Hair loss with Taxotere and Penguin Cold Caps

Jill44

I had my first chemotherapy treatment 16 days ago with Taxotere, as well as Carboplatin, Perjeta and Herceptin. I have only lost a very small amount of hair so far. This is very unusual for Taxotere but my oncologist told me that it sometimes happens , especially for women who had healthy hair and good nutrition before treatment. She encouraged me to contact Penguin Cold Caps and use their product for my five remaining treatments to prevent further hair loss. I contacted the company and spoke directly to the owner of Penquin Cold Caps.He confirmed what my oncologist said.He stated that it is possible for some women to not experience much hair loss with the first treatment( even without use of the caps) but that further hair loss can absolutely be stopped if the caps are used correctly for the remaining treatments. He did say that it was essential that the cold caps be applied for at least 4 hours post each treatment if the caps were not used for the initial treatment due to the sensitivity of the hair bulbs. I wanted to pass this information along to any other cancer patients in this situation. I had been misinformed by many other people that preserving the remaining hair was impossible if the cold caps had not been used with the first treatment. I had also read on other forums people insisting that it was absolutely untrue that any hair could remain past three weeks. This is not true for everyone. I am proof of that. I was very impressed with the owner of this company. He is a very compassionate kind individual. The company is in England. I thoroughly appreciated his expertise on the subject of hair loss. He did inform me that he does not have the time to talk to everyone who contacts him directly but that my inquiry stood out to him so he took the time to personally respond. But his personnel seemed just as lovely and compassionate as he is. So I encourage anyone with questions about this topic to contact the Engand office directly. There is an e-mail link on their website.

Moderators

Hi Jill-

We wanted to welcome you to our community, and thank you for this wonderful feedback! We've had many users who've used cold caps, some with success, some without, but we always welcome personal stories from our members! We have a rather large forum dedicated to all things Chemo, you may find some great info there in one of our many topics about hair loss and/or cold caps.

Thanks again for sharing, and welcome!

The Mods

Michelle8

Jill44,

Could you please tell me how you responded to the Penguin Cold Cap and starting after your first round of chemo? I'm 5 days past my first treatment (the AC of the AC-T). The Penguin rep said that it might be too late but I could try. I'd love to know what your experience was. Did it work? Was it worth it? Would you recommend, even with missing the first session?

Thank you,

Michelle

Moderators

Hi Michelle8,

Welcome to the community forums!

This thread has been inactive since 2015 so you may not receive many or any responses to your post here, however we suggest you post in the thread below where members are discussing many issues regarding cold caps.

Cold Caps: Past and Present, to save hair

Hope this helps!

The Mods.