Cold Caps

Very_Worried_Daughter

Someone very close to me is currently suffering from breast cancer and is going through chemotherapy. She is considering Cold Cap therapy. I was wondering if anyone out there had gone through this process and what they thought of it. She is considering either using Penguin Cold Caps or Dignicaps. Is it painful? Is it expensive? Are there side effects? Any pros and cons or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thankyou very much

Hortense

I used Penguin Cold Caps in 2012 and they worked. My hair did thin out in volume, which is common due to shedding, but I never lost full hair coverage and no one outside of my family noticed. The caps are expensive - mine ran about $1500 back then - and are not covered by insurance, plus there are extra costs for dry ice, etc. Some hospitals and medical centers have medical freezers dedicated to cold caps which makes using them easier, mine did. When I decided to use cold caps, I had to change doctors and hospitals as my first hospital would not allow me to use them. It has since changed its policy as it was losing so many patients like me, and their insurance money, to more accommodating hospitals.

Penguin caps must be rented and require following a protocol precisely in order to be successful. There are other brands, some of which can be bought others rented, but the majority of women on here have used Penguin.

The caps are very cold, but most people can tolerate them after the first five minutes which is a shock due to the cold. I took Tylenol beforehand to help, but once that first five minutes goes by your head is fairly numb and it gets much easier. They must be worn a specific time before chemo starts, throughout the infusions and for four hours afterwards, so for 7 - 8 hours each treatment day.

They have to be worn from the first treatment. They can not be started after it as the damage to hair follicles would already have taken place and complete hair loss would be inevitable.

Cold caps are more successful with Taxotere/ Cytoxane chemotherapy (referred to on here as T/C) than with the harsher ACT chemo infusions. Do you know which your mother is going to be taking?

There are several threads on here about cold caps, the most active one is listed at the bottom. I strongly suggest that you go it and also to the websites below for more information about scalp cooling therapy, as it is called.

http://www.rapunzelproject.org

www.penguincoldcaps.com

http://www.dignicap.com/

The most active cold capping thread on here is: Cold Cap Users to Save Hair

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/6/topic/735873?page=410#idx_12282

Best of luck to your mother, and you are a sweet daughter to be trying to help her.

mdg

I used them.  Details and photos in my blog below.  They worked for me and I shared photos so people could see.  Lots of girls on the Cold Cap thread have used them with success!  Go peek at that thread under Help Me Get Through Treatment section. 

 

Moderators

Check out the Topic Cold Cap Users Past and Present, to Save Hair as there is a huge amount of feedback there.

Hope this helps

The Mods

Very_Worried_Daughter

Thank you all so much for your help!