Penguin, Elastogel for African American Hair. Important info:

deelightful

Hello everyone,

I've posted here, because when my mother decided to cold cap, we couldn't find too many African Americans that used cold caps.  I wanted to share what we've done to successfully help my mother keep her hair.

My
mother will have her 4th and final chemo on May 1st. We use the
elastogel caps. For an hour before the actual chemo starts, we swap the
caps every 15 minutes. We never used a thermometer. The elastogel
caps freeze pretty quickly. You can put them in dry ice for an hour
before chemo, and they will be really frozen...even a 1/2 hour and you
should be fine. In fact, when my mother and I first started, they were
so frozen that she had a hard time putting them on her head.

During
the chemo session, we swap the caps every 1/2 hour. She doesn't wet
her hair. The first time we did wet the hair, and we found that with
African American hair, it actually thickens the hair. You want the caps
as close to the scalp as possible.

After the chemo session, we
continue to swap the caps every 1/2 hour for the next 3-4 hours. My
mother has gone the minimum of 3 hours, and she still has a lot of
hair. We are very satisfied with the results.

My mother doesn't use shampoo on her hair. She's been using a conditioner call "Shea Moisture"

http://www.sheamoisture.com/SheaMoisture-African-B...

.
It doesn't have sulfates and a lot of other things that can stress the
hair during chemo. She takes the conditioner, parts her hair and puts
the conditioner all throughout her scalp. "Shea Moisture" has different types of
conditioner, but my mother prefers the one for "Dry, Itchy Scalp". Once
she puts this all over her scalp, she lets it stay on for 5 minutes and
rinses it out. She's washed her hair once every other month, because
you can't pull on your hair.  You have to be as gentle as you possible can.  The "Dry, Itchy Scalp" formula helps with the itching and flaking.  

My mother uses IC PM Oil Night oil moisturizer

http://www.amazon.com/Fantasia-P-M-Night-Time-Trea...

to keep her hair from getting too dry.

At
night, you'll want a satin scarf to keep your hair from being pulled at
night. My mother doesn't use it often, but I've heard this does
help.

My mother uses a pick on her hair

http://www.amazon.com/Selcessories-Afro-Hair-Pick-...

You'll want the teeth to be far apart. Remember, you don't want a lot of pulling.

Remember to drink lots and lots of water after your treatment. This will remove the chemo from your system.

If there are others that have used Penguin or other cold caps, please post what your experiences are.  I hope this will help others.

Also, if you have any questions for me, please reply to this forum.  I will get back to you as soon as I can.

God bless & Good Luck!!!!

Redgrl

I recently found out that I have to have Chemo.  I am African American with long hair and a relaxer.  I would like to use Cold Caps in hopes of keeping a good portion of my hair.  Please tell me more about this process.

Thanks!

mdg

Check out the cold cap thread under Help Me Get Through Treatment.  I am not sure how many gals that used them were African American, but at least there you can read a lot about people using them.  I used them and have info/photos in my blog below.

tdiva22

I am going to start chemo in January and I have long natural hair. Did you find out any more info on using cold caps? I am looking for all the info I can find on African American hair and cold caps.

-T-

Moderators

You may find the article on Cold Caps from the BCO main site to be of interest, even if no specific mention of African-American users.

We wish you all the best with your hair retention.

The Mods

SheriCola

I didn't know anything about these when I went through chemo! I wasn't afraid to lose my hair (I was actually pretty hot bald lol), but my hair has never achieved the thickness that I had pre-chemo. Did your mother's hair texture change at all?

Highlyfavoured

Hi All

I was diagnosed in December 2015. Gone through 4 rounds of EC and 4 rounds of Docetaxol. Had my last round a week ago and I thank God every day for getting me through this and still being able to keep up with my full time job.

I have been stalking this forum since my diagnosis and found a wealth of information that has got me through this "mess" (that's what I am calling this). After my last round of Taxol I decided that I needed to give back to the community by sharing my experience, particularly on cold capping for afro hair. Hopefully I can help another sister through their "mess".

After my diagnosis I scoured the internet for information on cold capping on afro hair. Needless to say there is very little information. deelightful post was the most informative and helpful so special shout out to her.

From the get go I wanted to do all I could to save my hair because I did not want the outward appearance of breast cancer. I worked full time throughout my treatment, and the only person at my work that knew what I was going through was my direct manager.

The advantage we have over other races is that wearing weaves, wigs, hair extension is not unusual in the black community. I just went with the same wig i used to wear prior to chemo. I would normally leave out 3-4 cm of hair in the front to cover my wig. So my goal was to ensure i could save enough hair to make a decent leave out. My hair is natural.

Actually I better mention that I live in London and was treated under the NHS Guys hospital. I had my chemo every 3 weeks on a Friday. The cold cap is a free option and it is the type that is attached to a cooling machine.

Prepping the hair.

The first chemo round, I did not know you have to prep your hair. Nurse came round with some random conditioner and coated my hair as much as she could. Bless her, she did what she could. Successive sessions, I would prep my hair myself. I would put my hair in 8 chunky twists, completely smother and saturate my hair with Tresemme moisture conditioner, then go in with a generous helping of coconut oil.

Cap Size

We quickly realised that afro hair requires the largest cap size. Remember once wet our hair tends to swell. The cap needs to fit snugly on the head ensuring the top of the cap is in contact with the head.

Duration

There are different brands out there with different timings so please check your specification. Generally, because our hair is thicker it is recommended that we stay longer with the cap. This was explained to me at my second round by a Chinese nurse. This was important information for me because I had 8 treatments, administered by 8 different nurses. Only one had an inkling about our hair and how it behaves. In the end we added 30 minutes extra. So I had the cap on 1hr 30mins before chemo, during chemo and 45mins after chemo.

Taking care of hair

After treatment on Friday, I would go home and sleep, sleep and sleep. Saturday I would wash my hair with head and shoulders (I have a scalp issue) while my hair is still in the chunky twist.

After washing, undo each twist and coat it generously with deep conditioner and coconut oil. Detangling each section with my fingers and removing any shed hair. Be warned, there will be a lot more shed than usual and it will be distressing to see.

I tend to cover my hair with a shower cap and leave it for the whole day, more due to laziness than need.

After I rinse off the deep conditioner the next step is to coat each section generously with leave-in conditioner and Jamaican caster oil. At this stage I also get out my denham brush and thoroughly detangle each section. Again you will see more hair come out. Re-twist each section, pin each down and that's it. I leave it until the next chemo session. This way I manipulated my hair just once every three weeks.

End result

Hair loss is going to happen. The best that cold capping can do is stop you from losing all your hair. I think i lost about 40% of my hair, but the loss was spread evenly across my head so I did not have bald spots. The loss did not affect the appearance of the hair i left outside of the wig. Chemo tends to loosen the kinks in afro hair so it blended well with my wig

Funny thing, there is distinct difference between the length of the hair left out and the hair that was protected under the wig. The hair left out grew faster and is considerably longer. Go figure. So all the noise in our community about protective styling to grow hair is bull.

I do have some before and after pictures but attempts to upload them failed. I will come back to this if i do figure it out.

And i second deelightful. DRINK, DRINK, DRINK and DRINK. When you think you have drunk enough, drink more. Honestly this will considerably reduce the side effects especially if you are on any taxol.

Mercies and Grace to all of us going through this.