I finished my 10 sessions of stereotactic radiotherapy last friday 8th of september. I was advised that I’d suffer temporary hair loss which would begin approx 8 weeks after the therapy. Well, it’s already begun just a week later. Several patches of hair has fallen out and more continues to fall out. Im curious to know how long this temporary hair loss has lasted for other people and any ideas as to a temporary fix? I work in a professional environment and have always had a decent hair cut to maintain professionalism. I don’t think shaving my head with a razor is going to be a good look, lol. Whilst I’ve been told its only temporary, I am hoping some of you can help with some solutions?
Hey Justin, I had the one shot of Gamma so can’t help out much, no hair loss from that for me. I don’t know too much about the various stereotactic procedures outside of gamma that is not generally associated with hair loss. I have read some posts from people who experienced this some time ago so hopefully they’ll chime in. I look forward to hearing about your progress. I have my one year MRI in November, so I’ll see where I’m at then. Take Care! John.
I have had 3 separate radiation treatments over the past 5 years. My hair completely came out in spots that I luckily could keep covered with the rest of my hair. I have a lot of hair by the way. My hair has almost caught up to the rest of it after my last one 2 years ago. I hate I had to have it done again. It was bad enough the first go around. Guess I shouldn’t be to aggravated about it. At least my hair did come back.
I get the fact that not everyone looks cool without hair but I don’t think you should feel “unprofessional” about it. My interventional radiologist was as bald as a billiard ball (I rather assumed at the time that he is over-dedicated to his patients and has spent too long playing with the x-ray machine for his own good) but I would never have considered him any less for it; quite the contrary. Sir Georg Solti was one of my mum’s favourite music conductors and similarly sans follicles; and John Howard (former Aus PM) doesn’t carry a lot of hair.
I too lost about 50% of my hair due to lots of exposure to radiation. I also am a working professional in the business world and am a woman with long hair. The hair loss was quite a hard pill to swallow. In my case my hair started falling exactly 3 weeks to the day I was exposed to radiation. My hair fell quickly in the beginning- in large chunks and continued slowly falling for 4 months total. As a young woman I was always the type to not shy away from hair extensions but It was a huge difference when I was forced to deal with this problem. I am very lucky to how my hair fell. Most of my hair loss was underneath on the bottom half of my head (top of the ear and down). It was tough at times. Especially that I had 4 weddings this year and I was so worried about how I could possibly look decent for these events.
All in all I tried to stay calm. I tried to remind myself that hair is hair, and that people have much worse problems out there. I wore my hair in styles that hid the baldness. Its only been 6-8 months since my hair started growing back and now my biggest problem is trying to hid my short hair underneath. It WILL grow back. I promise you. Just be patient and focus on the positive. (That you are ALIVE.)
I had cancer thirty years ago and lost all the hair on the back of my head (except a stripe over my spine, which was shielded). It grew back in fine and curly and very pale, like baby hair. A couple of generations later it was just like the rest of my head.
While I was in the hospital after the stroke, my hair started falling out in clumps again, the whole back of my head was almost bald. I cried and cried over it, an laughed at myself for crying. But for some reason it was emotionally really, really upsetting. The hair loss was from the x-rays during the cath and the embolization, which apparently was a long procedure. While I had that huge bald patch everyone kept thinking I had a rash, but it’s actually a birthmark, a large salmon patch. My hair eventually grew back super curly, but not fine like it had done before - it was more “normal”, except that my natural hair is quite straight. After it had grown several inches I lost the curl, but between the baldness and the weird texture difference I just wore ponytails for a year.
I didn’t get any visible patches of hair loss from the stereotactic radiation. I did seem to be losing more than usual, but that was between me and my hairbrush.