New treatment to avoid hair loss during chemotherapy

Health, Beauty and Lifestyle with Denise McNamara

It’s traumatic being thrown a life-altering diagnosis of cancer. But as many a person will attest, losing your hair as a result of the treatment to save your life compounds that devastation. Chemotherapy works by targeting all rapidly dividing cells in the body. While it is designed to target cancer cells, the chemicals cannot differentiate between a healthy fast dividing cell and a cancerous one.

As hair is the second fastest dividing cell in the body, this is the reason why many chemotherapy drugs cause hair loss. The hair follicles in the growth phase are attacked, resulting in hair loss approximately two weeks after the chemo begins.

In February 2021, Ruth Keane was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

When the 39-year-old farmer living in Adrahan was told she would need to have six rounds of chemotherapy treatment prior to surgery, the prospect of losing her brunette locks was all too real.

This is where her sister, PR consultant Pamela Finn, stepped in. She started researching hair loss treatments and found a scalp cooling system by a UK company that promised great results.

“I was met with cynicism by those in the medical field when I first entertained the idea of scalp cooling but I guess that’s because nobody really understood what losing my hair actually meant to me,” recalls Ruth.

“My sisters knew how important it was to me to save my hair when I had such a fierce battle on my hands.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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