Anyone else with chemo straight instead of chemo curly hair?

I'm both sorry and relieved to read this. Sorry that you ladies have to deal with it. Chemo and bc are hard enough to endure that we should somehow get our exact prechemo hair back. I'm relieved to read that not everyone gets the curly chemo hair. I've always had straight hair and was dreading all the curls. One more tc and then the hair watch begins!




thank you for giving me hope.



All my best,

Madison

How interesting.  I'm starting about to start chemo in a couple of weeks and am already looking forward to the day I get hair again. My hair was straight as a young girl then went slightly wavey later.  Now I colour the gray but of course that changes the texture. It will remain to be seen I suppose.

I had long, naturally curly hair before chemo. It came in straight. Two years after completing chemo I now have curly hair. Its not as curly as it was before but I'll tak it. I will never have long hair again. It was too much of a shock to lose 13 inches to locks of love and the rest after chemo.

This is indeed interesting.  It will be interesting to see what happens as I've had curly hair for 50+ years.  What ever color does or doesn't happen, oh well.  It's about 3/4 gray if I don't color it any ways.

I had graying relatively straight hair before losing it during chemo, it grew back stark white and cork-screw curly. It's going on a year since it started growing back and it's back to salt-n-pepper and less curly now that it's growing out. Very interesting how this works out. I'm honestly just so happy to have hair again I don't care if it's curly or straight or blue or purple.

Thanks so much for sharing about the "curlies". My 3rd chemo is March 7th and my beautiful curls as I once knew them are gone and getting used to no hair, but I often wonder, not fret about what will come back. Like so many, straight hair was what I always wanted until my 40's and then all of a sudden I was appreciating and loving them. So much a part of who I was, that when someone was describing me to someone else, it was my defining feature. So okay, they are gone now, and I'm still Franny, just no curls. My 28year old son thinks my pretty bald head was passed down to him which he loves since likes to change up his hair. Wig shopping turned into straight hair styles, cause I could, and the curly ones, well they weren't as pretty as mine. So I will at some point be anxious about how it will come back, but I've got a lot of time to think. Good luck.

Well, my pre-chemo hair was curly to frizzy. I am frankly glad to be rid of it, when the biggest decision of the day is which scarf and earrings to break out...hahahaha.  I WISH mine would come back straight (many months more to tell though).  What a bonus that wouuld be!!!!  I'll say one thing....it won't get any curlier/thicker!  Not possible!!!

This is soo very funny.  I had both.  Straight hair and wavy hair.  The straight hair came in curly and the wavy hair came in straight.  So now, I have a curly mop type thing on the top with straight (but soo very, very thick) on the sides and back.  My hair is trouble....I can literally pull it straight up and it will stay that way.  I wake up with a large afro every morning.  I was hoping to grow it longer because it originally seemed that it was all going to be curly.  I imagined the long curls I had always dreamed of. But at this rate of growing outward and not downward, I should have the largest afro on the planet Earth by next year. Perhaps I will get a slot in the Guinness Book of Records for largest Afro then...there is always hope for something positive out of this mess no?

I have heard it goes back to its original state.  But you are going on year three.  I too miss my old hair. Because it was mine, the old hair the old me.  But as we all know, that person is also gone. I hope you learn to love your new straight hair!  Maybe it means that the Herceptin is still working?   

I was looking forward to my hair growing back different - especially getting grey. It didn't dang it. I'm 65 and my hair is still as dark as it was in high school. Before chemo there were actually about 10 white hairs but after there are none. I hate being in stores and people I don't even know telling me I shouldn't dye my hair so dark as I'd look younger if I dyed it a lighter color. One quite obnoxious woman once reached up and and spread it apart to see my 'roots' as she didn't believe it's natural when I told her it isn't dyed.

It also came back with the same slight waves in the same places - when I was in high school flips were popular and all I had to do to get a great flip was just shampoo/wet it and let dry and it would just naturally go into a great flip (problem was I liked pageboys better and there was no way that it would stay turned under for more than 5 minutes literally.

I have to respond to this post. It's like I wrote it. I've been googling and googling and haven't found a SINGLE thing on this topic. I had very naturally curly hair until my cancer treatment. I was ER/PR+ and Her2+. I did 12 weeks of Taxol and 1 year of Herceptin every three weeks. Now I take Tamoxifen daily and I get a Lupron injection every three months. During the Taxol treatments, I wore an ice cap - I used the "Dignatana" machine at the hospital which was like an ice cap on my head for 4 hours each time. It's was dreadful. But I didn't lose all my hair - I lost about 50%. I lost hair everywhere else though.

Then the hair started to grow back, and it was totally straight! So I had curly hair that was there along with new straight hair. Finally a few months later, everything became straight! I've shared this with the doctors and no one really cares because of course the goal is to be alive and who cares about your hair -- But I still want to know WHY? HOW? was it the Chemo? Was it the Herceptin? Was it the machine? The tamoxifen? I just want to know.....

I must say: I'm learning to love my new hair and am grateful for every day I can be with my family and not have to go to the hospital. When you've had really curly hair for 47 years and that is part of who you are, it's a bit of shock to the system and to your identity!

Good for the revival of this thread. My hair was grey and came back brown. It was wavy and came back pretty much the same. It has always been long but I couldn't summon up the good graces to grow it again after it all fell out. Along came Covid. I haven't had a haircut since December 2019. The good & the bad - it's LONG but it's grey again. I'm happier with long hair, but I look sort of like a witch now.

The first time with IV chemo my hair came back as it had been. Straight and white. Now I’m on ibrance. ONE side is curly, the top won’t lay down, the rest is straight. I wear this hat when I’m really frustrated.

yes, mine was thick and curly, now growing back a lot straighter, as everyone joked it would ("Maybe it will curl the other direction and will grow out straight!)

A couple bald spots, but growing back thick and is actually a lot silkier than it was when curlier.