If you despise your “chemo curls” for their unmanageability and even their looks, here’s a simple trick for learning to embrace your new hair overnight.
I wonder how many women who hate their chemo curls are aware that there are breast cancer survivors out there who’d kill to have those troublesome chemo curls.
They are the women who have suffered PERMANENT baldness as a result of the chemotherapy drug Taxotere.
Have you seen the lawyer ads on TV for Taxotere and permanent hair loss? If you have, take a closer look at the issue.
This is not a case of greedy lawyers. It really is true that Taxotere has caused permanent baldness or severe hair loss in some breast cancer patients.
This is well-documented in the medical literature.
“Permanent and severe alopecia [hair loss] is a newly reported complication of the FEC 100–docetaxel breast cancer regimen.”
This is the conclusion of report in the Annals of Oncology (Kluger et al, May 2012). Docetaxel is the generic name for Taxotere.
What the Victims Say
The site aheadofourtime.org is devoted to raising awareness about Taxotere’s horrible side effect. These women were NOT told, prior to their chemotherapy, of the possibility of permanent hair loss.
In fact, they were told their hair would grow back. They were not forewarned. They were not given options, such as:
“Okay, Taxotere causes permanent baldness in a tiny percentage of breast cancer patients, but Taxol, which is similar to Taxotere, has not been shown to produce this side effect. Treatment with Taxol, however, requires more frequent administration. Which do you prefer?”
The women who’ve spoken out on aheadofourtime.org would kill to have your unruly chemo curls.
Read their stories and you will quickly start appreciating those pesky chemo curls and never complain about them again.
The stories are heartbreaking. If you have a thick mass of quirky chemo curls, perhaps you’ve taken your follicular regrowth for granted.
But imagine for a moment that you were in that three to six percent of patients who’ve suffered the fate of permanent hair loss.
• Never again will you have hair to brush and fuss over.
• Never again will you be able to sniff the natural sweet fragrance of your hair.
• Never again will you feel it on the back of your neck.
• Never again will you have the pleasure of washing it and styling it.
• You will be sickened by the mere sight of your blow dryer and brushes.
• You will feel queasy when the woman ahead of you in the grocery store line flips back her hair.
• You will permanently look “terminal.”
• You will be reminded daily of your battle with cancer; it will never be over.
• It will be unbearable watching shampoo commercials.
• You will quickly realize that wigs do not solve the problem (try hiking or biking in them, going out in the wind or rain, riding in a convertible, exercising, and as one woman reported, getting intimate while wearing an itchy wig).
• Imagine living like this for a week.
• To the women who’ve suffered this fate, it’s a living, never-ending nightmare. What they’d give to have chemo curls to hate.
