How long does it take to lose hair after chemotherapy

Cancer is a very scary type of disease. Once you have cancer, the possibility of a complete cure is low, and chemotherapy is often needed to relieve symptoms and prolong the patient's life. However, during the chemotherapy stage, the patient will face extreme pain. The side effects of chemotherapy will also cause the patient's hair to fall out and face the problem of baldness. So how long after chemotherapy will the hair start to fall out?

Generally, hair loss after chemotherapy usually occurs two to three weeks after chemotherapy, or after two treatments. The hair may fall out in clumps or gradually. Chemotherapy may not only cause hair loss, but may also cause hair in other parts of the body to fall out, such as armpit hair, pubic hair, beard, and eyebrows. This situation can easily cause psychological stress to patients.

Chemotherapy is abbreviated as chemo. Its treatment method is to use chemical drugs to organize the proliferation, infiltration and metastasis of cancer cells, and ultimately eliminate cancer cells. Cancer cells are newborn cells. One characteristic of newborn cells is that their cell division rate is faster than that of ordinary cells. In addition to cancer cells, hair follicle cells, gastrointestinal mucosal epithelial cells and bone marrow cells also divide very quickly. The reason why hair grows fast is because cells divide faster. However, because chemotherapy drugs are not very selective, while destroying cancer cells, they can also easily "accidentally injure" some normal cells, that is, kill the several types of newborn cells that divide faster mentioned above.

As the new hair follicle cells are killed, the remaining cells that have not been killed will divide faster. When a large number of hair follicle cells are killed, the nutrient supply of the hair will be affected, and the hair will not be able to continue to grow and will fall out in large quantities. This is why hair loss can occur after chemotherapy.

Now that you know the reasons for hair loss after chemotherapy, you don’t have to worry too much. Although chemotherapy can cause a lot of hair loss, the hair will grow back normally after the chemotherapy is over.