Silly question maybe, but why does the hair on your head grown back initially as chemo hair ie fuzzy-wuzzy just like baby hair rather than normal head hair, but everywhere else the hair that grows back seems to be just like the hair that was originally there before chemo eg leg hair?
Hi Mazzalou
Search for the thread ‘my hair has a sense of humour’ (I started it!).
I don’t have an answer to your question and, as you’ll see from the thread, your premise that other hair grows back ‘as before’ is not necessarily true!
One theory could be that the hair follicles that have a good blood supply and which get hit by the chemo drugs first as they circulate through your system are the worst affected. However, it all seems a bit random to me - why did FEC make my head hair fall out, but left my eyebrows and lashes, while Tax didn’t seem to make too much difference to my level of baldness, but I lost my brows and lashes?
D x
Hi DJ007
I also had 3 FECs and 3 docetaxels, and my eyelashes and eyebrows stuck with me through the FEC, but abandoned ship once I started on the tax! I’m now 9 weeks post chemo and still no sign of them - in fact, my I’m sure my eyebrows are getting sparser!
How long after chemo are you now, and how are the brows and lashes?
Your hair looks good to me - I’m sure I had more hair on my head when I was born! It just looks very wispy and alarmingly grey. Am I expecting too much too soon? I usually have my hair cut every 4 to 6 weeks as it seems to grow quickly but I am beginning to wonder if it has gone post-chemo into hibernation for the winter!!!
My hair came and went more than once during chemo. By tax 3 I had some hair, and the lashes and brows came back over night, litteraly. Right now its a grey curly mop, resembling that of a sheep. Last chemo cycle ended August.
I’m three weeks post Tax and my hair looks like a very well-used Brillo pad. I had blonde, straight hair prior and it looks as if it’s growing back black and white. As I said in another thread, I may be able to audition for Cruella da Ville in One Hundred and One Dalmations if this keeps up.
My last chemo was mid-July. It was a good 8 weeks before I started seeing signs of regrowth. My avatar pic was taken about a month ago. I think that my hair growth has slowed now it’s winter!
My hair is coming back slowly but it’s definitely not normal - too soft and thin and grey stripes (OH calls me Badger). see picture which is recent.
Still on chemo which is probably affecting it.
But my eyebrows have come back like Denis Healey’s, and the hair on my legs never stopped growing, unfortunately.
Hair today, gone tomorrow.
Love Lin
I’ve been really worried about my hair recently. My last chemo was 31st August, and initially my hair started growing (baby fluff) just after my 2nd (of 3) Tax. Up until about 4 weeks ago it was doing really well - getting thicker on top, with some dark bits coming through the white - but now it has stopped. Nothing is happening!!! I’m really worried that I just won’t get any more, and that it won’t grow at all now. I’m worried that it’s the Anastrazole (spelling?) and that I’m going to lose what little I do have now.
Someone reassure me, please, that it’s just hibernating for the winter?
Fran.
4 sessions of fac and 4 tax finished chemo in september .
my hair lol something my friends and family now refer to affectionately as bum fluff was growing back ok but i think its just started to go into hiding for the winter. i’m sure it will grow back though ,
my eyelashes have not started to grow back and yep i have these sprouting things think they are eyebrows but well they are all over the place ohh what was the name of that astronomer>> patrick mower was it ? the one with the wild/bushy eyebrows mine i’m sure will end up looking like his (joke)
“take one day at a time” susan huggs
Hi all, I finished Tax (after fec) over 5 weeks ago and like many, began to get hair on my head, but lost lashes and brows. My brows didn’t completely go, but I have a feeling that they are still falling out. Any one else have hair loss after chemo had finished? xxx
morning had a grade 2 all over at the start of chemo(6 lots of fec) lost it all after fec no 5 has just started to grow back.it¬s been 1 mouth since last chemo top doing ok back fine just wish the sides would catch up!! eye brows and lshes stll have some,so hope to god it all starts growing and does`nt fall out again,
good luck to you all
queenie
Hi
I finished chemo in June, and was bald as a coot. By October I had hair, but it was fine and fuzzy-wuzzy as a baby’s. Now, nearly 6 months after finishing chemo, it looks and feels like normal hair (like a real haircut, rather than post-chemo hair). My avatar photo was taken today
The only thing is, my hair was poker straight before chemo!
I think losing eyebrows on Tax is misleading, as I had 6 FEC (no Tax) and only started to lose my eyebrows on about FEC 5 or 6, so I think that it’s the FEC that makes your brows drop out, but they fall later than your hair.
They have fully grown back too, as have my eyelashes, leg hairs and downstairs carpet (which is now, annoyingly, straighter than it used to be, and way less curly than the hair on my head). What kind of crazy chemo goblin made that happen?
Hi everyone,
I had the AC-T regimen and lost pretty much everything apart from eye lashes and eyebrows until I got to TAX and that saw the rest off. 6 months post-chemo and I have hair on parts of my head that is curly, parts that are straight and some bits still don’t have much hair at all. It all looks like a very bad perm at the moment! If my hair has a sense of humour then it’s definitely a very weird one! 
I have noticed that my body hair has not fully returned either - still rather sporadic on my legs, none at all under even my non-rad side and my lady bits are rather sparse too!
I hope the bald bit on my head goes soon because it’s not long until I will have been wearing wigs for a year and I’ve really gone off them! At least at this time of the year I can abandon them in favour of hats.
Nymeria xx
Hi everyone,
Nymeria - I’m seven months post chemo and like you, still wearing my wig out of the house because my hair’s too strange to expose to the world. It’s two and a half inches long, pure white at the front shading to black at the back with two partings running front to back from each temple. The hair between these is coarse, wiry and stands vertically - nothing I do will make it lie down. The sides are soft and hang down straight and the back is soft and tightly curled. Even my OH smiles every time he looks at it! Fortunately I love my wig - have just bought a replacement as the original had started to go frizzy at the ends- and now the weather’s turned colder I’m glad of
the warmth.
As with other people who’ve posted, hair everywhere else is just as before. Except that is for underarm hair which just disappeared about ten years ago, for no reason -not that I’d complain about that.
In fact, if I knew what caused it, I’d bottle it, sell it and make my fortune!
Loula