Hair is an important part of our personal identity, so losses during cancer treatment can be painful at already difficult times. However, this is a positive indication that chemotherapy is working, and hair can usually grow after treatment, said Desmond Tobin, a dermatologist at Charles University at Dublin University.
After chemotherapy, hair may look different, Tobin said. “In the majority of cases, after treatment, the hair regenerates as well as before, and it’s similar to what it used to,” he told Live Science. “However, the early stages of recovery can change the texture and appearance of your hair.”
The most commonly reported difference between patients who have completed chemotherapy is “chemotherapy.” Hair that regenerates curly when previously straight. Typically, this altered hair will return to its original shape within about a year, Tobin said. But why does hair grow differently after chemotherapy?
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To explain “chemical curls,” you first need to understand how your hair grows normally. Individual human hair is a long fiber of dead skin cells, made up primarily of keratin proteins, Sunny Wong, a professor of dermatology at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, told Live Science. Each chain is created by hair follicles – a complex factory of different cell types. This goes through a constant cycle of growth, rest and fallout.
We were born with all the hair follicles we have ever had, Tobin said. However, a mix of factors including genetics, nutrition and variable hormone levels at various stages of life means that the appearance of hair is constantly evolving.
Pigments control hair color: The production of sex hormones at the onset of adolescents causes hair to darken, and as age, the loss of pigment lightens later hair to gray or white.
Related: Can I reverse gray hair?
On the other hand, the shape of the hair follicle determines the shape (and therefore the texture) of each fiber, and the round follicles produce straight hair, flattened follicles that produce egg yolks, somewhere between them while the hair follicles give loose waves and curls.
How chemotherapy changes your hair
So, what do chemotherapy drugs do to these hair follicles? Because cancer treatments target rapidly split cells, hair follicles act as fuel for hair growth, including hepatocytes, and are particularly vulnerable to damage.
“The hair follicles are predominantly attacked because they are probably one of the most proliferating and actively divided tissues, second only to the bone marrow or intestine,” Tobin said. “It causes the hair follicles to become super stress responses.” Therefore, chemotherapy stops the hair cycle and forces these follicles to either expel fibers at the growth stage or move into the dormant phase.
However, after treatment, the stem cells in each hair follicle begin to awaken. The cycle gradually begins again. This will re-grow your hair, but sometimes it changes slightly from the appearance.
“Chemotherapy exposure can damage existing hair follicles and turn them into abnormal shapes, which can result in fibres of different shapes or lengths. “It depends on how the hair follicle deals with the effects of the drug.”
Similarly, the effects of chemotherapy on other body systems, such as the endocrine system responsible for the production of hormones, can change pigment production temporarily, leading to changes in hair color.
The complexity of factors that determine the appearance of hair makes it difficult to predict the response of individual patients, but in most cases, the hair returns to normal as the body processes the drug debris, Wong said.
“These drugs work by incorporating themselves into DNA replication, so it takes time to eluate from the system,” Wong explained. “Perhaps cells just accumulate over time, and signals [that regulate the hair cycle] You will need to go back and reconfigure. ”
The human body is extremely resilient and the hair follicles damaged by cancer treatment can completely heal. Waiting for hair to return can be frustrating, but experts urge patients to avoid damaging treatments, such as dyeing and straightening new growth.
“Hair usually increases on the scalp every month, but we hope that nutrition and blood supply will feed the soil that will grow and improve recovery,” Tobin said.
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