Normal Hair Regrowth Post-Chemo?

YoungBRCAgal

Hi all! So my last infusion was 3/25 (yay!). I was taking taxotere/cytoxan every 3 weeks X4. The hair on my body is coming back slowly but seems like my eyebrows are still shedding some. I've got this weird long white fuzz on my head... It almost makes me want to trim/shave it. But is that all I'm going to have? White fuzz? I want my thick black hair back! What did you guys encounter and what timeline

avmom

Hi BRCAgal. I did AC-T, so my experience is likely a bit different from you, but it's similar enough that it might be somewhat the same.


My hair took longer than yours to get started, but it did begin with "fuzz", and not just on my head. After the head fuzz started, I got fuzzy elsewhere, including on my face. That was a bit disturbing, but I saw from a number of posts that the "werewolf face" was temporary. Some people shaved it off, some left it and it eventually fell out, and I used a facial depilatory. The facial hair didn't come back. Gradually, I started to have more normal looking hair on my head. Many people report that their new hair growth is very different from what they had before, and I understand that it can be more than a year before your hair is more "normal". That said, my hair is coming back a lot like it was before. It started out pretty patchy, with male pattern baldness (thicker on the sides than the top), and it is still thicker on one side than the other, but I am getting real haircuts now. I've been keeping it in a pixie cut so far, as it is growing very slowly, but people say it's pretty cute. It's lighter than before, so I have coloured it twice, just using a root touch up kit. Lots of people on these boards have had their hair come back faster than mine, so if your hair grew quickly before, it might well be back before you know it.

YoungBRCAgal

Hey avmom! Did your head fuzzies fall out and then start growing real hair? Did it come back stubbly like when you shave it?

avmom

Hey BRCAgal. My "real hair" was stubbly, though not stand up stiff. My pre chemo hair was always fine, so that's probably why. It did resemble the "little boy #2" clipper buzz for a while. As I recall, the longer white fuzzies came out gradually. Mine weren't super long, so I just left them, but I know of some who had them buzzed off when their regular hair started coming back more quickly. I would say that my hair regrowth has been slow - some of the women on my chemo support board have hair practically to their shoulders now. I wouldn't be close to that, even if I had never trimmed it, but my hair is presentable now, and even a few months ago, I was going without my wig lots of the time. I do still have my wigs, and have worn them if it was very cold. Baldness, or even a pixie cut, provides little insulation!

SpecialK

Check the Feb 5 post by lago on this linked page. It has a pictorial timeline of hair regrowth after TCH. Also, this thread in general contains a lot of member pics of hair regrowth.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/69/topics/707348?page=763#post_4633323