of my head hair.

On 11-7-23, I took a pic of my very thin hair -- but also noticed new growth, about 1" long, at my forehead. Average hair growth is about 1/2" per month, so that probably means my hair started growing back abt 2 months prior -- about mid-September. (Also, there is much less hair on the pillows these days.)

My hair fell out gradually and more or less evenly around my head (no bald spots). I was 1st aware of thinning on my scalp, maybe about 6 weeks of chemo (can't remember), but I wasn't really aware of the full extent until about late July, when I finally realize how thin it looked when it was down (I had been putting it up during the summer bc I was hot -- it falls just a little above my shoulders). When I gathered it into a pony tail so I could then pin it up, I was shocked at the tiny circumference of the pony tail. (I had cut my almost-waist-length hair in March, pre-chemo, and I have pix, so I know what the circumference had been.)

Even if the next part of my treatment leaves my hair intact, I'll probably get a pixie cut at some point, because all of the hair that comes in from today forward is likely to be at normal density (thickness), whereas the older hairs that didn't fall out are at 50% density -- and the contrast between the two is going to look weird my hair grows longer (in other words, the bottom few inches of my hair will be very thin).

One PS: If you have a "butt ton" of hair (lots of strands), then your hair is thick, not thin -- those are some terms related to the quantity of one's hair (the number of strands on your scalp). If each strand has a small circumference, then your hair is fine -- that's a term for its texture. (So a person can have thick hair that's fine.) I'm mentioning this bc accuracy helps you get the info you need. Best wishes.